A Blacksmith's Dictionary 7 Types of Wrought Iron , or A Short History of Iron Making

[@jace2344]

Dude, this is exactly the info I've been looking for. Lots of words people throw around for wrought iron that are generally worthless if you don't understand the process. Perfect video!

[@danieltokar1000]

Thanks. Daniel

[@brysonalden5414]

Your videos, this one in particular, document aspects of the history of smithing I've not found elsewhere. You have my profound gratitude, sir! I learned some valuable information from this, and whether I end up using wrought more often at least now I know about the processes, which grounds me in a way I wasn't an hour ago. Thanks again!

[@sarahcarter6139]

Daniel is a national treasure.

[@stantilton2191]

A wonderful and very detailed lecture on wrought iron. I thank you.

[@jameshowcroft321]

Thanks Dan that was amazing knowledge, reminded me of my metal work teacher. He was awe and easy to listen to . Thank you, love your videos 🙏👍

[@blackhalo117]

Thank you so much for this explanation, like others have said, the details you provided are hard to come by elsewhere and I'm very grateful for your shared knowledge.

[@judsonsdiscretionarymetalw5866]

Thank you for sharing this. Such knowledge is harder and harder to come by. This helps me better answer customers questions accurately.

[@danieltokar1000]

Hi: Media, movies and TV mostly, don't show people accurate history or real technology. We get fantasy images in games with some truly strange ideas and use of terminology , so it should not be a surprise when our customers don't know what to ask or how long it will take to make their project. That is a good part of why I do these videos. Daniel

[@grandadz_forge]

That was the most informative video on Wrought Iron ever! amazing.

[@robertjohnson9525]

Very informational. 👍

[@valsforge4318]

Exceptional, ty.

[@veteranironoutdoors8320]

Outstanding, this is exactly the kind of information I love to see passed on. I had never heard about the beyer process.

[@danieltokar1000]

Hi: Like many good ideas, making wrought iron by mechanically mixing in slag was developed by a number of people. Byers process was "invented" a half dozen times, Byer was the guy who made it work , so if you run into any of that type of iron it was most likely made by Byer or Lockhart Steel who made it after buying rights to the process. I think Aston in England used a process that was very much the same , but I don't remember the details. Daniel

[@TTTzzzz]

Excellent and thank you! I do hope you make more videos on metallurgy.

[@pivers01]

Quite an interesting and informative video. I watched a series of videos a while back from Joey Van Der Steeg where he was given several samples of wrought iron that were used in different applications, from different countries and different eras, and they all behaved completely different. Without going back and looking, I think he was given 7 samples. While he showed how the different samples forged and behaved, you did a great job explaining why they would have behaved differently.

[@danieltokar1000]

Yes, I think this is a good reason different places were know for doing certain types of work. Toledo in Spain and Solingen in Germany both made good blades mainly by making good metal first. Daniel

[@y-notforge8913]

..Excellent explanation and examples Professor !! i've heard of why some steam engine boiler engineers wanted wrought iron in them rather than more modern types of metal...

[@danieltokar1000]

Wrought iron black pipe was written into some government code books for sprinkler systems , so as far as I know , the last use in large amounts was in the early 1970's government building sprinkler systems. 50 years , and they may be replacing those systems. Just keep your eyes open daniel

[@glenmatthewwilson]

Thank you Dan! Fascinating stuff. I got myself some wrought iron anchor chain, now I'll have to see if I can guess what process it was made from. I hope you can do a video on historical steel making processes one day? I keep wondering about what advantages and disadvantages my modern high carbon steel, made in an electric arc furnace, has over steel made by some cementation process. I could listen to these lectures on iron and steel all day!

[@danieltokar1000]

Hi: Be careful what you wish for, I would have to do a couple to cover the tool steel era. Funny stuff sticks in my brain and sometimes it has to get out , but the big problem is time . Christmas is coming! Will have to do a series of shorter videos, or make videos about the Christmas projects. Daniel

[@KhamusSolo]

thank you sir!

[@jthepickle7]

I'm looking at an advertisement from 1843 from the Albany to Buffalo Line. Albany to Buffalo is 265 miles, as the crow flies. Two rails makes 530 miles of rail. So, how on earth did they make 530 miles of rail 14 years before the Bessemer Process was even patented? And, as you mention, a puddling furnace does not produce steel but softer wrought iron. Would they have made rail out of wrought iron? RSVP Thanks

[@danieltokar1000]

Hi: "blister" steel made by carbonizing iron was what they most likely used for the cap on the rail. Big billets of iron were welded up by making piles of the smaller billets made from the puddled balls and welding using big steam hammers. Weld the steel onto the slab of iron and roll into rail. It helps to remember that rail for those early light trains was small, like 4 inches high and thin in section. Daniel

[@jthepickle7]

@@danieltokar1000 Yes, I remember blister steel from your talk, which I watched in its entirety. I've been looking online and have seen samples of old rail, they weren't 'T' shaped and were held in 'chairs'. I'm a trained welder and have to ask, if a bloomery was not able to reach a temperature to melt iron, while being smaller and the fuel more compact and proximal to the ore, how is it that a puddling furnace was able to do so?

