Things to do with wrought iron

[Bill in Oregon]

I found about an 18-inch length of what I am certain is wrought iron while looking for agates on the Oregon coast yesterday. It is filamentous in structure, and has probably been on or under this beach since a steamer was wrecked here in the 19th century. There are traces of rust along the edges of the filaments, but the piece has a nice vibration when struck. Thinking maybe a guard for a knife? Any tricks to smithing with antique wrought?

[JHCC]

Photos?

I don't know your skill level, but if my own were high enough and I had such a piece of WI in my hands, I would definitely be using it as the outer metal on a san-mai blade.

[ThomasPowers]

Heat to yellow and wire brush VIGOROUSLY  Repeat, Heat to welding and consolidate.  Wire brush Vigorously as needed.

Forge like regular wrought iron---work it at a temp that mild steel would be burning.   If it starts fraying like a broom you are working it too cold.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

18" long flat,round,thickness?

[Alan Evans]

Mild steel...get it hot and hit it.

Wrought Iron...get it very hot and hit it only while it is still very hot.

Alan

[ThomasPowers]

Never be forging high carbon steel and wrought iron in the same fire at the same time!

[Latticino]

12 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Never be forging high carbon steel and wrought iron in the same fire at the same time!

Don't completely agree with that one.  I've made a couple of pretty cool hammers out of wrought iron with high carbon forge welded faces.  I also plan on doing San Mai and forged axes using wrought and high carbon bits in the future.  The stuff I have, from some wrought bridge bolts, is a bit refined to show great structure, but I just picked up some different wrought at SOFA and have high hopes.  They certainly are a bit tough to forge weld together though.  For what it is worth I'd rather not try to forge weld 52100 to wrought again. 

[ThomasPowers]

OK I'll add "save when you are trying to forge weld them together" to it.   New people have trouble heating the wrought iron hot enough to work while NOT burning up the high C piece---especially as High C stuff will often be thin....Suggesting that they only work 1 type of metal at a time in the forge can help prevent frustrations, till they learn some of the tricks.

[seldom (dick renker)]

I agree with the above. Get it hot, really hot, then hit it. As soon as it starts to cool stop and get it hot again. If you hit it to cold as Thomas said, you get a broom. Ask us how we know.

[JHCC]

Yeah, that's how I figured out that that one railroad spike was WI....

[ThomasPowers]

The nice thing is that if you stop before it falls apart it's usually easy to forge weld it back into a solid chunk.

Some ocean processed pieces may be pretty far gone, hence why I suggested a consolidation run on an unknown piece.

[Bill in Oregon]

Thanks fellas. It may have been round at one time and is about 5/8 inch thick. I have only rudimentary skills, so no san mai work here. I will get it hot and brush it vigorously. I have a propane forge. Thanks for the warnings about it brooming when worked too cold.

[David Einhorn]

Wrought Iron

There are different grades of wrought iron. Low grade wrought iron has given wrought iron a somewhat less than stellar reputation that higher grades of wrought iron does not deserve. Higher grades of wrought iron forge very nicely, the only comparison I can think of is that forging higher grade wrought iron is like forging butter, because it is soft, forges easily, and *does not splinter*! You will find higher grades of wrought iron in more expensive products such as high-end kitchen utensils, and low grade (less processed) wrought iron in things like wagon tires.

Low grade wrought iron needs to be forged at a much higher temperature than high grade wrought iron. I have heard many times that people working wrought iron work the iron at or near welding temperature in order to be basically constantly welding the wrought iron back together.

Can the low grade stuff be refined by hammer and heat? That is a very good question and one that I have wondered about. Higher grade wrought iron is higher grade because it has been drawn out, stacked, forge welded and worked that much more than low grade wrought. The more times it goes through the cycle of being stacked, forge welded and then worked, my humble understanding is that it becomes a higher grade. It would be an excellent experiment to experiment with low grade wrought to see if and how one can convert it to high grade wrought iron. Sounds feasible, but I don't know anyone who has tried that.

Old "wrought iron" the material, not the process of final shaping, is a wondrous material. In the process of making the material called "wrought iron" the sand that was used as a flux was included in the metal. As old wrought iron oxidizes, the oxygenation process eats down into the item until a glass surface is revealed. If the glass surface is not damaged, the glass acts as a preservative preventing further rusting. Since the glass is not distributed evenly, the resulting surface tends to be textured according to the distribution of the glass flux within the metal. ..... In terms of tool history, a fairly recent theory suggests that iron was used for tools much earlier in history than previously thought to be the case, but that due to iron's nature to oxidize, has not survived as well as brass and copper tools.

