New York Paper - Stainless Steel with Particular Reference to the Milder Varieties (Stainless Iron) (with Discussion)

The range of chromium content of stainless steel is, in most cases, included in the limits 11 to 14 per cent., or the middle part of the range, 9 to 16 per cent., specified by the discoverer. For some time after the steel was produced commercially, the carbon content was about 0.3 to 0.4 per cent. and occasionally higher; only rarely was material with 0.25 per cent. carbon or less produced. The reason for this is obvious from the nature of the alloys of chromium available for making such steels; as the lowest carbon content generally available was about 1 per cent., and this in conjunction with a chromium content of about 60 per cent., the production of a 12-per cent. chromium steel with less than 0.25 to 0.30 per cent. carbon was impossible. The advent, on a reasonable commercial scale, of carbonless ferrochromium has modified this condition, however, so that for the last three years stainless material containing 0.1 per cent. or less carbon and the normal amount of chromium has been on the market. As far as the author is aware, the material was first made on a commercial scale by the firm with which he is associated in June, 1920, when a 5- or 6-ton cast of material containing 0.07 per cent. carbon and 11.7 per cent. chromium was made and cast into 12-in. ingots. The necessity for using a totally different raw material, carbonless ferrochromium, instead of the ordinary low-carbon ferro (0.6 to 1.0 per cent. carbon) has led to the idea that stainless iron is a quite distinct product and quite different from stainless steel. While this may be true from a commercial aspect, it is wrong metallurgically. The name stainless iron is unfortunate as the material is a very mild stainless steel and forms the lowest carbon member of a series of steels of continuously varying content which are, in many respccts, the counterpart of the series of ordinary carbon steels ranging from "dead soft" to tool steels. In an article on stainless steel in the Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, November, 1920, the author said "Just as in the far-off days 'steel' was regarded as a hard product of iron, and little or no attempt was made to grade it into harder or softer varieties, so at present stainless