See above ^
Had another item but it won’t copy
Just got that from Mike by way of Vince. A rather ominous Russia iron story.
Don’t know how old it is, but it seems 19th Century. Don’t know how true it is either but you know what good ol’ Winston said…
“Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”
Just click anywhere on that MASSIVE link.
I got it.
Here you go ( thanks for trying Wayne)
Sounds like something out of a book by Ambrose Bierce.
More seriously, here is Scientific American (in a somewhat dubious digitization) on the early adaptation of the process in America:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/russia-sheet-iron-1869-04-03/
Note the presence of some essential details that confirm the factual understanding of Russian practice (the assembly of sheet ‘blanks’ in packs; greasing and wrapping to exclude air; heavy distributed hammering to form) while observing ‘trade secret’ details not for publication (specifically the distribution of carbon and other materials across the faces of the sheets before starting to work them, essential to the ‘rustproofing’ – as anyone who has experienced black polishing knows, very smooth surface finish does NOT contribute anticorrosion properties.
There is or was at least one very long thread out there somewhere with technical discussion and color pictures of both general methods of fabricating the material, along with some opinions on what replaced it (‘porcelainized’ steel sheet being one).
And then there’s good old South Jersey bog iron, which supposedly once smelted and forged never rusted!
Actually, that “never rusted” may be a bit of a stretch, but it was supposed to be very corrosion-resistant.
What’s this got to do with Russia iron? Not a damn thing, I just had to get in a “plug” for the home folks!
Ambrose Bierce? You’re right Mod-man, that ominous story out of Russia is something he well could have written. He did give us that laugh riot “An Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge” after all.
Well just in case that JPG ever fails here’s an alternate route
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_eahOAAAAMAAJ/page/n421
