The Origins of the Japanese Steel Industry

We need a video about the Japanese motorcycle industry

I'm old enough to remember when Japan imported shiploads of scrap steel - Richmond, California was near where I grew up and back in the 60s you'd see trainloads of steel getting loaded on the ships there...

YouTube's contractual content enshittification has not yet shutdown the efforts from the bests.

as a factorio player, i can confirm that you never have enough fucking steel

One of my favorite aspects of this channel is the diversity in topics. Ironically, the historical algorithm brought me, but the silicon manufacturing/technology and company lore kept me around. Great work, sir. You are one of the last remaining bright spots on the Internet.

when I was in engineering school (90's) Japan was the only country (and only one firm) able to forge Pressure Vessels for Nuclear Power reactors. They need to hold 150 Bar and prob 2x for fail safe (another reason for gen 4/5 reactors). There was a 7-10 year waiting period to get one of these delivered (I was told back then). Would be an interesting part of Japan steel story

As an American who has lived in Japan for about 10 years of my life and speaks pretty good Japanese, due to fkn Kanji, Japanese subtle secrecy and misdirection, and even in the 2020s vastly paper records, I find it amazing when people have such multi sourced histories on Japanese niche sectors in English. As a primary source researcher, its hard as fk especially when you realize the occasional misdirection that requires "re"search. I admit, I know my industry in high detail but ive hears a number of American professionals state about their specialty that they are one of a very very small number of experts and their knowledge would die with them. Japanese as a language is super diverse by region, built to allow obscurification, they actually have lifetime employment to this day allowing superior corporate secrecy compared to the ever mercenary western corporations, and their employees are all about that discrete activity as seen by the numerous precious metals importing scandals over the last 10 years. in other words, theyre crafty as fk and good about it. I love them for it, but it does make researching hard as hell.

Asianometry you nailed this video's timing. Veritisium and NIPPON STEEL is about to buy out US Largest and Oldest Steel Company U.S. Steel founded by JP Morgan.

One of my sets of British grandparents lived in Japan in the inter-war years. As WWII loomed and steel was needed for ships, my grandfather -who worked for the Foreign Office, was certainly reporting some of what is in this video to London. If he had only watched this video it would have saved time. :)

The best book on the economic post WWII recovery that I've read is: "Planning for Change: Industrial Policy and Japanese Economic Development 1945-1990: by James Vestal. The reason for rebuilding the steel industry after 1945 was that men and capacity in the sector still survived the war, so there was something to build on. Also, steel was needed for rebuilding Japan's infrastructure. The post WWII land reform help boost agricultural production by 50% (this is talked about in several Asianometry videos). This released foreign currency that would have been spent on food imports to go to raw material imports, like Iron Ore (Japan still had some limited coal mining capacity) and chemicals that went towards phosphates (fertilizers) that further increased agricultural yields. Unmentioned, but very important, was the Bretton Woods system set up following WWII. The U.S. would advocate a free trade policy internationally and the U.S. Navy would police the seas. This meant that Japan could easily and cheaply buy raw materials such as coal and iron ore on the international market at the international market price. It also meant that Japan could sell any excess steel on the international market. Industrial policy also helped Japan modernize its industry. Industrial policy provided government guaranteed capital loans for steel and other targeted industries. This encouraged banks invest in more steel capacity - creating hyper competition inside Japan and competitiveness internationally. By the early 1960s Japan's steel making capacity was many times greater than it had been, say 1940, or 1943. (From memory, so knock on wood, Japan's capacity was 7 million tons, Britain's was 11 million, Germany and USSR were 15 million, and the U.S. was something like 150 million tons and by 1960 Japan's capacity was well over 21 million tons).

I work at a US machine shop and we source all of our steel from Japan. I asked my coworker why and he said that they have the best quality, so take that for what it's worth.

1.4435 but with lower ferrite content than most standards call for can be quite the nuisance to find. Making steel is still an art and there are many factors that play into the final product. Great stuff!

I'm surprised the video doesn't talk about Japans steel plants in Manchuria

Please make a documentary about how ocean liners were assembled in the 1910s and 1920s. I think it'll be riveting!

As a welder, I'm extremely excited for this episode!

There is a great half hour documentary on YouTube from 1960 of the construction of the Yawata Iron and Steel Works.

I HAVE EXAM AND I AM WATCHING THIS

Interesting thing about the Yawata steel works is that the Gutehoffnungshütte company in germany build it, they loved to have barreled roofs on their buildings at that time, and even build those barreled roofs in japan. Nowadays some of their buildings in their home town of Oberhausen, germany, are still left and have the exact same roofs and steel structures as they do in Yawata. A true show of how globalized the world at that time already was to build the same structure by the same people all around the world to serve the same purpose.

It will be great to see part 2

Love Japanese steel, have a set of Japanese knives in my kitchen and they cut better than anything I’ve ever used