Inspired by Quark, I wanted to add a simple, vanilla way of getting a mid-tier of items between diamond and iron without adding new ores or machines. You can make steel using available vanilla machines and items. No new things necessary!
Features
First off, you need to put some Iron Nuggets in a Smoker. They need all that smoky delicious carbon to carbonize them up into Sooty Iron Nuggets.
Next you need to take 6 Sooty Iron Nuggets and put them together in a crafting table to make a Sooty Iron Cluster. It's kind of like an Iron Bloom, but more Minecrafty! This number is configurable*, but the default number of 6 lets you create 3 Steel Ingots for every 2 Iron Ingots to provide some efficiency and balance out the extra processing steps required in making them.

Finally you put your Sooty Iron Clusters in a Blast Furnace. It's gotta be a blast furnace as the regular furnace just ain't hot enough to turn your carbonized iron into proper steel.

Then take your Steel Ingots and get to work!
ARE YOU AN ARTIST? Because I am not. I would love for someone to help me make cooler looking steel items. If interested, drop me a note. Thanks
*configuration coming soonNo files available for download.