TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Some minor misspellings in the text are silently corrected.
Enclosed small caps in ≈double tilde≈,
enclosed italics font in _underscores_,
bold text in =equal sign=.
The numbering of the drawings does not correspond to their marked
number. However, they have been left as they are, as the author has
entered them by hand in the drawings.
In the table on the color of the oxide layer of tempered steel in the
tempering section, the first column has been set without trailing
commas, as the author has handled this inconsistently.
The new original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
A FEW SECRETS OF THE
METALLURGIST
SIMPLY TOLD
ATLAS CRUCIBLE STEEL CO.
PUBLISHERS
DUNKIRK, N. Y.
A FEW SECRETS OF THE
METALLURGIST
SIMPLY TOLD
BY
GERALD W. HINKLEY, M. E.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
ORDNANCE ENGINEER
AND ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT
ATLAS CRUCIBLE STEEL CO.
DUNKIRK, N. Y.
FIRST EDITION
COPYRIGHTED 1918
BY
PRESS OF DUNKIRK PRINTING COMPANY
PREFACE.
This is not and is not intended to be a thoroughly complete explanation
or discussion of the allotropic theory of iron and steel, but rather a
brief outline of a few of the great principles of metallurgy written
primarily for the layman. If without leading him astray from the real
scientific understanding of the subject we have succeeded in briefly
but satisfactorily answering the old familiar question, “Why do steels
harden?”, we will in a large measure, have accomplished our purpose.
Besides the personal observations which the writer has made from time
to time in the metallurgical laboratory, he has availed himself freely
of the works of many and eminent authors dealing with this subject and
where disputable conditions have arisen in regard to certain theories,
uses, etc., has attempted to adopt the most logical consensus of
opinion.
G. W. H.
CONTENTS.
A FEW SECRETS OF THE
METALLURGIST
SIMPLY TOLD.
Page
INTRODUCTION 17
CHAPTER I.
≈A Slight Test of the Imagination≈ 19
CHAPTER II.
≈Comparison Between Conditions
Which Exist in the Iron and
Steel Family to Those Which
Exist with More Familiar Elements≈ 22
CHAPTER III.
≈An Experiment Performed with
a Piece of Pearlitic Steel≈ 29
CHAPTER IV.
≈High Speed Steel≈ 51
CHAPTER V.
≈The General Effect of the More
Important Elements in Tool
Steels≈ 61
≈Carbon Steels≈ 61
≈Alloy Steels≈ 63
≈High Speed Steels≈ 64
≈Elements Which Occur in all
Steels≈ 66
≈Iron≈ 66
≈Carbon≈ 67
≈Manganese≈ 67
≈Silicon≈ 68
≈Phosphorus≈ 69
≈Sulphur≈ 70
≈Elements Which Have Become
Especially Associated with
Special Alloy Steels≈ 70
≈Chromium≈ 70
≈Tungsten≈ 72
≈Molybdenum≈ 73
≈Vanadium≈ 73
≈Cobalt≈ 74
≈Uranium, Titanium and Aluminum≈ 75
≈Impurities≈ 75
≈Heat Treatment≈ 76
≈Hardening≈ 77
≈Annealing≈ 79
≈Tempering≈ 81
≈Conclusion≈ 84
CHAPTER VI.
≈What Tool Steel Is Doing Towards
Winning the War≈ 85
APPENDIX.
≈Analysis, Uses and Heat Treatment
of Various Grades of
Tool Steels≈ 92
≈High Speed Steels≈ 93
≈Die Steel for Hot Work≈ 94
≈Special Alloy Steel≈ 95
≈Semi-High Speed Steel≈ 96
≈Simple Carbon Tool Steel≈ 97
≈Non-Shrinking Oil Hardening
Steel≈ 98
≈Special Hot Work Alloy Steel≈ 99
A FEW SECRETS OF THE
METALLURGIST
SIMPLY TOLD
INTRODUCTION.
When as a student at a Technical College of one of our great
Universities, I came to the study of Differential and Integral
Calculus, I remember that I was seized with a kind of mental paralysis
at the thought of the great unknown that lay before me. Fortunately,
however, a little book was brought to my attention, under the
encouraging title “Calculus Made Easy”. As a matter of fact the little
volume did not attempt to take its readers through all the intricacies
of the entire subject, but it did succeed in giving a certain start on
the long journey which has to be undergone by a student of the
Calculus. Its opening sentence was encouraging, which I have always
remembered, and which read something as follows:
“What one fool can accomplish, another fool can do, therefore take
courage”. This same thought applies to the subject which is now before
us.
CHAPTER I.
A SLIGHT TEST OF THE IMAGINATION.
We live in a world in which certain conditions of the atmosphere and
the so-called elements surrounding our daily existence, are entirely
familiar to us. From force of habit we are likely to forget that had
Nature, for instance, been planned under a different range of livable
temperatures, all the familiar objects of our daily existence would
have existed under entirely different form.
For instance, if the normal temperature had been about 2700 degrees
Fahrenheit instead of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and we had been
constructed so that we could comfortably endure that degree of
temperature, we could have gone sailing on a sea of molten iron, in
boats built of plumbago crucibles, and oars made of silica brick. Under
these delightful conditions we could place frozen lumps of our sea of
iron in our ice boxes for refrigeration. Flat irons and stove lids
would therefore have been the product of the ice man. The water with
which we are now familiar, of course, could not exist in its liquid
form, or even as steam, but instead as a highly gaseous state, which we
would probably have been called upon to breathe. Certain other
substances with which we are perfectly familiar in our daily life, such
as the common stick sulphur, for instance, would exist in an entirely
different =physical= state, although their =chemical= properties would
be entirely unchanged, and we would be given to understand that an
“allotropic” transformation had taken place.
If we can now imagine ourselves as existing under the relative
conditions described above, which are undoubtedly the “natural”
conditions of some other world, it will then be easy for us to
understand quite clearly some of the other “allotropic” forms of iron
and steel than those with which we are at present familiar.