Back in 1973, when I took an introductory course in blacksmithing, decent wrought iron was still being manufactured and was readily available to purchase. Good grade wrought iron was wondrous to work with, as it was softer due to its lack of carbon. It's main drawback was that due to its softness structural/functional elements often needed to be thicker/larger to prevent bending. On the bright side, due to how easily wrought iron moved under the hammer, using it would give the appearance that your strength was due to being born on the planet Kripton.

 

[ThomasPowers]

The higher grades will work at lower temperatures---but they are still OK at higher temperatures and as mentioned forge like butter.  So work them *hot*!  (or are you the type that gets on the interstate and drives 50 in the 75 mph zone?)  Most new smiths tend to work steel too cold not realizing that working it at the highest temperature it will takes makes things a lot faster and easier.  (Knowing what the "allowable" temp actually is does rely on experience...)

[arkie]

I imagine that photos showing the difference between wrought iron and "steel" such as mild steel have been posted here on IFI, but from my searches it appears that earlier photos are no longer available on the site.  So, in that regard, here are some that I took recently.  My digital camera doesn't take close-ups very well, but here are some comparisons.

The photos include a comparison of two 1/2" round rods, one wrought iron and one mild steel.  Each was cut part way down with a hacksaw then split apart.  You can see the fibrous structure on the wrought iron and the microcrystalline appearance on the mild steel (the shiny one with one ear broken off).  Also included is a large bar, probably from a piece of old farm equipment that was folded over forming an eye.  I cut through part of one end on the eye and bent it back to show the fibrous structure (you may have to zoom in on that one).  The clue to the bar probably being wrought iron was the linear weathering along the bar.  It's about 3" wide and 1/2" thick.  Must have been fun bending that piece over.  Now, I'd like to figure out what to make from the large piece, or maybe just cut it up for several projects.

 

[jlpservicesinc]

On 12/16/2016 at 6:29 AM, David Einhorn said:

Wrought Iron

There are different grades of wrought iron. Low grade wrought iron has given wrought iron a somewhat less than stellar reputation that higher grades of wrought iron does not deserve. Higher grades of wrought iron forge very nicely, the only comparison I can think of is that forging higher grade wrought iron is like forging butter, because it is soft, forges easily, and *does not splinter*! You will find higher grades of wrought iron in more expensive products such as high-end kitchen utensils, and low grade (less processed) wrought iron in things like wagon tires.

Low grade wrought iron needs to be forged at a much higher temperature than high grade wrought iron. I have heard many times that people working wrought iron work the iron at or near welding temperature in order to be basically constantly welding the wrought iron back together.

Can the low grade stuff be refined by hammer and heat? That is a very good question and one that I have wondered about. Higher grade wrought iron is higher grade because it has been drawn out, stacked, forge welded and worked that much more than low grade wrought. The more times it goes through the cycle of being stacked, forge welded and then worked, my humble understanding is that it becomes a higher grade. It would be an excellent experiment to experiment with low grade wrought to see if and how one can convert it to high grade wrought iron. Sounds feasible, but I don't know anyone who has tried that.

 

 

Wrought iron can be refined as mentioned in your question..    Even wrought iron that is hot short or cold short can be enhanced or refined. The grain gets tighter as the impurities get worked out of it, thus making more iron particles available..   Recently there was another post on here where the question of working wrought iron was brought up.. 

I have some cold short wrought iron and was going to post a video on how it splits apart at anything below a welding heat..  After doing 5 folds and welds I put back the bar to the same width as the parent material which was 5/16X 2.5..  I forged it to 5/16 X 1/2.. You could see where it split.. I never posted the pictures.. I'll see if I can still find them..

Once folded and welded the 5 times it worked wonderfully..  

On that same note I also worked some hot short wrought iron again to document how it splits apart when worked at what most would consider the normal working temperature of wrought iron only to see it split apart again..    After welding it at a lower temperature (on par with mild steel 1018HR) 5 times I was able to raise the temperature each weld series.. 

Peter Wrights first quality anvils were made from scrap..  Their 2nd quality anvils were first run wrought iron and could be bought for much less..

I also worked some shear steel..  Which in my mind makes the best knives, wood working tools etc, etc as the silica particles snap off before the micro burrs of the carbonized iron leaving a super sharp durable edge..  

[Donniev]

Make one of these?

[arkie]

I'm afraid those are a bit above my skill level...would be neat to do, though.