Wrought iron?

[RainsFire]

so guy's, from what I understand, wrought iron is an iron/carbon alloy with really light carbon and long almost fiberlike grains. WHen nicked and bent the fibers become aparent, and it is a heavily saught after material by blacksmiths. It is also no longer in production.

SO what keeps a person from making it? It cant be a more lengthly or difficult process than making steel because the metalurgic pioneers would have used it instead.. so how hard could it be comparitivly speaking? Would there be a market for it?

-Thanks..

[Candidquality]

I actually have plans for just that. It's not complicated, just time consuming and it is more expensive to make than mild steel by current processes. Of course when it comes to a home foundry I'm not sure which would cost more for the tiny production rates. The carbon content is negligible. There's about 5% silica slag. There are those out there who are already making blooms and beating out the impurities. I think Hofi even has a BP on it. There are even people out there making wootz(completely different type of material also no longer found). You wouldn't call any of these processes cost efficient.

http://www.iforgeiron.com/blueprints-1000/bp1014-bloomery-process.html

[KevinD]

Red Top Mountain State Park in north GA has a Bloomery Furnace. I've not seen it in action but I bet it's cool...uh...hot?

the Hills of Iron event was a thrill. Two Iron pours kept park staff and volunteers very busy.
In addition to the regular Iron Pours, a new feature was added to the mix, The Bloomery Furnace.

http://www.friendsofredtop.org/Documents/FriendsFlier0705.pdf

[Tyler Murch]

Wrought iron is made in a bloomery furnace. After smelting the ore, you are left with a bloom. The bloom is then consolidated by forging down some, then welding. Then it is further refined by folding, welding, and drawing out- this process is repeated until one is satisfied with the quality of the wrought iron.
Here are some links
The Rockbridge Bloomery
Lee Sauder -- http://www.leesauder.com/maxpages/Home
You can also find information on Don Fogg's Bladesmith's Forum under the Bloomers and Buttons section.

[Jmercier]

The bessmer process essentially killed the old bloomery pool and consolidate process of getting metal from ore. Making wrought iron was extremely time consuming and cost-ineffective.

There are people who on small scale make their own iron and steel still, most particularly bladesmiths these days, making their own crucible steel and wootz, but large scale production work of making wrought iron is economically infeasable these days, you'd have to charge more for it than expensive tool steels just because of the amount of work involved in generating and refining it.

[ThomasPowers]

I've made wrought iron working with a crew trying to recreate the short stack scandanavian bloomeries of over 1000 years ago: With a crew of 4-6 and two days of punctuated work and *buying* your charcoal and having your ore ready already we would get a nice 15 pound bloom---after 10 years experience working these furnaces, the early days we would get enough iron for a fish hook---maybe. And the bloom is not usable as it comes out of the furnace. it has to be heated to high welding temp and massaged into muck bar and the much bar drawn out, stacked and welded up into merchant bar---what was generally sold. The merchant bar could then be drawn out, stacked and welded into singly refined wrought iron, repeat, repeat to get triply refined wrought iron which was often what was spec'd for high end work.

Lots of energy cost talking a lot of iron to welding heat repeatedly, lots of time cost too.

Not very cost effective indeed!

BTW the bloomery is NOT a foundry, the iron is never liquid in the direct process of smelting.

The indirect process that came around in the Renaissance, you first made cast iron in a foundry's blast furnace and then refined it into wrought iron in a finery. Several different methods were used in earlier times until puddling became the most common one fairly recently (only a century or two ago)

It can be a lot of fun and the bragging rights are great; but not cost effective when you can still find real wrought iron at *scrap* rates.

I'm saving my scale for a bloomery run to have some really recycled iron!

[sdalcher]

Possibly a stupid question... Is there a field expedient method for identifying Wrought Iron? The reason is that at my local scrap yard there is what appears to be the better part of an old old bridge span. I suspect that it probably is Wrought Iron, but I am not sure...

Thanks
Steve

[KevinD]

Possibly a stupid question... Is there a field expedient method for identifying Wrought Iron?

Click this link -> steel On second thought that might not help.:rolleyes:

[HWooldridge]

I'm certainly not doubting you guys who have done it - but how did they get enough material to make all those wagon tires and bridge trestles and boiler plates, etc. produced over the last couple of centuries? Heck, just think of all the wrought iron anvils, which has to be in the thousands of tons of material (and I might add a good source for a modern knifemaker if it's in bad shape for forging).

You could still get wrought in many sizes after WW2 into the 1950's and I can't imagine it wasn't being produced on a commercial scale (although steel would still be cheaper) or, is the stuff I'm thinking of more in the line of what was called "Swedish Charcoal Iron" or whatever it was named? Refined pure iron but not really "wrought" with all the impurities.

Just curious...H

[Dave Hammer]

Sdalcher... I'm on the lookout for wrought iron whenever I'm at a scrapyard. I'm not sure how one would identify "plate" or cross beams as wrought, unless it is rusted enough to see the grain, but when I suspect a round, or a bar is wrought iron, I will cut (with a hacksaw) most of the way through the piece, then bend it till it breaks. If it is wrought, you will see a "fibrous" grains, like wood. The more crude (less refined) the wrought iron, the more pronounced the fibrous look is.

A very good example of how wrought looks may be seen at

http://www.forgemagic.com/bsgallery/bsphoto584.jpg

This piece of wrought iron was cut from a 2" round bar, then broken in two. I'd guess it is a fair example of a low grade of wrought iron (very fibrous). If you break a bar of highly refined wrought, those fibers will still be evident, but very fine.

[bruce wilcock]

for me chain and old anchors , some of the anchors are half slag and need working up, the sea is close by and local divers know i can find a use for there finds ,olso fishing boats get them in there nets usualy with some chain attached ,and bring it to the smithy ,this can work out to be costly iron as i can find myself fixing boat gear for ever ,mind you dont start cutting up artifacts as some of the anchors i have are of a big age and i leave them propped up ouside the smithy ,if one of you near the sea contacts a diving club ,and one with a bigish hammer coggs it down ,the last chain i got came from a dredging company.

[Robert Mayo]

Possibly a stupid question... Is there a field expedient method for identifying Wrought Iron? The reason is that at my local scrap yard there is what appears to be the better part of an old old bridge span. I suspect that it probably is Wrought Iron, but I am not sure...

Thanks
Steve

Steve if you can grind into it to go through some of the layers and put some ferric chloride on it you will see right away if it is wrought or not. It was made until 1974 so there is lots out there. Here is a pic of some clean wrought very fine.

Bob

[Jmercier]

I've got some wrought bar stock from the mill over in europe that was making wrought into the 70s, a smith whose gear i purchased had a pile of barstock he had purchased when the buisness was shutting down. The stuff is actually so well refined, that it doesnt make good knife hardware, because the grain is so small that it doesnt etch well. For things like knife hardware, you actually want lower quality wrought, which is why wagon wheels and anchor chain is used frequently, they were typically made of a low refinment quality wrought.

[Ian]

They still produce wrought iron over here in England, look up Ironbridge Gorge and the Museum. A smith here has a deal and sells what the living museum makes for them, but it is a LOT more expensive than mild steel

[ThomasPowers]

Actually they are recycling scrap WI at IronBridge Gorge and not making it from ore.

Lovely place to visit!

[sdalcher]

OK, I think I'll take a saw with the next time and take a few minutes to investigate.

Thanks
Steve

[matt87]

Update on Ironbridge WI:

I happened upon this (well actually my girlfriend did ) while searching for something else. Turns out it's pure iron rather than wrought. Pure Iron - The Core Element