wrought iron i.d help please

[J.Marsillo]

this is kind of interesting.....I was tilling my garden last year and i unearthed i long peice of iron,i just tossed it aside (not wanting to throw out a perfectly good peice of rusty metal ) i just stumbled across it today and i think its wrought iron.its heavily rusted/pitted and it has hot rivets spaced along the whole thing.who knows what the thing started out as,I live on old farm land.
Here's some pictures if anyone can give an opinion.
The cross section looked very fine grained, not like mild steel .

I forged out a peice and etched it to see what that looked like didnt have long to do it the wife was yellin at me
the circle shape is a rivet.

If it is wrought i'm gonna get a metal detector and check for more....maybe i'll find that damn swiss army knife i lost too

 

[Raymond Richard]

About the easiest way to tell if it WI is to cut a piece of it 3/4 to 7/8 of the way threw and bend it. It will most likly brake but if its WI it will look fiberous at the brake.

 

[B Finnigan]

The pitting does not look like wrought but the end grain has enough inclusions that it still could be. If you could grind it lengthwise and etch it that would give a better picture of the grain or lack of. Even if it isn't wrought it will still have enough character to forge/grind into something cool.

My favorite knife is one I forged from a 150 yr old railroad spike. Everything on it, the wrought bolster and the birdseye maple was at least 150 yrs old.

 

[J.Marsillo]

Thanks guys, i'll try tinkering with it tomorrow see what comes to life.This could be bad news for my lawn

 

[JCaswell]

I agree that a handy way to tell is by cutting about half way through a piece and bending it back so that there is some 'tearing' of the grain. WI (at least the courser stuff used in bridges, etc. is very grainy and different from what you would experience with mild steel.
From the pictures (especially that of the forging), I would guess it is WI. This is because I seem to recognize those long grainy inclusions running in a particular direction. Here is a link to a dagger I made a while ago. I forged the cross and pommel from WI and etched it in ferric chloride, which enhanced that directional graininess, though it was visible before etching.

http://www.caswellstudios.com/SwordPages/BodyPages/Enlarged/12-7-03/Daggers/5.html

Hope this helps!

 

[J.Marsillo]

thanks Jcaswell :thumbup:
that dagger is beautiful
I'm gonna play with this stuff today,like BFinnigan said it does have nice character. it'll make a nice pommel cap or something today