steel

Steel in its most simple form is carbon and iron. Iron is a simple material that is easily workable and quite malleable. In order for iron to become easy to work by hammer and anvil it must reach about 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, an orange yellow color. There are many different types of steel and other ferrous alloys, but i will only be working with the basic 10xx carbon steels. 1075 is the specific steel type i have chosen to use, it is a very hard, flexible and easy to work with steel. It has .75% carbon by weight and 99.25% iron, hence the 10 representing the iron and the 75 representing the carbon. The minimum required amount of carbon in iron to be effectively hardenable is .4% carbon by weight. Carbon facilitates the formation of martensitic crystal shapes in steel, which are very hard and flexible. the amount of martensite that can be formed maxes out at about .95% carbon, after this point there may be left over carbon inclusions in the steel.