August 12, 2026 | Reading time: 4 minutes
Steel sounds out, is on the move, and good for surprises – as it has been for centuries. Let’s take a look at musical milestones, automotive premieres, and a steel monument from Upper Austria. And respond to the question as to why some types of steel don't stick to a magnet.
That is the world's largest jaw harp. The steel monument stands in Molln, Upper Austria, which is regarded as the cradle of jaw harp production. This giant specimen weighs in at 1,748 kilograms.
Piano strings made of cast steel debuted in that year. At the time, the trend was toward achieving greater volume and a wider acoustic range. Moreover, cast steel promised far greater resilience. As a result, the previous gut, brass, and iron strings fell silent and disappeared.
Dodge introduced the first car made entirely of steel. Up to that time, a hybrid wood-steel construction method had been the norm. In Germany, the Opel Olympia (1935) was the first German mass-produced car to feature a self-supporting all-steel body.
Did you know that ...
… not all types of steel are magnetic?
In austenitic stainless steels, a high nickel content causes the atoms inside to form what is known as an austenitic lattice. In this arrangement, the magnetic forces of the individual atoms are distributed in such a way that they cancel each other out. As a result, viewed from the outside, the steel does not have any magnetic properties. These steels find use, for example, in the manufacture of stainless steel sinks and cutlery, while the chemical and pharmaceutical industries opt for this type of stainless steel in their equipment manufacturing.
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