What is the difference between iron and steel?

　You may not be aware of it in your daily life.
　Are they vaguely similar to each other?　I guess that's about the extent of what I think.
　But these two are rather clearly different.

　Iron is iron, both in the broadest and narrowest sense.
　Element number 26.
　Steel and iron are different, but in a broad sense they are the same "iron".
　This is because the main ingredient of steel is iron. Steel generally refers to "carbon steel".

　And carbon steel is an alloy whose main ingredient is iron, and which contains 0.3-2% of carbon in iron.

　The origin of the word "steel" (hagane) is "edged metal". The word "hagane" is derived from "blade metal," which means blade material for Japanese swords.
　You may know "Tamahagane" as the material for Japanese swords, but it was called "Tamahagane" after the Meiji era. I don't know what it was called until then, but it may have been called "hagane" or just good iron.

　Japanese swords themselves have a very long history, but in the age of the old sword - until the beginning of the Edo period - iron of various origins was used.

　Since it was before the country was closed to the outside world, some iron was imported, and some iron was made in small quantities in the countryside. Sometimes meteorite iron was used.
　Basically, imported nanban iron was often decarburized at a local tatara (・・・・) and used as a material to make steel.

　Anyway, there was this diversity, but from the Edo period onwards, the supply of iron was insufficient to meet the demand for it, due to national isolation and other reasons.

　As a result, the shogunate took the initiative in producing iron, and steel after the Shinto era (Japanese swords are categorized by era as "Koto", "Shinto", "Shinshinto", "Shinshinshinto", and "modern"). (Japanese swords are categorized as "old", "new", "new" and "modern" according to the time period.) At this point, the diversity of materials was considerably diminished.

　Even so, there were many cases where the techniques were not passed on (there were probably cases where businesses were closed due to lack of availability of materials), and many of the techniques of the Koto period have been lost.
　Even today, it is common knowledge that the best Japanese sword is an old sword.

　Of course, there are some good old swords and some bad ones.
　Even in the Edo period, there were swords made with the materials and sword making methods of the Koto period, and there were plenty of poorly made old swords. Even in the Edo period, there must have been some swords made from materials and methods of production during the Koto period, and there must have been many old swords that were of poor quality.

　However, most of the Japanese swords that are still in existence are old swords, and it is impossible to reproduce them today.
　This is what is called "lost technology".

　It is easy to keep the "good ones" as old ones.
　And since Japanese swords are used as weapons in some cases, the worse they are, the more they are weeded out and lost.

　In addition, the more famous the sword was, the higher the demand for it was, and the more expensive it was, the more important it was. The higher the price, the more they were valued and the more likely they were to remain in the future.
　However, since the Edo period, when wars ended, the demand for Japanese swords as art rather than as weapons increased, so it is difficult to determine whether the remaining Japanese swords are "good enough" to be used as weapons.
　In this sense, old Japanese swords may be valuable.

　It is said that old swords were popular even in the Edo period, and counterfeits were rampant even then.


　By the way, making knives is my hobby.
　I haven't made one since I started coming to this world, but until then I was making about two knives a year.

　I made the boy's knife I gave to Shero, and the knife Master Dwarf here was originally made by me and sold to the Meeker Trading Company.

　It was made by an amateur. It's not particularly good.
　But the material is good. The blade, ATS-34, is made in Japan, and the grip is made of a synthetic material called Micarta, made in the United States.
　My master says I wouldn't have retired if I had this material, and I'm glad to hear that it's recognized as a good material in this world.

　Knife blades are made of steel (hagane).
　There are three main types of steel for knives: carbon steel, stainless steel, powder steel, and even composite steel, which is a combination of different materials.

　When I make knives as a hobby, the blade material I use is 100% stainless steel. There are no exceptions.

　There are many different types of blade materials such as 440C, ATS-34, VG-10, silver paper, etc., but they are all stainless steel.

　The characteristic of stainless steel is the presence of chromium.
　The ratio is more than 13%.
　The presence of chromium makes it rustproof and shiny.

　Most people who make knives as a hobby use the stock-and-removal method developed by R. W. Lovelace, the god of knives (strictly speaking, this is the method used by most knife makers).

　This was a revolutionary method of making knives from a single sheet of steel, which was quite revolutionary at the time.
　Of course, there was no blacksmithing element to this method of making a knife. It was more of an ironworker's process, involving grinding and polishing.

　However, as a knife, this method provides a perfectly adequate performance, and it looks beautiful. It doesn't cost much either.
　At least it costs as little as I could make it for fun, even for me as a NEET (in my case, it's also great that I can borrow some machinery from someone I know).

　So what about carbon steel?
　This material is less commonly used in the stock-and-removal method.
　At least I've never used it (although I've used semi-stainless with a few percent of chromium, or even die steel).
　So.
　Ordinary steel is used in the knife making technique that you would generally think of - that is, heating and beating iron to shape it in a forge-like manner.
　This is called "tanzo" (forging).

