IMO, steel should get a pass. The atomic element of iron still makes up like 98% of most steels, and when you look at the history of smithing the difference between iron and steel can get pretty hard.
That’s fair. Stainless steel isn’t made almost entirely of iron though, usually there’s around 20ish percent of chromium and something like 10% of nickel and other metals. It depends on what kind you’re dealing with though, since different amounts of each element in the alloy are used for different applications.
Definitely not 98% iron content though, it’s probably more like 65ish percent, give or take a bit depending on the alloy.
Brittanica says that stainless steel with very high corrosion resistance can have up to 35% nickel and 16 to 26% chromium, meaning iron makes up less than half of the alloy. In contrast, steels that are used in areas where corrosion resistance is not as important, no nickel is used and 10.5 to 27% of chromium is used, making the amount of iron relatively high. Very interesting.
Thanks, I didn’t know that steel is often an alloy with such high amounts of other elements! I only went off the carbon content, which is usually around 1%.
IMO, steel should get a pass. The atomic element of iron still makes up like 98% of most steels, and when you look at the history of smithing the difference between iron and steel can get pretty hard.
That’s fair. Stainless steel isn’t made almost entirely of iron though, usually there’s around 20ish percent of chromium and something like 10% of nickel and other metals. It depends on what kind you’re dealing with though, since different amounts of each element in the alloy are used for different applications.
Definitely not 98% iron content though, it’s probably more like 65ish percent, give or take a bit depending on the alloy.
https://www.britannica.com/technology/stainless-steel
Brittanica says that stainless steel with very high corrosion resistance can have up to 35% nickel and 16 to 26% chromium, meaning iron makes up less than half of the alloy. In contrast, steels that are used in areas where corrosion resistance is not as important, no nickel is used and 10.5 to 27% of chromium is used, making the amount of iron relatively high. Very interesting.
Thanks, I didn’t know that steel is often an alloy with such high amounts of other elements! I only went off the carbon content, which is usually around 1%.