it feels weird to us that steel is the alloy and iron is the pure metal, but stuff sold as "steel" is generally purer iron than stuff sold as "iron"
-F
this is not true of alloy steels (meaning steels that contain significant amounts of stuff other than carbon and iron) by the way. stainless steels in particular can have less than 50% iron in them with the sheer amount of chromium and nickel and stuff that's added
but carbon steels are purer iron than cast iron or wrought iron
-F
@Felthry Please go to sleep
@socks okay doing that now
-F
@socks thank you
-F
@Felthry I realize this may sound sarcastic but I mean it in absolute sincerity: when I see you write things like this, I am very happy that I know you. It is a sort of thinking that I cherish having in my life, and it brings me a joy I'm not sure I can explain.
wrought iron and cast iron are both extremely high-carbon alloys, because lots of carbon ends up in the iron as it's worked (just from the heat source, typically a flame from burning some carbon based fuel) unless you take care to remove it
if you manage the carbon content properly though, a small amount of carbon strengthens iron a lot (where a large amount weakens it)
-F