Steels Used in Early 20th Century

Larrin

Larrin

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Jan 17, 2004
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I am currently working on a big knife steel history project, and one of the difficult areas is figuring out when various steels were used and which ones. I have found enough information to provide some general information but there is always a desire to find a few extra details that are difficult to find. Around 1900 all of the major manufacturers seemed to be using some form of Sheffield carbon steel, the most common brand being Wardlow. I can't find a composition of this steel though presumably it was some type of 1095 or W1, perhaps a small chromium addition could have been made it is hard to say. Jessop was also a common manufacturer of cutlery steel though its name isn't mentioned much by North American manufacturers I only have found a reference to Ontario Knives using it. But a published composition of "Jessop carbon" steel from the 1890s/1900s had 1.05% C and 0.2% Cr. Crucible started to produce some cutlery steel sometime around 1910 though perhaps somewhat earlier. Camillus claims that they pushed Crucible to start making steel so that it didn't have to be imported, though Camillus says this happened in 1919 which would be later than when Crucible themselves say they are selling cutlery steel. Perhaps they mean it was available in the form that Camillus wanted it. While "chrome vanadium" steel of various designations appeared on pocket knives at some point, I can find no reference to its use any earlier than the late 1940s by Case Knives; in fact WR Case doesn't seem to have advertised steel type at all until at least the 1940s. I also haven't been able to confirm if the 1940s-era stainless used by them was 420HC or if they switched to 420HC at some point later. Camillus though known for later using a form of chrome vanadium steel was still using straight carbon steel until at least the 1950s. I have seen claims that Sharon Steel first developed Chrome-vanadium cutlery steel in the 1950s, but I have found references to chrom-vanadium cutlery steel as early as 1909 so it existed long before then; I just can't when knife companies started using it and when.
Camillus did claim to be an early user of improved stainless steel for knives in 1925 which could be an early use of 440A but I am trying to figure that out. I purchased some old knives of their "Stainless Cutlery Co" and hope to check with an XRF gun to see if it has the higher chromium content of the 440 series, ~17% as opposed to the ~13% of the earlier 420 stainless. In 1925 440A was brand new and I have articles talking about it (not known as 440A yet of course), but nothing about which companies were trying it. Schrade also had stainless steel knives pretty early with ads that I can find back to 1922, which would almost certainly be 420. They would have also switched to 440A at some point but I can't find when. Part of the difficulty is that steel was almost never advertised by name until at least the 1960s.

So I guess to summarize, the main things I am trying to figure out are:
1) Composition of early imported Sheffield cutlery steel (how much carbon and did it contain any chromium)
2) When popular USA knife companies started using USA-made cutlery steel and what was its composition
3) When various companies started using chrome-vanadium steel
4) When various companies started using 440A
 
So "Jessop Carbon Steel" has more carbon than 1095? I wonder why it fell out of favor with 1095 winning over the cutlery companies. Brittle/chippy? Cost? Difficulty machining it?
 
Jessop was a big name in Sheffield (I was born in Jessop's Hospital there).

If you haven't already done so, you might want to look at reading Harry Brearley's books, which discuss his ideas on steel, at length.

Compared to the cutlery manufacturers, the Sheffield steel manufacturers seem to have kept good records, so it might be worth approaching them directly. You may also be able to do some some research at the Hawley Collection at Kelham Island Industrial Museum. I have a large number of books on Sheffield steel and cutlery industry, but don't have the time to do this research I'm afraid. There are some good online PDF resources, which you may find helpful.

Books like this, listing the composition of steel, and various other relevant factors, were used by cutlery manufacturers. These are from the 50's, but earlier editions go well back into the 19th century.

KD7i3on.jpg


Good luck with your project :thumbsup:
 
Unfortunately pre-1940 or so it was common practice not to reveal compositions but those catalogs are sometimes still useful.
 
I wonder if Geoffrey Tweedale's book, Sheffield Steel and America: A Century of Commercial and Technological Interdependence 1830-1930, would have any useful information.
 
kamagong said:
I wonder if Geoffrey Tweedale's book, Sheffield Steel and America: A Century of Commercial and Technological Interdependence 1830-1930, would have any useful information.
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That is a good suggestion. I have that book and it does have some useful nuggets in it. I might have missed something but in general Tweedale was not preoccupied with exact compositions.
 
