[LT] No-steel-pocalypse! Lifespan of iron & steel equipment?

[Seneschal]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

It might be worth reminding the folk reading that the melting point of pure iron is 1538 C (2800 Fahrenheit), and wasn't achieved in industry until about 1850. The "cast iron" made before then (as early as the fourth century BC, in China, a thousand year later in Europe) was not jusy iron that had been melted and cast, but a mixture (solid solution) of iron with iron carbide. That has a much lower melting point and very different mechanical properties. The material in this fantasy campaign won't be cast iron even though it has been cast, it will be wrought iron even though it wasn't wrought.

So, if I understood correctly, under these made-up rules, the iron would be easily cast, but would have the properties of relatively pure iron? So, weapons and armor made from such a material would be softer than steel, but not as brittle?

Originally Posted by Agemegos

One thing worth noting is that it's much easier to get fine detail in castings of material with a low melting point; you can pre-heat the mould and then the narrow channels and grooves don't get blocked with menicuses of frozen melt, which is what happens when molten iron cools rapidly in a mould because it's not practical to heat moulds to 1538 C. With a gift that allows melting iron at only a few hundred Celsius these people are going to produce iron artifacts that look quite unlike the forged iron and steel objects we are used to. Also, iron objects are going to be cheaper for them than they were for our ancestors because they will save not only a lot of fuel but also a great deal of labour workibf bloomery iron into bars, forging out the slag, and tediously shaping and welding iron pieces with the hammer and anvil.

By "quite unlike" do you mean they would more easily be made elaborate? That fits neatly with the image I presented to the players so far, where the fashion was ostentatious to the point of tastelessness, e.g. impractical full-body metalwork as street-clothes. I'm just not quite sure what decorative techniques they'd have access to (boon aside, they're technologically TL2, possibly 3).

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Another point is that they might not have steel. Their bloomeries might not produce iron with significant carbide in it with the melting point of iron so much below that of iron carbide. Their workpieces won't carburise in the furnace, because they won't be forged. And finally, their iron melts below the Austenite-Marstenite transition temperature, so they wouldn't be able to quench their steel if they did make any.

So, just having lower-temperature iron has no bearing on making steel. That's fine. I'm assuming that means I'll have to use the stats for iron weapons and armor, which have a higher chance to break.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Crucible steel likely goes back to the Third Century BC in Sri Lanka and southern India. Note well that you need iron, already smelted from its ore, to make crucible steel.

Ok, none of that then.