　If you are a knife lover, forging is something that you once longed to do.
　However, it is rare to find someone who can actually do it, even among the very few custom knife builders.

　Incidentally, the biggest thing that separates blacksmiths from ironmongers is whether or not they do forging, and forging is that process of heating and beating.
　There is also a similar word "casting (chu-zo)", but this is the casting, and it is the method of pouring the metal that became a liquid state by heating and pouring it into a mold, and taking out the thing that cooled and hardened.
　It is seldom used in the armament industry. Because cast metal is heavy.

　Anyway, that's beside the point.

　This time, I brought a considerable amount of Yasugi steel "Aoshi No.2" with me.
　Aoshi No. 2 is a carbon steel.
　Strictly speaking, it contains a small amount of chromium and tungsten, but it's a carbon steel.
　Steel is an 'alloy', as I explained before.
　In short, it's not a natural product.
　It's completely different from iron, gold, or copper, which exist as natural products.

　Iron is said to be the most common metallic element that exists in the earth. It has high utility value.
　That's why research is also progressing, and Japanese steel materials are said to be of a very high level.

　There is one such steel that has a solid position in Japanese cutlery steel.
　It is Yasugi steel (Yasuki Hagane), which is produced by Hitachi Metals.

　It is a Japanese steel made from iron sand or sponge iron rather than iron ore.
　Hitachi Metals also researches and produces Tamagako, an ancient Japanese steel, and Shiragami No. 2 is a steel with properties quite similar to Tamagako.

　--The reason why I brought so many bottles of Aoshi No. 2, which is quite expensive, is because of the Tamagagoto.

　It's a good thing I'm a knife maker.
　So of course I'm interested in blades, and Japanese swords are no exception.
　I've thought about buying a Japanese sword several times, and I've done some research on the subject.
　And I found out that the Japanese sword world is quite complicated at .......

　Well, I enjoy making knives and I think I know the beauty of modern steel and I have a carbon steel knife (which I bought).

　The material of the Japanese sword, or rather the steel, is Tamagoto.
　So what exactly is Tamagohen?

　Many fantasies are rampant about "ball steel
　-- but I want you to think about it.
　TAMA-HAGANE steel is just a primitive, tatara-blown steel, and there's no way it's that good of a material. There is no way that steel is that good of a material.

　Of course, there is no denying the possibility that primitive and inefficient methods could produce better products, just as sweet tomatoes are produced in a barren land.
　But still, there shouldn't be that big a difference.

　The difference between a good antique and a modern one.
　In our industry, we call it a "hair's breadth difference".
　For people who like antiques, there is a big difference, but for people who are not interested in them, there is almost no difference.
　If you still think there's a big difference, that's just a lousy way to describe modern science.

　So what is good steel, or rather, what is blade material?
　As far as swords are concerned, they are "unbreakable", "unbending", "good edge holding" and "rustproof".

　The first two factors, "unbreakable" and "unbending", are troublesome. These two elements are the relationship between hardness and toughness, which are basically opposed to each other.
Blade holding is wear resistance.
　Rusting is an inevitable part of stainless steel.

　And Japanese swords are said to meet this requirement, except for rust.
　But, well, that doesn't matter in this case.
　Anyway, the reason why I paid so much money for the blue paper No.2 is because it is a high quality steel.

　Blue paper is a high-grade steel, so just buying a few swords (I don't know how many swords it will take) cost me 50,000 yen.
　Even if I bought it cheaply from a friend of mine, this is it.
　The stainless steel that I always use is much cheaper.
　Because it is a special steel produced in small quantities and not so much in demand, it can't be helped.

　So why did I buy that stuff? I wanted to try it out to see what it would be like to have a sword struck with a good piece of modern blade steel.

　...... Yes!
　Debauchery!

　I know it's a hobby, but there's a reason why I thought of this.

　I've been talking about Japanese swords for a while now, but what is a Japanese sword?

　It is a weapon.
　I don't need to explain in detail, but it is a weapon.

　However, in modern Japan, and even since the end of World War II, the Japanese sword has not been allowed to be owned as a weapon.
　The Japanese sword is a "work of art". There is no exception.

　What does this mean?
　The Japanese sword is a weapon, but possession of the weapon is not allowed in Japan.

　Possession of weapons is only allowed for self-defense equipment at best.
　Possession of a clear-cut weapon is a "violation of the Firearms Control Law". Possession is called "simple possession". Just like drugs, it means that you are not allowed to have them in your possession.

