This is the key point (pardon the pun) here though. It’s not hardness that matters, so much as plasticity. Iron is not at all plastic, but steel is. Iron is brittle and will crack, so it has to be hot-worked. This is the miracle of steel- it is a version of iron that is also flexible and has tensile strength, which iron does not. Iron is nature’s concrete- grainy in consistency, very dense, and huge compressive strength, but cracks and pulls apart easily.
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