Thoughts on using wrought iron for tongs

[jlpservicesinc]

26 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Well it is wrought iron but not made from wrought iron....at least it's not rot iron or rotten iron; common descriptions down here...perhaps we need to coin wrought iron^2 for wrought iron items made from wrought iron.

Some folks you can't argue with; a big name weaver (webster) told a recent class that one fiber they were using didn't have scales; my wife the spinster talked to her later as it has scales and she has a shelf of books on fiber, she's been teaching spinning for over 40 years now,  showing photomicrographs of the scales.  She was told "well we will have to agree to disagree" Evidently being a BNW belief trumps scientific proof!

I run into this same thing all the time. in the farrier game. Same with blacksmithing stuff till I show up and start swinging a hammer..     There are a lot of experts that need to go back to school to relearn everything they decided needed to be forgotten and then supplanted with their own ideas..  

[JHCC]

Turning back to the original question, I suppose one might use wrought iron when making exact reproductions of historic tools such as the Mastermyr tongs.

[ThomasPowers]

or pretty much any pair of tongs before 1850's 

[jlpservicesinc]

It is pretty amazing to think just how fast wrought iron was displaced with steels..   LOL

It's also amazing to think about the level of precision that was in place for forged even 2000 years ago or longer.. Im not just talking about steels or wrought iron but all metals.. 

A lot of people have a tendency to look back thinking things were forged recklessly  or hap hazard..   there have always been skilled smiths once the stone age was over.. 

All I know is I have a long way to go..  

[ThomasPowers]

Yup just a 130 years or so between the Bessemer/Kelly process invention and the last wrought iron producing factory I know of going out of business.

Note that Practical Blacksmithing, Richardson has several discussions on how to work the "new" material. It was published in 1889,1890, 1891 IIRC.

The Great Depression seems to be a big factor as prior to it there was a lot of real wrought iron in use and after it was tapering off fast.

[jlpservicesinc]

From what i remember it  was the combination of the depression and the first WW that signed the fate of wrought iron and even blacksmithing as a whole.. 

The technological shifts with faster metal production   modern electric arc welding, gas welding,  and such..

 

It would be interesting to see what Eagle anvils production cycles wete over a time frame as well as Trenton..

 

I know that HBs production fell off sharply in the 20's .

 

[ThomasPowers]

Well I know my great grandfather did a LOT of blacksmithing in the 1930's in the small Arkansas hill town.  Folks couldn't afford new stuff and a lot of repairing of old stuff needed to be done.  It was the extra cost of the material that drove Wrought Iron down during the Depression as took a lot more manpower to make than steel did.  During WWII a lot of factory production was war focused and again the local smith did a lot of jury rigging. After WWII the USA went into a boom with a lot more folks coming back from the war wanting NEW stuff and money to buy it.  A lot of old smiths were back to more of a subsistence level of work and competing with economies of scale in the factories killed a lot of smiths off---literally, some John Henry'd themselves to death.)

One aspect of the decline in real wrought iron that a lot of folks don't consider is that it's "fussier" to use.  WI Plate has different properties along different axis so you had to keep that in mind and mark the rolling direction.  Practical blacksmithing has several places where they show a method to be used with real wrought iron (like bending a section around and forge welding rather than punching to get an eye as Wi would be more prone to splitting along the axis of the ferrous silicate spicules. Factories hate fussiness; they would prefer NOT to have the need for folks to be aware and think.  Mild steel has a lot less fussiness in it's use.

[jlpservicesinc]

TP,   I like talking about this stuff.. yes there were still a lot of smiths around..  Even up till the mid 70's and even into the 80s in other location there were industrial smiths.. 

 

In Gilbertville, MA  1820  there were 3 smiths in just this town of a about 1000 people. .  There were another 4 in the center of town ( we have a Main town with villages in it).. But by the 1960s there was only 1 and he worked for the remaining mill..    By 1930 the mills in Town had all ready closed and moved work Down south..  He went the way of the Machinist with only an occasional Blacksmithing job.. 

By 1938 there was a huge flood and it destroyed a lot of the mills as well as a lot of the industries along the river..   They never rebuilt and instead of making product they switched over to storage and the like.. 

My point was that after this time frame as the automobile and other avenues moved people from the country into the cities in search of work and a higher wage, the blacksmiths changed from blacksmithing  to being mechanics  or machinist..  The Farrier or general blacksmtihing scene started to shrink up quickly with the switch to Auto's..   And  as you pointed out  Steel didn't care about how it was handled and with mass production it really changed the landscape. 

it doesn't mean they were gone over night.. It means as with anything the phasing out was taking hold every where..    

It seems quite clear that when they also switched from rivets to welding that wrought iron also moved out, as wrought iron took more to weld in order for it to be a sound joint.. The other problem was Cold short vs Hot short wrought iron..   I read a few A0 welding manuals from 1920s and one again in the late 40s.. The early manual spent a bit of time with wrought iron and things to expect.. The later manual still had wrought iron in it, but it all ready stated it was being phased out and would more rare to see in commercial welding ventures. 

Not sure if I posted the pictures here but back in 1924.. A company was running and electric turbine to power their mill..  The original casing from what I was told was a wooden hoop barrel affair It was replaced in the 30's with a welded hoop affair..  But all  the turbine tubes and inducer and exducer  were rolled wrought iron sheet with Rivets..  

I'm just kind of geeky about this older stuff...  

 

[ThomasPowers]

Neat; 

Remember though that MOST blacksmiths were not rural smiths; folks tend to think that way but (as you pointed out) pretty much every industry had a smith on the payroll somewhere.  The early car repair places used smithing, sugar refineries had smiths, glass factories had smiths. Prisons had smiths too.  I even got to talk with a WWII orthopedic smith who worked in the basement of a big hospital in Columbus Ohio.  I guess since they were buried in the factory they don't show up on peoples radar as much as the old standalone shop in a small town or village. (The examples I used were places that I have seen---often at shutting down auctions--- or had relatives that were involved or had talked with the smith(s) themselves.)