A Manual of Metallurgy, or Practical Treatise on the Chemistry of the Metals (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852 Excerpt: ...gas, and on this principle a patent was some time since obtained; but although the steel thus produced is of excellent quality, the process nevertheless does not appear to be capable of economical application, and has consequently fallen into disuse. The experiments of Stodart and Faraday have shown that when steel is fused with either platinum, silver, rhodium, or iridium, its hardness becomes much increased by the addition of but very small quantities of these metals; but such alloys have never been applied to the manufacture of ordinary cutlery, and are, consequently, rather matter of scientific interest than of commercial importance. Keys and other objects, such as the locks of guns and variour The damasking of steel, by which its surface is covered by i variety of figures resembling the water lines on some kinds of silks, is produced by repeatedly drawing out and subsequently doubling up and welding together a bar composed of a mixture of steel and iron. When an instrument, such as a bayonet or gnu barrel, made of this metal, is washed with a weak acid solution, its surface becomes in a greater or less degree unequally attacked and this gives rise to peculiar wavy figures, such as those which may be observed on the once celebrated sword-blades of Damascus. Analysts of Steel and Cast Iron.--Both steel and cast iron essentially consist of variable compounds of iron and carbon; but they also contain a certain amount of other substances, such as silicum, sulphur, phosphorus, and manganese, and I shall now briefly describe one of the more efficient methods by which these bodies may be successively separated from each other, and subsequently estimated. The carbon contained in ordinary cast iron may either exist in the form of free disseminated carbon, or in ...