Is there a way to test the steels if you had a sample? some sort of metallurgical testing?
 
mrknife said:
Is there a way to test the steels if you had a sample? some sort of metallurgical testing?
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I plan on using an XRF spot test which is non-destructive and can measure alloy additions (manganese, chromium, vanadium, etc.). Unfortunately it cannot measure carbon. A large fixed blade with a lot of flat surface could be tested with OES which is more accurate and can also do carbon though that would put a burn mark on the blade. If the knife can be sacrificed we could also break off a small piece of a blade to measure the carbon content with combustion. In that case we would have alloy content (XRF) and carbon (combustion). I have purchased a couple broken knives from Ebay for these tests but I can still use more. Particularly Case Knives from pre-1950 would be nice to try to figure out when chrome vanadium steel was being used. I learned just a few minutes ago from Case that they were using 440A at one time before switching to 420HC so confirming 440A in the earlier stainless knives would also be useful.

Of course hardness testing could also be done which leaves an indent in the blade, again that is better for broken knives. Hardness testing works best when there is a flat area away from a softened tang. Having more hardness values from early knives could also be interesting. Maybe some of those values have been given on the forums over the years if someone has been paying closer attention than I have.
 
Following this thread with much interest... :thumbsup:

Would be interesting to know when Case was using 440A, if it was within the last 50-60 years or so. I've often wondered if their stainless knives from the '60s-'70s era were 420HC or something different. I've had a perception that the few stainless knives I have from Case in the '70s seemed somewhat different than what I'm familiar with these days, in their 420HC.
 
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Larrin said:
I plan on using an XRF spot test which is non-destructive and can measure alloy additions (manganese, chromium, vanadium, etc.). Unfortunately it cannot measure carbon. A large fixed blade with a lot of flat surface could be tested with OES which is more accurate and can also do carbon though that would put a burn mark on the blade. If the knife can be sacrificed we could also break off a small piece of a blade to measure the carbon content with combustion. In that case we would have alloy content (XRF) and carbon (combustion). I have purchased a couple broken knives from Ebay for these tests but I can still use more. Particularly Case Knives from pre-1950 would be nice to try to figure out when chrome vanadium steel was being used. I learned just a few minutes ago from Case that they were using 440A at one time before switching to 420HC so confirming 440A in the earlier stainless knives would also be useful.

Of course hardness testing could also be done which leaves an indent in the blade, again that is better for broken knives. Hardness testing works best when there is a flat area away from a softened tang. Having more hardness values from early knives could also be interesting. Maybe some of those values have been given on the forums over the years if someone has been paying closer attention than I have.
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Yes, I had imagined youd start this project with older knives from evilbay or yardsales/flea markets etc. those could be a treasure trove of old knives that would have a lot of samples for testing.
 
Hi Larrin, will you be releasing the information from this project in a sharable format? I would love to have some historical data on knife steels. I'm an archaeologist, and since I am the one in the office most into things like knives and guns, folks come to me. It is always nice to have some kind of information better than random guesses. Ultimately, we don't often do a lot of testing when we find things like pocket knives, but we do have a new XRF setup in the lab, and if there were known alloys we could be looking at, it would be a nice bit of data to be able to incorporate into our reports.
 
abbydaddy said:
Hi Larrin, will you be releasing the information from this project in a sharable format? I would love to have some historical data on knife steels. I'm an archaeologist, and since I am the one in the office most into things like knives and guns, folks come to me. It is always nice to have some kind of information better than random guesses. Ultimately, we don't often do a lot of testing when we find things like pocket knives, but we do have a new XRF setup in the lab, and if there were known alloys we could be looking at, it would be a nice bit of data to be able to incorporate into our reports.
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Yes I will be reporting my findings to articles on my website, both for the historical story with citations as well as any experiments that I perform.
 
Thank you Larrin. This is fascinating and I'm sure lots of folks appreciate your efforts. I wish I had something definitive to contribute but I don't, so I will resist speculating and be a mere observer.
 
There are a couple long time Camillus employees that are members here, including Phil Gibbs. He might be able to shed some light on things as he was a designer/engineer, and Camillus made knives for many other makers....
 
Larrin said:
Bill DeShivs Bill DeShivs do you have any old broken knives that could be tested?
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Sorry-no.About all that I would have would be early switchblade springs and I throw the broken ones away. Sheffield stuff doesn't come through that often, but if you would like, I can save any pieces that I run across. I have one in the shop now, but it needs a sear replacement.
 
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