This thrills my inner metallurgist. Over at Dinosaurs & Robots, they've blogged about a limited number of cars built with stainless steel bodies. They've been shiny for 70 years.
People don't think much about steel. Steel kicked off the industrial revolution in the late 1800s by allowing control over the balance between strength (resistance to permanent bending) and toughness (resistance to fracture). And that's plain carbon steel - stainless came later.
By the way, Mr. Jalopy over at D&R is a bit of a kindred spirit for me. He is, basically, ten.
"My inner metalurgist" is easily the best line I've come across this week!
ReplyDeleteThank you, that's really saying something!
ReplyDeleteOne of my instructors said there was a time in the late 60s when the field of technical ceramics made a transition to modern materials, in his words, stuff that is "not dug up". My training is that kind of modern. But it really gets a rise out of me when I read the old books about the long ore smelters. Each one houses a gradually purifying lava stream of metal, glass, and slag running downhill at a pace controlled by the flames beating down on it. Amazing.