Steel
Alloys · Common · Timeless
Iron with its carbon held between roughly 0.2% and 2.1%, the range where heat treatment starts to bite. Quench a hot blade in water and it comes out glass-hard and ready to snap; warm it gently afterwards and it trades some of that hardness for the ability to bend instead of break. Most of what a smith knows is spent finding the point between the two.
Identity
- Source
- Historical alloy: iron and carbon
- Composition
- Iron, Carbon 0.02-2.14%
- Over time
- Above about 2.1% carbon the iron-carbon alloy is no longer steel but cast iron.
- Also known as
- Carbon steel, Iron-carbon alloy
- Ores, before industry and since
- Goethite (Iron), Hematite (Iron), Limonite (Iron), Magnetite (Iron), Siderite (Iron)
Physical Properties
- Appearance
- Bright silver-grey, maintains a metallic sheen, rusts to orange-brown without protection
- Luster
- Metallic
- Density
- 7.85 g/cm³
- Melting point
- 1370 °C
- Boiling point
- 2750 °C
- Lighter
- Wootz Steel
- Denser
- Iron
- Magnetism
- Ferromagnetic
- Electrical conductivity
- Medium
Mechanical Properties
- Mohs hardness
- 5.5
- Tensile strength
- 1000 MPa
- Softer
- Orium
- Harder
- Celestial Siderite
- Workability
- Moderate
- Brittleness
- Moderate
- Malleability
- Moderate
- Ductility
- Moderate
Chemical Properties
- Corrosion resistance
- Low
- Reactivity
- Moderate
Lore & Narrative
The Bessemer converter of 1856 blew cold air up through molten iron and burned the carbon out in about twenty minutes, work that had taken the better part of a day. The price of steel fell by roughly four fifths within a few years, and the railways and the tall buildings followed it down.
- Notable uses
- Construction, transportation, weapons, machinery, appliances
- Forge uses
- Construction, Weapons, Tools, Machinery
- Worldbuilding traits
- Ubiquitous, Modern, Structural, Industrial
Sources
- Steel, Wikipedia
Browse the Metal Encyclopedia — MGS Toolbox