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scrap yard wrought iron


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I have been having a hard time finding some wrought iron to mess around with and experiment with, and was wondering if yall could help.what do you look for in the scrap yard when trying to find wrought iron? is their something in particular that most of the time is WI? and, how do you "test" it to see if its wrought, when in the scrap yard and not wanting to take a lot of time testing to see if its WI? I know that once it has rusted you can see the "wood grain" texture, and where you cut part way, bend it and look, and also the spark test, but what about when at the scrap yard when you don't have electricity or a piece that isn't to heavily corroded? I apologize if this is an amateur question-I consider myself one, though I did check the site for some info and came up with a couple things, but thought yall could add to them.Thanks in advance!

                                                                                                       Littleblacksmith

Edited by littleblacksmith
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I mainly go by look and the nick and break test even at the scrapyard---I keep a 30" hacksaw in the truck...However there are a few other tricks:

Age: pre 1850's and you have almost all wrought iron and cast iron (and a very little cast steel)

Prior Use:  Most of my Wagon tyres are wrought iron often very coarse wrought iron, you learn over time what local items tend to be wrought.

Condition: I picked up 116' of 1+" high grade wrought iron used as mending rods for a cistern that cracked during the 1906 quakes.  I was able to unfasten the nuts that had been outside in the weather for over 100 years with a wrench.  Mild steel tends to need at least some blaster on them even out here in the dry.

There is a chemical test but as it involves carrying a bottle of acid around I don't use it.  I can dig it out if you want to know it though; I have the book to hand.

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Hi,

I don't know if this can help you but I tell it anyway. After some time I've quit trying to saw and break stock on yards. Neither looking for woodgrain texture helped because only one piece has shown it in the last 3 years. (I think something has to "etch" the surface to have that texture.) 

The method I use nowadays is to look out for square screw nuts, not-metric size stock (well, that's not gonna help you in US, but it's a clear sign here in Eu), and the special pattern rust.

Square nuts are not always the sign of WI, but are the easiest to spot and worth to examine further.

Stock size won't matter to you, so let's just leave it.

Special rust: I don't mean the woodgrain, but there is something different in the look of MS rust and WI rust. I try to explain but these are just hunches. MS especially old MS have more pitting likely with steep walled holes. WI has more like surface rusting even when old. And somehow the colour of rust is different, maybe the WI rust is lighter... I try to shoot some pictures to explain this more.

Well and I just remembered some more: looking for signs of delamination is useful: only WI can delaminate. I also look for forge weldings - at least here it looks like that blacksmiths hasn't done much more FW after WI got out of picture. 

And the shapes: you can tell the difference easily between the nicely rolled bars and the totally hand shaped pieces.

Well that's it. I don't say these "principles" work always or they work elsewhere than Hungary but hopefully you can use some of them.

Happy hunting!

Gergely

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It should be no problem locating scrap from pre 1850.

That is my idea of satire.  Basically, you isn't gonna. Scrap steel is a comodity . it aint setting around. It is  processed. And as you know iron isn't made anylonger. For like 150 years.....

There is a bridge I found with HUGE beams. I forget the built date but the historical marker says wrought iron. I ride my bike over it twice a year. I just noticed a few days ago that imprinted in the beams are the letters CARNEGIE

 

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You do realize that they tear down old buildings with known dates don't you?   Perhaps you read about them tearing down the old Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus Ohio in 1998?  The paper said the oldest parts were in use in 1834.  There was literally TONS of real wrought iron in those structures; I couldn't afford the cell bars that were being sold for novelty use; but I did buy 10 tons of the water tower tank---the supports were mild steel as it was built in 1929 but the tank itself was 3/16" and 5/16" wrought iron plate, I believe it was actually Byers Bi-Directional rolled wrought iron plate as the "tears" were platey rather than stringy.

Also a good example of wrought iron being used post 1850's; but you have to be able to pick it out of the mix; before it's pretty much running solo.

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There are three large scrap yards in Mansfield ohio very near and they don't allow it to set about.  It is sorted and ground into steel mulch. Same as aluminum.  I cant imagine digging through that to pick out what may or may not be wrought. I don't believe you can even go in unless you have a load to drop off.

You can tour the auto scrap. Spring steel etc. But even if you locate wrought somewhere and it is in plate form ,I cant imagine the process to render that into usable stock.

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I wanted plate for armour making and sheet work.  The demo contractor botched it as I wanted it in big plain sheets (when they asked me how many pieces I wanted it in I said 1...They would keep mangling it and then wanting to charge me more for it and were quite surprised when I told them I was going to buy less of it due to their mangling it and I would not pay a penny more than we had agreed on.  I finally cut it up into pieces along the cold bends where it had cracked and delaminated---not fun with a cutting torch as the top lam would melt and start cutting and then blow back on you as the bottom lam wasn't hot yet.

So there are 3 scrapyards that won't play nice; search out others!  We have 2 in/near our town of 10K---when college is in session. One mainly does stainless and nonferrous but is a pain to work with---anything you want to buy is 10 times scrap rate, anything you want to sell is worthless. I once made what I thought was a fair price for a bank of lockers to be used in my shop.  He wanted several times that much; wouldn't budge and several months later I helped one of his crew fill them with smaller scrap to be trucked 150 miles and sold as scrap----for a quarter what I had offered him... I pretty much gave up on that one after I pointed out he wanted more than new cost for certain items.  The other is welcoming and they even will set stuff aside when they think I'd like it based on what I've bought.  Everything is sold at scrap rate, even stuff I'd cheerfully pay more for.  I'm so glad I didn't stop looking after the first one.

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