　If it is a knife, anything with a blade length of 15cm or longer is considered a sword (including spears and naginata).
　After the Akihabara massacre, dagger knives (strictly speaking, daggers are daggers, so dagger knives are a misnomer) have been banned from simple possession.
　Even for knives that are allowed to be owned, if you carry it around with you for no reason (even if it's a pocket knife), you could be arrested. The law is that strict.

　However, you can carry a Japanese sword.
　Why is that?
　The Japanese sword in modern times is a weapon, not a weapon.
　It was originally intended to protect Japanese swords from being hunted by the Allied forces during the post-war occupation, claiming that they were works of art and that it was not right to take them away as weapons (although it is said that quite a few swords were lost even then).
　Of course, there is a registration system, and swords that are not registered are in violation of the Firearms Law, but Japanese swords that are properly registered are no longer considered weapons.
　I don't know the details, but Japanese swords are categorized as works of art.

　However, this makes things more complicated and strict.

　The biggest obstacle is that only swords made in the traditional Japanese way are legally recognized as Japanese swords.
　The fact that the sword is not recognized as a Japanese sword means that it is not a work of art.

　In other words, the sword is a weapon. It is a violation of the Firearms and Swords Act.

　Therefore, the only steel material that can be used for Japanese swords is "tama-hagane".
　The use of blue paper, white paper, spring steel or stainless steel is not allowed to make a sword.

　By the way, making a sword requires a license.
　The license is issued only after several years of training under a sword master.
　Hitachi Metals is the only company that makes and distributes steel balls.
　(Officially, swordsmiths are not considered to be weaponsmiths, but rather "artists" in their own right.

　But in another world, it doesn't matter.
　It's perfectly fine to bring in materials and have them strike a sword for me.
　It won't be a Japanese sword, but I'm not that much of a believer in the myth of the Japanese sword to begin with, and I even have a feeling that dwarves make better things than bad swordsmiths.

　Most modern swordsmiths make swords as art, to begin with.
　It would be strange to compare them to the blacksmiths of this world, who need blades as weapons for real.
　There's no way a modern swordsmith can realistically have the perspective of "this construction makes it questionable to use as a weapon".

　In this world, the performance of a weapon would be a very serious thing.
　There are wars between humans. There will also be bandits. There are also monsters and monsters.
We can't just say, "It wasn't going to break" or "It's broken.

　In that sense, the performance of the sword is required to be better than the swords of the Warring States period.
　Necessity has always been the mother of invention.

　Other than Tamagagoh, there are other stories about Japanese swords that have a certain amount of fantasy in them.
　For example, there is a method of making Japanese swords that involves turning back and forth. The idea is that iron is turned and forged over and over again to make a strong and tenacious steel.

　But this is a misunderstanding.
　It's just mixing and homogenizing iron.
　It might be similar to making bread.
　I have a GOPAN! at my house, which I bought, but it's not used at all, and it's been neglected.

　This is a funny story, but anyway, I had to beat or plunge primitive and hard-to-use iron into water to get rid of impurities and equalize the ingredients. In particular, it would have been necessary to adjust the amount of carbon.

　In short, they had to make small adjustments to make the iron, which had no good qualities, into something that was aimed at.
　Of course, this is an amazing technology.

　However, if the steel has good properties to begin with, there is no need for this work.
　Experiments show that up to two folds can increase the strength, but that is a completely different story from turn forging.

　Well, as a work of art, it is important to look cool by folding and forging, so it seems to be an essential process for a Japanese sword as a work of art.

　There is another process called "laminated structure". In order to make the sword hard and unbreakable, a soft core steel is wrapped by a hard skinned steel.

　But if the steel is good enough, it can be made in a solid structure, or in a single piece of steel.
　In fact, it is said that military swords were made in such a way during the war, and were more usable than a sword made by a traditional method.
　If that's the case, that's good enough for me.
　It's not that I want to make a famous sword of the ancient and modern world.

　In reality, there are plenty of Japanese swords (samurai blades) made of modern steel in foreign countries, but it is not realistic because these swords are very difficult to import and possess.
　In Japan, where the firearms law is very strict, KATANA is as illegal as guns.

　By the way, the "Aogami No.2" I brought in is the name of the steel material, so naturally there is a No.1.
　It's the yellow paper, the white paper #2, the chromium and tungsten added to it, the blue paper #2, the blue paper #1 and the tungsten super hardened by increasing the carbon content of the paper, and the blue paper super with tungsten and carbon striping.

　Personally, I wanted to bring in the blue paper super.
　I wanted to see how they reacted to that extremely hard steel without regard to practicality.
　It's a high-tech steel, and I'm curious to see how the dwarves would react.
　...... but I couldn't do it.
　Because it's incredibly expensive.

