I’ve found another twist claiming Henri Moissan developed the first two grades in Paris between 1896 and 1898 while attempting to produce the first artificial diamonds. He’s famous primarily for his electric furnace which must have come in handy, as Tungsten itself has one of the highest melting points at over 6000 degrees F.
This is the earliest mention I’ve found so far, with most still pointing to Germany with Osram and Krupp’s in the 20s.
Personally I’d be amazed if they could have produced effective tools within such a short time of discovering the initial compounds. The processes and refinement it took to make these early compounds and ceramics useable is a lot more involved than those of the steel industry.
The whole Tungsten and Tungsten Carbide thing is so mis- understood these days, even more so since the low cost tooling and ceramic jewellery arrived on the scene. The metal gets referred to as the carbide, the carbide referred to as the metal, the sintered ceramic confused with the metal and with countless other similar ceramics and so on. I have a stub of 20 mm diameter Tungsten bar which I’ll post when I can. It’s the dense alloy used as an alternative to depleted Uranium and weighs only a fraction of a gramme less than pure gold bullion. People think Lead is heavy, you should feel this stuff! It’s the much rarer metal alloy though which is why it’s so dense, and not the ceramic compound derivative. Very expensive and very hard to get hold of. I asked the supplier if there was any chance of a small slice of depleted uranium but he just said ’Now you’re being silly..' Was worth a try.
anyway I’ll keep looking to see what else comes up. I have a reprint of an old book somewhere ‘Procedures in experimental physics’ which I think is from the 20s or 30s, and can remember Tungsten is widely mentioned and used throughout its pages. Plus my dads got a prized set of encyclopaedias which are definitely from the 1920s, so I’ll have a look and see if there’s any mention. Sometimes the info on the net gets a bit vague and clouded up so some good old fashioned paper reference has got to be worth a go.
