Blister steel

Description

An intermediate product obtained used 19th century techniques for manufacturing steel. Developed in 1830, blister steel was produced by heating wrought iron placed in contact with carbon. The resultant metal, called blister steel, was crystalline and covered in blisters. Shear steel was then produced by cutting and rolling the blister steel sheets together at high temperature.

Synonyms and Related Terms

shear steel; cement steel; converted steel

Authority

• G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971 Comment: p. 773

• Dictionary of Building Preservation, Ward Bucher, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York City, 1996

• Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997