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:
“The complaint ... about modern steel furniture, modern glass houses, modern red bars and modern streamlined trains and cars is that all these objets modernes, while adequate and amusing in themselves, tend to make the people who use them look dated. It is an honest criticism. The human race has done nothing much about changing its own appearance to conform to the form and texture of its appurtenances.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“After all, the wool of a black sheep is just as warm.”
—Ernest Lehman (b. 1920)