Steel wool, also known as wire wool, is a bundle of strands of very fine soft steel filaments, used in finishing and repairing work to polish wood or metal objects, for cleaning household cookware and light painting.
Steel wool is made from low-carbon steel (low enough to be close to plain iron). It is not made by drawing "steel wool wire" through a tapered die, but rather by a process more like broaching where a heavy steel wire is pulled through a toothed die that removes a thin wire shaving.
Famous quotes containing the words steel and/or wool:
“O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts.
Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
The sense of reckoning, ere th’ opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“After all, the wool of a black sheep is just as warm.”
—Ernest Lehman (b. 1920)