people think that stuff like wrought iron or cast iron are like, relatively pure iron, and steel is made by carefully adding in stuff
but both of those actually have way more carbon content than even carbon steel
getting pure iron is actually really hard, almost all iron stuff has a significant and uncontrolled amount of carbon in it
carbon steel has a very low and controlled carbon content
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@Felthry cast iron is so shitty
@starkatt the reason iron tools displaced bronze was not because they were better; bronze of the time was much superior to cast iron, which is pretty much all they had at the time. it was instead because iron is really easy to get
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@starkatt the point is, it wasn't some clearly superior technology, and actually arguably worse--it was just far cheaper
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