Why stainless steel orignated from Sheffield?

[kirstyhobson 10]

a question for all you sheffield born people out there.do you know why stainless steel origanated from sheffield.i do...but im going to let you all add you own ideas.(make them good!!!!)

[tinajones 10]

because to20's great great ancestors were capitalists and they wanted to spend all the money doing up ecclesall.

[alchresearch 214]

I think it's just because Harry Brearley was from the area. It could have happened anywhere where steel was made.

 

Benjamin Huntsman was also a local who perfected steel making.

[Escafeld1889 10]

Harry Brearley was born in Sheffield on 18th February 1871. His father, John was a steel melter at Firth's crucible steel furnaces.

Harry started work at the age of twelve in the same crucible steel workshop as his father. By the age of twenty, he was apprenticed as a laboratory assistant.

He left Sheffield for Russia to manage Firth's steel plant in Riga but returned to Sheffield in 1907 to manage the Brown Firth Research Laboratory; a joint venture between two of Sheffield's leading steel companies.

 

Like Henry Bessemer before him, he was working on a military project when he discovered the new steel. In 1912, whilst carrying out research on steels of different chemical compositions to improve the hardness and erosion resistance of rifle barrels, he specified a steel with a high chromium content.

A number of different samples were made with chromium content ranging from 6 to 15% and with differing carbon contents.

Hard steels with added chromium had been produced for many years but the chromium content was low (around 5%) and they had only limited corrosion resistance. These steels were used where toughness and reduced weight were important, especially in aero engines.

 

The first true stainless steel was melted on the 13th August 1913. It contained 12.8% chromium

[riddo7up 10]

I thought the local soft water was part of the explanation, otherwise a very full reply

[pitsmoorboy 17]

Originally posted by kirstyhobson

a question for all you sheffield born people out there.do you know why stainless steel origanated from sheffield.i do...but im going to let you all add you own ideas.(make them good!!!!)

Is it so we could poke fun at people from Rotherham & Barnsley? and say we got something you not got.

[pietro 10]

Take a look here. The chap himself.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v130/wharncliffe/attercliffe003.jpg

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v130/wharncliffe/attercliffe004.jpg

[Lostrider 10]

The folk legend handed down the generations to new young lads was that some poor old steel smelter having drunk too much ale on his way to his shift, got the mix wrong & when they tried to work the steel it was too hard.

So they chucked it into the stockyard at Ickles and some years later some bright spark realised it hadnt gone rusty.

They checked the mix and discovered stainless steel.

 

Far fetched maybe, but a much better story.

[muddycoffee 10]

I worked at Stocksbridge Engineering Steels for a year, and they were very proud of the local heritage there. I was told, as far as I remember, that stainless steel was first manufactured in sheffield for specific uses. When they discovered the excellent properties it had with resistance to corrosion and hardness of it. Although I understood that it wasn't actually invented in sheffield, but noone had thought of it as being useful before.

 

Escafed, your post seems very convincing, but are you shure that Brearley didn't re-discover and name it stainless steel? Because the manufacturing techniques had become modern enough to make the stuff reliably with accurate proportions.

[scottf 21]

Originally posted by Lostrider

The folk legend handed down the generations to new young lads was that some poor old steel smelter having drunk too much ale on his way to his shift, got the mix wrong & when they tried to work the steel it was too hard.

So they chucked it into the stockyard at Ickles and some years later some bright spark realised it hadnt gone rusty.

They checked the mix and discovered stainless steel.

 

Far fetched maybe, but a much better story.

 

mate- thats virtually the right story!! it was discovered by him totally by accident- they used to throw the failed mixes onto the roof of an adjoining factory but one day they realised that one of the mixes had not gone rusty so they dug out what they made it with and hey presto- thats how it was made.

 

I work in steel and thats what a gentleman who works for ATI allvac told me, there is a plaque commemorating Harry Brearly near altlas house as your headin to meadowhall.

[Strix 11]

Originally posted by scottf

there is a plaque commemorating Harry Brearly near altlas house as your headin to meadowhall.

 

Am I mistaken, or was that Allvac I saw lying in a heap of rubble last night?

[scottf 21]

Originally posted by Strix

Am I mistaken, or was that Allvac I saw lying in a heap of rubble last night?

 

Could be- they have sold off most of the sites to developers and centralised everything into 2 plants now rather than the 6 or 7 they had in that area- the logistics were a nightmare.