Reusing Steel?

[Azure Trance]

Steel is basically iron and a tadbit of carbon. If it was melted down to a molten state, would its elements become seperated? A player wants to melt the battlefield loot he acquires and use it to create his own, high quality armored goods. In relation to that, if the steel is reusable, would a 50% materials discount suffice?

I'm using different quality steel here from the book "Stone & Steel" in which the more advanced the steel, the higher the hardness.

 

[Treebore]

Steel is basically iron and a tadbit of carbon. If it was melted down to a molten state, would its elements become seperated? A player wants to melt the battlefield loot he acquires and use it to create his own, high quality armored goods. In relation to that, if the steel is reusable, would a 50% materials discount suffice?

I'm using different quality steel here from the book "Stone & Steel" in which the more advanced the steel, the higher the hardness.

When "re-using" steel you do need to add about 20% fresh new material, otherwise it does become "weaker", brittle. Same thing with gold and silver jewelry, BTW. So a 50% discount would be very reasonable.

 

[jeffh]

Steel is basically iron and a tadbit of carbon. If it was melted down to a molten state, would its elements become seperated? A player wants to melt the battlefield loot he acquires and use it to create his own, high quality armored goods. In relation to that, if the steel is reusable, would a 50% materials discount suffice?

I'm using different quality steel here from the book "Stone & Steel" in which the more advanced the steel, the higher the hardness.

Yeah, what Treebore said, but here's another thing I just ran across while studying for an exam, which you might want to keep in mind. Bellows capable of fully melting iron, much less steel, didn't come into play until the 15th century - definitely the late end of the typical D&D time scale (and after gunpowder had already become important, though personal gunpowder weapons like the arquebus were only just starting to appear). Obviously such bellows aren't needed to work the material in the first place, but they sure up the ante as far as productivity and versatility go, and they allow for things like mass-producing cannon from standardized moulds. Without that technology, or some magical substitute, there will be real limits on how quickly such "recycling" can be done, though from what I can tell (and I'm no metallurgist) it should be do-able.

 

[Azure Trance]

Yeah, what Treebore said, but here's another thing I just ran across while studying for an exam, which you might want to keep in mind. Bellows capable of fully melting iron, much less steel, didn't come into play until the 15th century - definitely the late end of the typical D&D time scale (and after gunpowder had already become important, though personal gunpowder weapons like the arquebus were only just starting to appear). Obviously such bellows aren't needed to work the material in the first place, but they sure up the ante as far as productivity and versatility go, and they allow for things like mass-producing cannon from standardized moulds. Without that technology, or some magical substitute, there will be real limits on how quickly such "recycling" can be done, though from what I can tell (and I'm no metallurgist) it should be do-able.

Thanks for the info. So far only a warhammer was made, which took a week, and a full suit of plated chainmail armor is being looked into which is estimated to take about 5 weeks. From my modern upbringing viewpoint, that doesn't seem terribly short.

 

[Umbran]

Steel is basically iron and a tadbit of carbon. If it was melted down to a molten state, would its elements become seperated?

Separate, perhaps, but a little stirring would fix that. More's the issue that, if the stuff is open to air in a molten state, that any carbon at the surface would likely get oxidized, and leave as gaseous CO2.

The issue about melting it down fully is the real biggie - if you fully melt a metal, you don't have problems on weakening with reuse, as you eliminate all previous crystals and faults. But if you only partially melt it, you have issues.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Yeah, what Treebore said, but here's another thing I just ran across while studying for an exam, which you might want to keep in mind. Bellows capable of fully melting iron, much less steel, didn't come into play until the 15th century - definitely the late end of the typical D&D time scale (and after gunpowder had already become important, though personal gunpowder weapons like the arquebus were only just starting to appear).

But surely the dwarfs must know how to do it?

 

[blargney the second]

If you're looking for historical accuracy, the technology to actually melt iron has only been developed in the last two or three hundred years. Before that, we could only get the temperature high enough to soften it enough to beat it into various shapes. The first application of melted iron was cast iron, which is terribly brittle and virtually impossible to reconfigure once it's set. (It shatters if you try to beat it into another form.)

If he wants to melt iron or steel, I guarantee he's going to need some supernatural techniques! ie magical fire, red dragon breath, summoned magmins, or something else along those lines.

Vive ancient technologies courses!
-blarg

 

[Treebore]

Some of you may enjoy looking up the history of steel making. It has been a found-lost-found again "technology" for a very long time. Of course steel has become over a 100 times stronger/durable than it was just 90 years ago. Any bridge engineers familiar with the history of metal and the evolution of bridge design?

Also, the 20% rule applies under the best of conditions. Of course for simple swords and armor the metals will probably never be exposed to the stresses found in modern machines of war, such as tanks and ships, or bridges/hi-rise buildings. So the tendency to fragment under high stress conditions would never be duplicated under those (D&D) kinds of combat conditions.

The rule for gold and silver is more for maintaining the color and lustre of the metal when re-cast than for any strength/durability issues.

Edit: Any world with dwarves/elves in it would have a seriously altered history of metal anyways. Like thousands of more years of steel history.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If you can forge adamantium, there's gotta be a way to melt down steel.

 

[buzzard]

Steel is basically iron and a tadbit of carbon. If it was melted down to a molten state, would its elements become seperated? A player wants to melt the battlefield loot he acquires and use it to create his own, high quality armored goods. In relation to that, if the steel is reusable, would a 50% materials discount suffice?

I'm using different quality steel here from the book "Stone & Steel" in which the more advanced the steel, the higher the hardness.

Always good to have your carrion eating metallurgist invoked.

OK, in the present day Steel is the most recycled material out there. So your friend has a pretty solid idea. However, as has been stated steel melts at a pretty high temperature (around 1500 C). The ability to get to that temperature is pretty tricky, and furnance materials of the era probably really don't cut it. (as well as the lack of forced bellows mentioned earlier)

As for the elements being separated, if it is plain carbon steel (far and away the most likely occurance since alloying intentionally is a pretty modern occurrence), the carbon is in a percentage well below saturation in a steel, so it would actually is a major chore to get the carbon out. One of the major refining steps in making steel is to blow oxygen through it to burn off excess carbon.

So no, if your chum can figure out how to melt it, it will probably stay at about the same composition. Granted the carbon does react on contact with the air, but so does the iron, which will form a layer of protective slag which floats on top and slows reaction.

Now your real problem is the question of what is he recovering? It is raw material steel? Honestly that's probably not going to be the greatest stuff. If he does manage to melt it he has to find a way of keeping the slag from getting mixed in (which still happens today with much better artificial slag)), and that really mucks up your steel. The contained ceramic slag is equivalent to having cracks throughout the steel. If you melt in the presence of a lot of carbon, you can keep the slag forming reaction under control, but you end up picking up a lot of carbon which will make the steel brittle.

Pity the ancient metallurgist, for he had to handle a lot of complicated stuff with both basic tools, and no analytical tools but experience. In the face of what they were up against, they did some amazing jobs.

Now if he just wants to sell the steel to a blacksmith to be re-hammered into something else, he should do OK (swords into plowshares and all that). However, I really don't see steel as ever being that valuable as a raw material. The work that goes into forming it into something useful is what is costly. So you want a number for materials discount? Maybe 10% at the high end.

buzzard