[TheForge] Re: File Making, sniffing up wrought iron

Mon Mar 24 10:31:52 EST 2008

I can't say exactly where, but I've been present to
digging up and removal from old dock sights on the
Missisippi River.  For that matter anywhere there are
old rotten boat docks, bridges, railroad tressles, and
other similar old wood construction sites that were
held together with metal rods, you can usually find
wrought iron.  

I don't mind hunting for the material since I use it
in limited quantities for decorative purposes(mostly
for the grain it has in the materail).  I find that
the hunting makes the objects made from the iron more
special and thus worth more.  Plus the story of how I
got it makes the buyers more willing to pay for it. 
Since they have a story to share about it with their
friends and family.
--- Andrew Vida <osan at netlabs.net> wrote:

> And where on the coast would this be? :)
> 
> I dug a good 1/4 ton of wrought out of the Columbia
> and Willamette 
> rivers.  There are old docks in Vancouver where they
> used to build the 
> Liberty ships during the war.  I found a lot of dogs
> for sistering up 
> cribbing buried in the sand, as well as chain,
> tooling (with welded 
> bits), tie bolts and other items.  I pounded some of
> it with Ralph 
> Douglas (anyone hear from him?) at his house and got
> no such hints of 
> noxious death from the material, so I suppose the
> salts may indeed have 
> something to do with it.
> 
> Of course, we cannot rule out that most of my
> wrought was found in NJ, 
> pollution capital of the USA.  Who knows what else
> might be on that 
> iron. OTOH, the material I pulled out of the water
> in Philly gives off 
> the same fume as well.
> 
> Just before I left to WA I had the opportunity to
> get a great piece of 
> wrought they dug out of the graveyard in Perth. 
> Looked like 
> triple-refined, judging by the etch - appeared to be
> part of a derrick 
> of some sort - 4 1/2" solid round and perhaps 15 ft
> long, all bent up 
> and somewhere about 800#.  Got the call to go to WA
> on a Friday and was 
> at work the following Monday, so that one got away. 
> Shame, too... 
> looked like prime iron.
> 
> Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer wrote:
> > No odd smells from heating the WI  pulled from a
> 1905 wreck here on the 
> > Pacific coast. It does tend to separate into
> individual fibers unless 
> > worked at a welding heat though.
> > The odd thing about it is that if heated with a
> rosebud and bent with a 
> > bending fork, it cracks at the bend...but does not
> crack when hammered 
> > to the same angle.
> > They used rude 1" hot rivets on 1' centers to hold
> that old hull 
> > together. Now , after more than 100 years of being
> pounded on an 
> > exposed, open ocean beach, parts of it are still
> together...pf
> > 
> > 
> > Larry Brown wrote:
> >>
> >> Speaking from the other side or the Arthur Kill,
> and being 49 I 
> >> remember all sorts of nasty stuff on the beaches
> over the years, being 
> >> cleaner in more recent times. NJ has and had tons
> of nasty chemical 
> >> companies along the eastern NJ boarder with
> Staten Island and NY and 
> >> we had or have the world's biggest dump in the
> marsh along the river.
> >>
> >>  I remember working in Whitte ship scrapyard when
> I was 18 that 
> >> cutting sometimes gave some foul odors, usually
> on the older stuff 
> >> that had been soaking or on the bottom the
> longest. I think the guy 
> >> who repaired the holes in the bottom of the
> barges by welding plates 
> >> between the ribs had very little left in the way
> of vocal cords.
> >> I thought it might be the salt absorbed into the
> metal. I have some 
> >> pieces of WI from old docks and a few just foam
> when heated. I found 
> >> that steel and WI are both affected and have seen
> what looks like a 
> >> crust near the edges after the piece cools when
> you torch cut it. 
> >> Might be on the surface or from within
> >>
> >> Larry BRown
> >>
> >> At 09:26 AM 3/20/2008 -0400, you wrote:
> >>> Speaking of fumes, much of the wrought iron I
> pulled out of Raritan 
> >>> Bay in Perth Amboy gives off a fume that is
> really nasty.  You get 
> >>> the tiniest whiff and everything inside you says
> "NO!".  I have 
> >>> learned to steer clear of this.  Put the iron in
> the fire awhile and 
> >>> let whatever noxious things that are there burn
> off while giving a 
> >>> respectful berth.
> >>>
> >>> What I could not quite figure is what those
> noxious things may have 
> >>> been.  The fumes are most acrid - very harsh on
> the nose, and  
> >>> something of a singular sensation (please, no
> lapsing into "A Chorus 
> >>> Line").  I also notice the occasional strange
> blue flame.  Not like 
> >>> copper, but not like anything else either, of
> which I am familiar.  
> >>> Any ideas?  This iron has lain in the
> brackish-to-salty waters of the 
> >>> bay for at least 50 years, closer to 100 in most
> cases I would 
> >>> imagine - old ship graveyard.
> >>>
> >>>         -Andy
> >>>
> >>> Larry Brown wrote:
> >>>> Thanks for the information in the post, I
> always try to stay away 
> >>>> from the fumes as it stinks, but the cyanide
> information is really 
> >>>> good to be aware of. Don't use it much, got the
> can 2nd hand and 
> >>>> have had it 20+ yrs.
> >>>> Larry Brown
> >>
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> 
> -- 
> 
> 	-Andy V.
> 
> no .sig
> go .fig
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