[TheForge] Identifying Wrought Iron

[Jonathan Barnhart]

Well, most of the wrought I've ever salvaged was old
bars that were used as supports in old boat and river
barge docks.  This stuff is usually pretty rusty and
you can usually see the grain exposed on the side.  I
seem to remember reading somewhere that you can bend
the metal and it will begin to crack at some point and
show the grain sort of like a metal version of a
broken tree branch.  Plus, I steel versus iron had a
differant sound when you strike them on a solid
surface.  That the bar and tap it on a concrete floor
and listen to the ring.  If I remember right steel has
a ring and iron has more of a thunk or a thud.  I also
know that if you have acid set up to etch steel(such
as what you'd use to show pattern on pattern welded
material) that you can etch it a little while and it
will show the grain.  
--- Jim Beard <regionalchaos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Howdy Kind Folks!
> 
> Now that the domain is working again...  I had a
> question about
> identifying wrought iron.  Whats the best way to go
> about it?  I'm
> assuming you want to be able to see the grain to
> actually tell, so cutting it would likely be the
> easiest way?  What
> about filing down the surface?  Would that expose
> grains in wrought if
> they were there?
> 
> I'm rather new to smithing (being beating hot iron
> once a week or so
> for the last year at a friends forge) and as such
> don't have much
> experience identifying metals.  Last week however, I
> was out at the
> local steel scrap yard (I try to go once a month or
> so), and found a
> few large chain links.  The links were over a foot
> or more long, and
> the metal was about 1.5" in diameter.  The metal had
> been painted over
> (i think) and was covered in a thick layer of dirt. 
> I couldn't really
> see the surface of the metal.  However, it did seem
> like it had a
> grain to it.  Almost like the surface was one of a
> tree branch.  The
> links look like they had been lap welded on one end
> (as opposed to the
> middle of a side, which is what I have seen examples
> of..).  Anyway, I
> wondered if these were old Wrought Iron links..
> 
> Also (I'm sure this is a can of worms here) but I've
> read some
> information about Wrought that says it was not as
> nice to forge as
> mild steel, yet I hear smiths talk about finding it
> and liking it too,
> so I'm a bit confused.  Is it easy / hard / fun /
> boring to forge
> with?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Jim
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