　...... By the way, blue paper super is a super hard, hard to wear and sharp and long-lasting steel, but because it's so hard, it's easy to break, and it's not suitable for swords.
　If we are talking about practicality, white paper, which is said to be close to Tamagagohen, would have been better than blue paper.
　It is even possible that the sticky spring steel would have been better.
　Because even if you say modern blade steel, etc., that would be a steel optimized for short-bladed knives and the like, and I don't know if it would be superior for swords.

　But if it's blue paper, it's got chrome in it, so it's a little bit more resistant to rust and the blade will hold up better.
　I don't think you will actually use it that much, so if it looks nice and bluffs you, there's nothing to say.
　Well, if you make it out of blue paper, it should be at least as good as a sword of moderate performance, and you could say that such a degree is sufficient.

　No, Aogami No. 2 is a sufficiently excellent and high-grade steel, though.

　I mean, we live in a world where Japanese swords don't exist, so I'm going to have it made with a straight, single-edged sword. It's romantic, like Prince Shotoku's Seven Star Sword.

　Of course, if you can, I'd be happy to have you make a warped sword.
　Shall I make someone else's as a regular longsword?
　I'm torn.

　...... Well.
　The roman is nice, but only the one for the elepippi should be made to stiff specifications. This is something we need to discuss.

　Besides, the most fundamental problem above all is that the sharpness comes from the skill of the user. I'm trained to use a sword, but I'm not trained to cut objects.




　◇◆◆◆◇




　I laid out several kilos of steel and took out eight more bottles of liquor.
　They are the water of life (aqua vite) and whiskey.

I had bought a large quantity of cheap whiskey at a discount store, based on the easy image that dwarves are known for their alcohol.
　Eight liters of whiskey. It was a blacksmith's shop and I thought there would be a lot of Dwarves here, so I got excited.

　I was going to try the even cheaper one in a plastic bottle, but I decided against it because it looked like it would be too much trouble to talk about the manufacturing process of a plastic bottle.
　Well, even the bottle version might be too advanced in terms of manufacturing technology from our world. We have the glass bottles themselves here, though.

　But, well, I was going to bring the booze anyway.
　I also had the ulterior motive of asking them to make me some items to sell on NetOku.

　At first I was planning to bring less, but since it went into my inventory, I brought a lot of it.
　This item box is so much cheesier than any of my appraisal abilities: .......


'This drink is, well, I'm like a first glance, and it's a feeling. Everyone should drink it. I hope it's palatable.

　I say with an effort and a smile as I serve my drink.

'Are you sure?　So much.

　Extravagantly expensive, right?　The grand master looks at me and says, "I'm not going to be cheap.
　Well, it's certainly not cheap. Though it is only about 1000 yen per liter.
　However, in our world, even 100 yen shop goods sell for quite a bit more. So you can't simply say it's cheap because it's worth 8,000 yen.
　It's just that you can buy it for 8,000 yen in Japan.
　In this case, the value of the sake is what it would be worth when sold here.
　That's why it's such an expensive sake in the world. I didn't actually sell it, so we don't know what the right price is in this world.
　Well, it's not a bad investment upfront.

　Furthermore, the grand master takes the steel I brought in - the blue paper No. 2.
　He takes it in his hand and closes his eyes.
　Aoshi No. 2 is held in both of his reddish-brown hands, with thick skin, as if he were handling a baby. It's as if he's trying to listen to the voice of iron.

...... You're going to give me this guy too?

　After a while, he opens his eyes and mutters to himself, "Grand master.
　'I can do it, or rather, I want you to make a sword out of it.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that, but I'd like you to strike a sword with it. No, that is if you like it.

　He likes the stainless steel for knives, but I don't know about the blue paper, because I'm not sure about the blue paper. That's when it's time.

　The grand master put the blue paper back on the table reverently and went back to the forge and suddenly shouted out, "Hey, you guys!

It's a good idea to have a good time. Come over here with your hands free!　This danna has brought me iron and liquor. And the best of the best, too!

　The dwarves gathered at the call of the Grand Master, and what a bunch of dwarves.
　Each of them picked up the second blue paper in the same gesture as the Grand Master. Some were astonished, some squealed with delight, some shed tears.
　And when they saw the large amount of liquor, they still cheered.

　I'm not sure, but they seemed to be pleased anyway. Good.
　I was relieved, and the dwarves in the midst of the jubilation--

Hi-ho.
Hi-ho.

　What's that ......?
　Something about clattering around and knocking out an anvil like a tycoon...

　　Hi-ho. Hi-ho. Hi-ho.
　　Even if the king who was once a king is gone, even if my own body rots away
　　Hi-ho. Hi-ho. Hi-ho.
　　The gold we dug and the gold we made remains, the steel we forged and the steel we keep
　　Let's get to work... Let's light the furnace...
　　Eternal splendor is ours to give
　　Let's give it some color with magic paints!
　　For my friends I will swing the hammer.　
　　Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho!


　Ugh, I sang!