Does anyone know how wrought iron came to be used by peple...historically?

[LARRYZ10]

Does anyone know how wrought iron came to be discovered and used by people for tools and weapons? I would love to know how it differs from modern steel and how it was originally made into tools. Larry

 

[Lieblad]

One of the eariliest sources was found as bog iron. Iron nodules concetrated by being precipated out of groundwater.
Mr Google can tell you all you could ever want to know about differences and history of iron & steel.

 

[LARRYZ10]

One of the eariliest sources was found as bog iron. Iron nodules concetrated by being precipated out of groundwater.
Mr Google can tell you all you could ever want to know about differences and history of iron & steel.

Thanks, I saw one knife maker who pulls iron out of a lake ,and wondered how you would make a tool from it. I will google it as you suggested. Thanks, Larry

 

[Tenebr0s]

You might want to google Lee Sauder, who specializes in smelting bloomery iron with charcoal. He has lots of videos of the process.

Also, this is really cool:

 

[skillgannon]

It's my understanding that prior to the Bessemer process steel was never easy to come by. You can look that up. The Bessemer process was a significant factor in fueling the industrial revolution. Making iron was a lot easier than making steel before that time. It also could be done in much larger batches. Steel is iron with the right amount of carbon added and that is difficult to maintain with primitive smelting methods. I hope this is kinda what you were asking. If it is then try looking up the difference between wrought iron and steel then bloomery smelting and the Bessemer process . That should give you a good starting point to go find out any more specific points.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Wrought iron is just what the name says - iron that has been worked ... or wrought. ( Wrought is the old irregular past tense of work. Today we say worked.)

In the beginning of the iron age, iron in the form of bog iron and other nodules, as well as meteorite iron wasused as found, and merelypounded or shaped into a usable implement.

When iron was smelted later on, it had to be heated and pounded, folded and re-worked ( wrought) and then hammered into the shape needed. Improvements in this method caused the iron to pick up some silica from the fine feldspar sand used in the smelting process and as a welding flux. These stringers are the thing that gives wrought iron its pattern. The folding and strigers make the WI fibrous, and stronger.

WI was worked in the early middle ages to some degree, but it wasn't until the 1600's that it became a common thing. In the 1800's the bloomery process of smelting iron made it possible to make what we call wrought iron today.

Wrought iron has nearly no carbon, and while tough, it is soft. Adding carbon was difficult before the modernization of the steel industry *(Bessemer process) came about in the late 1800's.

I have the utmost respect for the ancient smiths who smelted their own iron into a bloom, then worked carbon into it and made that ugly ball of slag into a perfect war weapon, or strong and sharp tool. They had no power but arms, and no technology but the lore taught by their predecessors. They neither understood metallurgy, or even knew about atoms, or alloying. What they had was perseverance and time.

 

[skillgannon]

This is a pretty decent video even though it's talking about the theoretical origin of Damascus steel.

 

[dirc]

small but very interesting fact: a high % of ancient iron weapons are meteor based:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoric_iron
Dated to around 1350 BC, an iron dagger, bracelet and headrest from the tomb of Tutankhamun were confirmed to be meteoritic in origin. The Tutankhamun dagger consists of similar proportions of metals (iron, nickel and cobalt) to a meteorite discovered in the area, deposited by an ancient meteor shower.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440317301322?via=ihub

 

[kuraki]

It varied greatly depending on geography and the iron available. It was likely developed by multiple cultures independent of each other due to those geographical restrictions. Bog iron being the most common. And whatever the source, the requirement to work it for reduction and refinement.

 

[Horsewright]

So someone that wrought on something specific was a wright. So you had boatwright, cartwright, wheelwright, Horsewright... where have I heard that one before.... Cool question Larry.

 

[kuraki]

That's interesting. I was thinking about the etymology of millwright the other day. That makes a lot of sense.

 

[Horsewright]

There ya go but my autocorrect was sure trying to change everything I was typing. My tablet needs a classical English course.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

You got it!

In german, the word is hower as in Eisenhower - Iron worker
The other German word is smied, where we get schmidt - metal worker
The Old English word (from Old German) was smid/smit/smith - metal worker

 

[Salem Straub]

Hower is "hewer", thus Eisenhower means iron "hewer" or chiseller, possibly a proto-machinist or engraver.
Schmied is the German version of "smith" from smite. So "schmied" is used sort of like "smith" in English, as shorthand for a blacksmith. So it means one who strikes the steel, a forger predominantly.