[@danieltokar1000]

@@jthepickle7 Hi: Old rail did evolve a lot before we ended up with the "modern" shape. Not sure of the dates , but early was small ,no matter the shape. The puddling furnace is easy to answer. Bloomeries were making pure iron . It melts at about 2600F. Puddling furnaces were using cast pig iron with a 2-3% Carbon. It melts at 2100F. So as the carbon "burns out" of the pig iron , it's melting point goes up and it freezes to the rod used to stir the melt. This is the reason they made iron instead of steel. There was no easy way to stop halfway. Also why it is easier to "burn" high carbon steel in the forge and very hard to burn cast iron with a torch. In the one case the steel has a lower melting point than mild steel , in the other there is a lot of carbon that has to burn away before the cast burns. Daniel

[@jthepickle7]

@@danieltokar1000 Thanks Daniel. In what sort of furnace were they making pig iron? - if not in a bloomery. I've watched a few videos of people feeding, all day long, a bloomery but never saw anyone take the temperature. How close can one get to 2600* in such a furnace?

[@danieltokar1000]

@@jthepickle7 The big furnaces that replaced the bloomery are the 30 ft high stone ones , like Hopewell Furnace,www.nps.gov/hofu/learn/historyculture/iron-making.htm I did some work for the Park Service for Hopewell Furnace. Made the big chain on the swing arm crane in the casting building. Bloomery operations are small scale, make maybe a Max bloom of 50 lbs. Hopewell made three tons / day of pig iron. If you scale up a bloomery , at some point you make a cast iron furnace, as the temperature can get higher. The high temp is needed to melt the slag, the cast is super heated , 400 F above its melting point , so it can flow out of the furnace like water. Scale is always a problem, bloomery can be done by one or two people, Hopewell needed two hundred workers. Look at my video on " How Many Blacksmiths do you need"

[@jamestregler1584]

WOW great talk as a life long resident of New Orleans I marvel at the old wrought iron in the French Quarter; did some black smithing in college boy do you have to heat up that iron to forge weld way more than mild steel

[@danieltokar1000]

Thanks. Respecting the skills of the past helps understanding why preserving the old work is important. It would be a wonder in any age. Daniel

[@Lmr6973]

Wonderful information thanks a million. By the my wife overheard some of the puddling process and ask me what the hell was I watching! Sorry I had to mention that.

[@danieltokar1000]

Hi: Alice says the same thing . She call it my phosphorous talk, and asks "Who cares about that?" Daniel

[@feasibleable]

Amazing video Thanks! I would love to see you do a lecture on making pre--1840s music wire for pianos. From what I understand it was high phosphorus, zero carbon iron, with little to no slag. Could it be made from bloomery iron in a fining furnace to get rid of the slag? Thanks again great stuff!

[@danieltokar1000]

Hi: Stephen Birkett is the man to ask about piano music wire. He makes phosphorus iron wire for pianos and harpsichords. I do castings for him for copper alloy harpsichord wire. I used to make music wire for early harps, pre 1700's style harps. Daniel

[@feasibleable]

@@danieltokar1000 Yes I know Stephen. I was wondering if you were the one who does some work him! I just figured it would be nice to see a video on how to make it the same way it was done in the 18th century. The historic process of making the iron from scratch is what I find the most fascinating. I am just up in Pittsburgh and would love to come for a visit sometime.

[@danieltokar1000]

Hi: The work with Stephen has been going on for 15 years and we are not done. The shop notes are over 500 pages. I hope he "writes the book" on it when we run out of stuff to try. Marths Goodway did work on early music wire , and I talked with her a couple times about it. The thing I come away with from all that is that it is a complex story with more than a books worth of details. It would be a Very Long Video. Iron making on an small scale is not that hard , but it is like saying that building a log cabin is not that hard. three people working very hard for a week can make 10-20 pounds of iron , say 15-20 hours work / pound of iron. Bigger scale gets the cost down , but it is never "cheap". The iron +P music wire was only possible in that era because it was done at a large enough scale . Pittsburgh is 4 hours away, Brownsville Pa was my home town. Fridays are "circus" day in the shop, I try to get all the visiting and other stuff in one day a week , so as to prevent starvation. I am always interested in what other people know and understand about the old tech. Everyone knows different things , from different viewpoints. Daniel

[@feasibleable]

@@danieltokar1000 Thanks for the reply. I would love to come down and have and talk sometime and see your shop. I specialize in historic methods for tanning leather and have spent the better part of the last 15 years exploring this trade and many other related tangents. I have yet to get into making iron, but I am going to set up a forge soon and want to start learning more. Is there a way for me to contact you on a website somewhere or private message? It would be great to meet up and talk.

[@danieltokar1000]

Yes , The webpage is in the description part of the video, it has email information. KZbin is funny about posting some information on comments, I have seen comments deleted because they contain a link or email address. Daniel

[@bhaktapeter3501]

There was even a time in history when silver was much more valuable then gold. The towns with the silver mines became the most important back then, hence the boom of a place like Kutna Hora in Czech Republic, where my family is from. I find these kinds of things interesting. Iron was also very expensive back in the day, not a cheap metal like today

[@nofunclub]

Subscribed

[@branni6538]

Do you smelt blooms regularly or is it something you've retired from?

[@danieltokar1000]

Hi: Tired from is a better word. It has been more than ten years from the last bloom I made. Back when Wally Yater was chasing Wootz , 1980's , I was excited by his experiments and tried all sorts of early metal working projects. making iron and wootz. The basic problem from my viewpoint is that it cost me too much time away from earning a living. At a bare minimum , setting up a furnace , preparing charcoal and ore and running it all would equal over $3,000 of lost work. Sure people do this on youtube all the time, but they are making enough money from youtube to underwrite such projects. if this is something you want to do, it should not be hard to find a video on doing it, and like I said in my video , there are a large number of variables , so you will have to try stuff to see what works with what you have. Daniel