Talk:Mangalloy

Viking mangalloy?
Mangalloy, Hadfield Steel, has the composition and properties of Swedish Viking bog steel. Mangalloy has properties ideal for swords, axes, long boat rivets, helmets. Thus Hadfield steel is predated by a thousand years.


 * Highly unlikely, as the ancients were not able to melt iron, thus could not add alloying agents to it. I've made swords out of mangalloy (that's one reason I started this article). It's great for fencing swords (epees and foils) but poor for edged weapons, as the strength of the edge is no greater than stainless steel it has a tendency to fold over and curl under impact. The metal is very difficult to forge due to the low heat you must use, but is excellent for casting, so most items are cast rather than forged. The biggest problem is that it is impossible to grind and sharpen without the use of diamond tooling (and even then it's very difficult). Mangalloy is almost always used as-cast because of this. Zaereth (talk) 17:56, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is a real thing. Some bog irons contain siderite or goethite ores, which are rich in manganese and can be smelted to produce spiegeleisen. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:03, 18 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, thanks Andy. I'm familiar with spiegeleisen. That's a cast iron, and wasn't produced until the blast furnace was introduced into Scandinavia. While true, the bog iron-ores do contain high amounts of manganese and barium (almost in tandem), as well as phosphorus, the level could vary considerably in ores that are mined just a few meters apart, and tended to be much higher near the surface than at any depth. Thus the spiegeleisen tended to vary in composition just as dramatically. Something different happens in a bloomery. During bloomery smelting, these are mostly removed from the iron and become part of the slags. The manganese tends to favor the oxides and sulfides, and helps draw them out of the iron, which greatly helped in producing the high quality of Scandinavian steels, which were often favored across Europe for the production of tools and cutlery. The typical composition of bog steels and wrought irons from Sweden, Norway and Denmark were usually high in phosphorus, moderate amounts of barium, and low (almost nonexistent, > 0.05%) in manganese, which was good for a very hard steel with low brittleness. Perhaps the most renowned expert on this is Buchwald, and you can find this info in several of his books, including Iron and Steel in Ancient Times. Zaereth (talk) 02:03, 18 March 2020 (UTC)


 * On a side note, the Swedish steels were valued commodities since pre-Migration Period times. Throughout the Middle Ages, the characteristic rounded billets, called osmunds, were even used across Europe as a form of currency, for example in medieval England where, due to their exact weight, they were directly convertible into pounds. Zaereth (talk) 21:00, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

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Bicycle frame HLE Mangalloy
The photo of the "mangalloy" bicycle frame here is very misleading, as it is a completely different type of steel to the high manganese Hadfield steel (11% to 15% Mn) which is the subject of this article.

That HLE steel (which stands for High Elastic Limit btw) is definitely not Hadfield steel, or even anything close to it. It is a low alloy steel containing only about 1.2% manganese with the addition of about 0.15% microalloying ingredients. That HLE steel is far closer to plain mild steel than it is to Hadfield steel.


 * I don't doubt you. I was always a little suspect of that image, because mangalloy is usually cast, and because its almost impossible to machine, its usually used as-cast. But it does actually say mangalloy, so I had no reason to remove it from the article. The problem is we can't say that in the picture caption without providing some reliable source. Where did you find out about this?


 * Perhaps the better solution is to just remove it from the article, and replace it with another image. The Brodie helmet a few sections below would work fine. Or maybe I could snap a shot of some bull-dozer tracks? How does that sound? Zaereth (talk) 02:44, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

My info comes from working with these bicycle frames. I've cold set (straightened) them, drilled and taped them for extra mount points etc and machined in various other ways - And can 100% guarantee that they work exactly like mild steel. Info I've gathered from people in the industry is that it is a HSLA (high strength low alloy) steel similar to that used in high pressure gas pipes. These steels typically contain 1.0% to 1.5% Mn with a very small amount of microalloying with elements like Ti, Mo and Nb (among others). Their properties are generally considered intermediate between plain carbon mild steels and chrome-moly.

Unfortunately Peugeot's HLE is propriety so we don't know the precise make up, but bear in mind that this was their "in house" tubing for their lower end bikes so it will be something low cost and readily available. The problem is, that what bike brands place on those tubing labels is as much about marketing as is about science or fact. For example, millions of bicycles have been sold with steel tubing marked "High Tensile" and they are invariably all just plain mild steel (usually 1018 or 1020).

Yes, probably just better to remove that photo and replace it with another if you have something of known mangalloy steel. Unfortunately the "Mangalloy" on that tubing sticker is just marketing (though it does have slightly higher Mn content than the mild steel tubing of some other bicycles).


 * Yeah, I know a lot about working with mangalloy. Even made a sword out of it once, although for all the difficulty it sucked as a cutting instrument. But we can't use our own personal knowledge to support info. We're just anonymous editors. It has to come from some reliable source.


 * It doesn't seem like a good idea anyhow to have a pic that says, "This is labeled mangalloy but that's not really what it is" so I just removed it, EZPZ. The shoes of Caterpillar tracks are definitely mangalloy, or railroad switches. The inside of a cement truck. I can easily take a pic of something to fill the void. Zaereth (talk) 03:58, 8 May 2024 (UTC)