As far as wrought iron, Stacy's got it- "wrought" meaning worked, that being the product of bloom smelting in which iron ore is heated to a state less than fully melted, the impurities melt and run off as slag, and the resulting "bloom" or crusty wad of iron is then processed by repeated stacking and welding until more homogeneous. Steel first came about as an often unintentional product, where the ore charge had been in contact with the carboniferous fuel charge (charcoal) at temperature for long enough. Early iron-age sword smiths, for instance, would prefer to work-harden (cold-hammer) the edges of a soft iron blade, much like peak bronze-age weapon smithing techniques. If what you wanted was tough, soft, malleable wrought iron than the steel parts of a bloom might be subjected to secondary processing to burn the unwanted carbon back out again- or if steel was wanted, the lower carbon parts of a bloom could be subjected to secondary carburizing processes involving further heating in proximity with carbon fuels and/or packing. Blister steels, and then shear and double shear steels, or the Japanese oroshigane, are examples of this as well as "Aristotle furnace" processing.
This is why bloom smelting furnaces such as tatara have a relatively tall stack... the ore and fuel have longer together at heat as they sink down the inside over the course of a smelt, giving a primary product of mostly rough steel.
Later in the 1800's, and actually in the first part of the 20th century, wrought iron began to be made from bessemer steel, subsequently decarburized and with precise amount of silicaceous slag entrained as a secondary process. It was used in areas where its extreme ductility and corrosion resistance made it the best choice for a given application, such as in steam boiler tubes with flanged ends, or in various marine duties.

 

[skillgannon]

Hower is "hewer", thus Eisenhower means iron "hewer" or chiseller, possibly a proto-machinist or engraver.
Schmied is the German version of "smith" from smite. So "schmied" is used sort of like "smith" in English, as shorthand for a blacksmith. So it means one who strikes the steel, a forger predominantly.

As far as wrought iron, Stacy's got it- "wrought" meaning worked, that being the product of bloom smelting in which iron ore is heated to a state less than fully melted, the impurities melt and run off as slag, and the resulting "bloom" or crusty wad of iron is then processed by repeated stacking and welding until more homogeneous. Steel first came about as an often unintentional product, where the ore charge had been in contact with the carboniferous fuel charge (charcoal) at temperature for long enough. Early iron-age sword smiths, for instance, would prefer to work-harden (cold-hammer) the edges of a soft iron blade, much like peak bronze-age weapon smithing techniques. If what you wanted was tough, soft, malleable wrought iron than the steel parts of a bloom might be subjected to secondary processing to burn the unwanted carbon back out again- or if steel was wanted, the lower carbon parts of a bloom could be subjected to secondary carburizing processes involving further heating in proximity with carbon fuels and/or packing. Blister steels, and then shear and double shear steels, or the Japanese oroshigane, are examples of this as well as "Aristotle furnace" processing.
This is why bloom smelting furnaces such as tatara have a relatively tall stack... the ore and fuel have longer together at heat as they sink down the inside over the course of a smelt, giving a primary product of mostly rough steel.
Later in the 1800's, and actually in the first part of the 20th century, wrought iron began to be made from bessemer steel, subsequently decarburized and with precise amount of silicaceous slag entrained as a secondary process. It was used in areas where its extreme ductility and corrosion resistance made it the best choice for a given application, such as in steam boiler tubes with flanged ends, or in various marine duties.

I know that the wrought iron workers were the older industry at the Carnegie mills and they were considered much more skilled and received higher pay. At the start of the railroad boom rails were made with WI and it put a lot of limits on the speed the new technology could grow. Carnegie tried buying a proccess for putting steel caps on the rails but it didn't work well. The Bessemer process changed everything. Not only did it make steel cheaper production was way higher. It's a funny thought process by modern standards with thinking that inflation is normal but with the increased production the wages were lowered because not only did they need less skill but products could be bought cheaper. The investment was considered to be something that should only benefit the company because it was their investment and now people didn't need to learn as much so it was better for the employees. Deflation seemed the natural response to productivity gains. I'm heading for the weeds I know lol. It's just fun looking back and realizing that things we think are facts of life would be foreign to people a hundred years ago.

Does anyone have any good links to pictures of iron or steel making prior to the industrial revolution ?