Converter steelmaking could not only improve steel quality compared with crucible steelmaking; more importantly, it could dramatically increase output.
Each "pot" of crucible steelmaking could produce only 30 to 50 kilograms of steel. Even the United Kingdom's finest steelworks currently produced just over twenty tons a month.
A converter used in converter steelmaking could take in one ton of molten iron at a time—and that was still a small furnace. Once the technology matured, there could even be converters capable of handling over a hundred tons. At the same time, converter steelmaking was extremely fast, producing a batch of steel in just thirty minutes.
Any small steelworks could easily produce five hundred tons per furnace each month.
With this technology, steel prices could immediately be cut in half, and every existing crucible steelworks in the United Kingdom would have to shut down.
In truth, in the so-called Steel Industry, iron had virtually no profit margin. Steel was what fetched a real price.
At present, nearly all high-end precision machinery had to be made with steel rather than iron.
Take the cylinder of a Steam Engine, for example. In terms of weight, pressure resistance, and durability, cast iron was completely crushed by steel.
A High-Pressure Steam Engine basically had to be made from steel.
Even for the most ordinary farming tools, steel ones could last more than a decade, while iron ones practically had to be sharpened every day before they could be used.
Iron Rails were an even greater consumer of steel.
Yes, although they were called "iron" rails, they were actually made of steel.
Historically, in the early days after the train was invented, countries had indeed used cast iron to make Iron Rails. But they quickly discovered that the material was prone to deformation, wore down rapidly, and