Ironsight

[Oudeis he/him]

"Ranette was a Lurcher, and could recognize most metals just by burning iron." I officially claim this as evidence that at a high enough level of skill, ironlines can tell you want kind of metal you're looking at. I think it would be an incredibly odd way to say, "She could tell whether or not something was metal by burning iron," which is the only other thing I believe it could mean. I remain, as ever, open to other reasonable explanations.

Further slight evidence: relation to bronze. At a default, bronze can only tell you, "this person is burning brass." Marsh mentions many other things it can tell you if you get it at a high enough level, and by cheating with duralumin Vin is able to accomplish this feat once, determining which specific emotions Breeze was Soothing. This is evidence of an underlying principle of the sensory nature of Allomancy.

I suspect being a metallurgist would help tremendously. I would expect the information not to come to you as labeled packets of information (like the knowledge that this metal is Steel with 8% carbon appears in your mind), but if you really know metals and study them enough, you might realize, "hey, I see a particular trait in the ironlines to all these metals, but a different one to all of these, and group A is magnetically reactive, while group B is not... perhaps this variance indicates a magnetically reactive metal." Or some such, and by learning the hard way what traits various metals have, you can eventually look at a metal and think, "Hrm, the ironlines are telling me it's an alloy, not a pure element, that it's magnetically non-reactive, low ductility but high malleability... aha, I totally know this metal!"

[king of nowhere]

yes, it makes sense. we can probably consider it as canon.

[Retsam]

Would the same apply to steellines?

[Lord Tavash Shar]

The same Should apply to Steel lines how ever we only have an Iron line example.

 

The question of how powerful you have to be for this edge to manifest becomes my next question. Does it require a little practice, A lot of Practice, or Savant level to reach this edge?

[Redbird he/him]

The thing is, mistings concentrate on that one ability so much, it may be more of paying attention to small details that a mistborn may look over with broader abilities, but it could be both.

[Link Start he/him]

 I don't believe it would take Savant level. There's a possible explation for this that doesn't require different metals having distinct ironlines. The lines appear to be thicker/stronger the heavier the piece of metal is, and the closer it is. All metals and alloys have different lines, so in a fixed distance, different metals would have lines of different thickness compared to their size. With some practice, a misting could tell the density of the metal by looking at it and burning iron/still, and could tell the metal by its density.

[MistLord he/him]

If you could recognise metals just by burning iron, then I would say only Iron could recognise metals, not Steel, due to Iron being the Pulling metal.

[Titan Arum]

Reviving/Necro-ing this post from the dead because I now have a direct WoB about this for both Steel and Iron lines. Yes, both can be used to identify specific metals, and it is not limited to only savants. This seems to be something any misting or mistborn could do with enough practice.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Titan Arum said:

Reviving/Necro-ing this post from the dead because I now have a direct WoB about this for both Steel and Iron lines. Yes, both can be used to identify specific metals, and it is not limited to only savants. This seems to be something any misting or mistborn could do with enough practice.

Nice job. 

[Savanorn he/him]

6 hours ago, Titan Arum said:

Reviving/Necro-ing this post from the dead because I now have a direct WoB about this for both Steel and Iron lines. Yes, both can be used to identify specific metals, and it is not limited to only savants. This seems to be something any misting or mistborn could do with enough practice.

Splendid work. 1 up.

[Argent he/him]

Huh, neat.