February 17, 201115 yr I saw a web site where a company in England is taking scrap wrought iron and rerolling it into bars and rods for resale, my question is does anyone in the United States do that & if not where are good places to find wrought iron?
February 17, 201115 yr There is a company in Supiour(SP), WI possibly called the Wisconsin woodchuck that sells wrought taken out of an old elevator. I think they advertise in the anvils ring. They were a vendor at ABANA conference last summer. A guy sells parts from an old bridge at SOFA but that is not till Sep As far as I know no one rerolls wrought in the US You could order it from the UK but unless you need tons not very economical
February 17, 201115 yr If you hope to literally find wrought iron, that's a bit of an art and it would help to know where you are in the country. Essentially you look for stuff that's made of iron/steel and 100+ years old. Depending where you live, you could find it just about anywhere. (A coworker of mine dug 100+ pounds of wrought iron farm equipment out of his yard last year. I still can't persuade him to sell me any of it. He just thinks it's cool. And it is. But I could forge it into something even cooler!) If you want to buy it, there are folks who sell the antique stuff. Here are a couple: http://www.wisconsinwoodchuck.net/treasures.htm http://elliscustomknifeworks.hightemptools.com/wroughtiron.html Frequent the bladesmithing forums and you'll find more sources. Bladesmiths love wrought iron. Edit: Do not order from the U.K. Had an exchange recently with someone who did that for a paid job. It was extremely expensive. Wrought iron is not that hard to find in this country. It just takes a little patience, and a little practice.
February 19, 201115 yr There is a guy on ebay that I got some from recently, he has assorted sizes. Got mine in about 5 days, I have not tried forging it yet so I am unsure on the quality of the material
February 19, 201115 yr OK , get the tar and feathers ready, because I am about to suggest blacksmith blasphemy. Good wrought iron is going for $3 a pound. Crappy anvils with the face broken off are going for 50 cents a pound. Slice and dice. There, I said it and I'm glad. If you can't bring yourself to do that, I have seen 100' lengths of wrought iron ship chains in the scrapyard, but could not afford to buy the whole thing, because that was the only way they would bother to did it out of the pile. Aldo, the NJ steel baron, sometimes sells chunks in flat rate boxes on his website to knifemakers. http://njsteelbaron.com/
February 19, 201115 yr Wrought iron can be found at old farm sites where a silo was.....5/8" round rod was used as the bands to hold them together. Old wagons with wood wheels had wrought iron bands as the "tire". Ships had anchors and anchor chain of wrought iron. Over 110 years old and it's probably wrought iron. Bridges, structural iron in buildings, etc.....it was everywhere.
February 20, 201115 yr Is not blacksmith heresy to suggest using an old useless dead anvil as a source of good wrought iron. In the same vein i humbly suggest old post vises as a source, also. But what do I know? It is a good thing i cannot be arested for impersonating a bkacksmith.
February 21, 201115 yr Wrought iron can be found at old farm sites where a silo was.....5/8" round rod was used as the bands to hold them together. Old wagons with wood wheels had wrought iron bands as the "tire". Ships had anchors and anchor chain of wrought iron. Over 110 years old and it's probably wrought iron. Bridges, structural iron in buildings, etc.....it was everywhere. My boss tore down his 100+ yr old wood silo last year. About 6 hours ago today several very slow moving gears in my head clicked into place. One phone call, and he said I can have all the bands except one (why he wants to keep one is beyond me, but hes as much of a hoarder as most of the people I know). Even if it's not wrought, I'm still excited at the prospect of a lot of free metal.
February 21, 201115 yr Ok I got some time at the forge yesterday and tried out the wrought iron that I got on ebay. It does forge nicely, keep it real hot or it starts to crumble, I forged mushrooms out of 3/4 inch round stock, I got the idea of mushrooms from Brian Brazeal. It is a fun little forging exercise and you can learn alot by doing it, while using very little material and fuel. Her is a link to the ebay guyhttp://cgi.ebay.com/...mMakeTrack=true
February 21, 201115 yr Swung by my bosses house today to give him a birthday present of a hook, and a canning jar opener to hang on it (those two things and nails are all I know how to make yet ), and I hacked off the five feet of hoop that wasn't embedded in ice. Once it melts down a bit, I'd like to get them over to my shop in one piece, but I'm pretty sure the logistics of that are unreal. The bands are 5/8", as rthibeau said, with 3/4" tensioning rods, 2 or 3 feet long. Here's the hook and opener (credit for the idea goes to someone on these forums, wish I could remember who!) It didn't occur to me to make the loop on top of the opener large enough to hang on the hook until I was done, at which point I was totally out of coal and finishing in a kindling fire. I didn't have a torch, so I ran over to my dad's shop and opened it up with a pair of needle nose pliers, that's when it got significantly uglier. C'est la vie. On the bright side, I didn't even think of which way I was twisting the two items, but I lucked out.
February 22, 201115 yr We buy up wrought all the time..I love to use in hawks and axes..I just love working with wrought regardless..
September 19, 2025Sep 19 A FB Marketplace listing near me shows a pretty magnificent WI anchor for sale. Great for large stock, but a bit pricey at $3.5K...
September 19, 2025Sep 19 Yah, there's two or three near me being used by yard art by people with too much money that are up here maybe twice a year on a good year. I try so very hard to overcome my E-4 mafia training, but they make it so bloody difficult.
September 19, 2025Sep 19 I came across these on vacation and took pictures to post here but forgot: I don’t think I could bring myself to cut these up and reforge them if they were mine though… Keep it fun, David
September 20, 2025Sep 20 You know John you could more than pay for the anchor and sell it later if you just cut up the WI chain. Lots of stock there and in a more useful size. electrolysis works nicely on WI. Frosty The Lucky.
September 20, 2025Sep 20 You could get business cards with a wrought iron dog on them too...an ironmongrel...and this is important, don't explain the pun.
September 27, 2025Sep 27 Nobody Special, re: E4 Mafia: I did not serve, but I've enjoyed hearing plenty of good stories of the E4 mafia, if they existed, because no such organization exists... One acronym I've heard that made me chuckle is S.T.E.A.L. Strategically Transferring Equipment to an Alternate Location. I am not condoning any relocation of Wrought Iron without approval of the owner...but I understand!
September 28, 2025Sep 28 Fortunately there's no E-4 Omerta. No one ever stole anything in the Army except the first guy. Everyone else is just trying to get their crap back.
September 28, 2025Sep 28 I guess, somebody took some of my crap during the big TA-50 layout prior to graduation.
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