Mine says Russell Green River Works, any idea on the type of carbon steel?
This is for modern Green River knives, and since there is no law against Russell Dexter changing the steel at a moments notice, all we can say, Dexter Russell uses or used 1095.
https://www.chuckhawks.com/green_river_knives.html
"The blade is Type C1095 carbon steel, very similar to Type O1 tool steel," said the improbably named Buck Raper, manager of engineering at the Russell works. "We have heat treated and tempered it to a Rockwell hardness of 55-56. It can be treated to a higher Rockwell, but we think this is the best tradeoff between brittleness and flexibility for a knife blade."
The next high carbon blade steel could be 1075, 1084, or whatever is the cheapest at that moment on the spot market.
This will give an idea of blank costs:
https://www.makermaterialsupply.com/collections/high-carbon-blade-steel
For the historical, and I mean at the start of the company, what I have read in books and on the web,
http://www.mman.us/jrussellco.htm
Late in 1833, Russell completed a factory, powered by a 16-horsepower steam engine. Machinery included a row of grindstones and emery stones, and two or three trip hammers for forging steel. Russell did not start immediately in the manufacture of knives, but choose to start with chisels and axes. Using only the finest English steels available as raw material, his products quickly earned a local reputation for quality.
John Russell imported Sheffield steel, which for the time, was a high quality plain carbon steel.
Benjamin Huntsman developed a process using local Sheffield clays containers, "crucibles". Local clays happened to have all the herbs and spices necessary to make a very clean steel, and the limestone used in the refractory. In the background of the picture from the referenced article, you can see original clay pots.
A Crucible of Steel History
https://www.westyorkssteel.com/blog/a-crucible-of-steel-history/
I have copied a bit from this page on the making of Sheffield crucible steel.
Crucible Steel-making
https://h2g2.com/approved_entry/A2960660
The Process Enacted - Clay
The first job was to make the crucible itself. The detailed geometry changed little over the last century of its use, except for a progressive increase in overall size. From the outside, the crucible was vase-like in form, tapering out from its base and curving in again at the lip. At something like 600mm in ultimate height and 300mm in fullest outer diameter, its graceful shape would not have looked out of place in a domestic setting.
In one respect, though, a crucible was not at all vase-like. The wall thickness was considerable, at around 70mm. This vessel had to accommodate a significant weight of molten steel at temperatures close to the limit of infusibility, and to retain strength for two or three casts in spite of progressive erosion.
The clay recipe was a closely-guarded secret, and the preparation was fastidious. Stannington clay from the northwest of the city made the bulk, with additions of Stourbridge, Derby or sometimes China clay. Strength prior to firing was assured by incorporating coke breeze2 and 'grog' - the latter being fragments of used crucibles, smashed to dust.
A carefully-measured volume of water was mixed with the dry material, and the mortar was shovelled into floor-level trays. It was then trodden with bare feet for about three hours - no better way of driving out air bubbles was ever developed, and untrodden mortar frequently failed in firing or (worse) in use, weakened by these imperceptible voids.
The dense and homogeneous product was then weighed and hand-formed into roughly cylindrical blocks, before being placed in a lathe-turned wooden mould known as a 'flask'. The inside surface of the flask formed the outer profile of the crucible, and was usually lubricated with oil of creosote. The bottom of the flask consisted of an unattached but close-fitting circular 'plate' in which there was a central hole.
The initial profile had to taper all the way from the base (lacking as yet the narrowing at the top) as a result of the constraints of manufacture. There was a wooden 'plug', also turned and oiled, that was driven evenly into the flask using a mallet. Existent examples of this mallet are improbably small in size, presumably to enforce a gradual, and therefore repeatable, forming of the wall through a large number of progressive deformations. A spike on the end of the plug engaged with the hole in the plate, ensuring alignment and uniformity of wall thickness.
A strickle was used to trim off the excess clay, and the plug was drawn out. The flask was placed on the 'tree', a vertical post set in the ground (a surviving example is an iron billet). A spigot on top of the tree once again engaged with the hole in the plate, this time from the other side. The flask was carefully pulled off downwards, leaving the part-formed crucible standing on the plate atop the post.
Transferring the still-soft pot to a workbench was not a trivial task either. Tools for handling and supporting the 'green' crucible during transport were varied, but nonetheless specialized. Examples included spoon-like sheet steel shells, or shaped leather bags. Overhead rails and slings with pulleys were developed to negotiate progress round the workshop.
Once on the bench, the top was gently shaped using a bucket-like metal mould called a 'bonnet'. The curvature at the top of the crucible was vital for its strength. This was the final shaping operation in wet clay, and was thus a fraught point in the process. 'Turning in', even more than the other operations of the clay-shop, was regarded as a job for practiced hands.
Crucibles were made a long time in advance of their use. After final shaping, they were left to air-dry for up to a week, before being transferred to racks adjacent to the furnace where a flow of warm air would complete the drying process. A common position for these racks was high on the stack wall directly above the melting holes. A typical duration for this final drying phase was one month.
There were two other components made in the clay-shop too. The simpler ones were the 'stands', flat circular discs about 70mm thick which would later be used to seal the crucible base. Apprentice 'potmakers' were given stands to fashion as their first task. Later they would make lids to fit the crucible mouth. These were also circular, and domed in profile.
I have no idea if Russell used Sheffield crucible steel until the end of its production period, about 1914, or not. Starting in the 1870's the Bessemer process revolutionized the production of plain carbon steels, other better processes followed, and labor intensive, small quantity production processes, such as Sheffield crucible steel, simply were priced out of the market.
