Metallurgy for the

Non Metallurgist

Lesson 1
A History of Metals
October 02, 2008

Richard Boswell, P.E.

Mechanical Engineer
Blacksmith

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 A History of Metals

ƒ Upon completion of the lesson, we will be

able to:
– Summarize the history of metallurgy from ancient
to modern times.
– Define metal, ore, alloy, refining and smelting.
– Outline the relative availability of specific metals.

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 Our Reference
Document for this
class

ASM Course 0135

Lesson 1

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 Terminology
ƒ Metal – a mineral or compound naturally occurring near the Earth
surface and is sometimes described as a lattice of positive ions
surrounded by a cloud of delocalized electrons. An element that
readily loses electrons to form positive ions (cations) and forms
metallic bonds between other metal atoms

ƒ Ore – a volume of rock containing components or minerals that

have economic value

ƒ Alloy – combination of metals by melting (naturally or intended)

ƒ Refining – selective removal of metal from ore

ƒ Smelting – extracting metal from ore by heating

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 History of Metals

ƒ What is a metal?
– Opaque, lustrous element that is a good conductor
of electricity and heat and a good reflector of light
when polished.
– Crystalline in the solid state
– Solid at ambient temperatures
o Except for Mercury

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Polished low alloy steel showing light reflection
 History of Metals
ƒ Ancient Metals
– Most metals naturally occur as minerals or
compounds
– Ancient man used Gold, Silver or Copper because
they naturally existed in the form of metals
– Copper ore reduction from copper sulfides
(covellite and malachite) began between 4000 and
3000 B.C.
– Two important ancient discoveries…..
o Metal could be obtained from ores by heating

o Strength could be increased by hammering

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 History of Metals

ƒ Bronze Age
– Addition of tin to copper to form bronze
o ~ 88% Cu -12% Sn
– By 3000 B. C. ancient metallurgists had learned to
intentionally mix ores of copper and tin to produce
bronze, similar to today’s composition.

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 Metals of Antiquity

The metals upon which civilization was based. These seven metals
were:
(1) Gold – 6000 BC
(2) Copper – 4200 BC
(3) Silver – 4000 BC
(4) Lead – 3500 BC
(5) Tin -1750 BC
(6) Iron, smelted -1500 BC
(7) Mercury – 750 BC

These metals were known to the Mesopotamians, Egyptians,

Greeks and the Romans. Of the seven metals, five can be found
in their native states, e.g., gold, silver, copper, iron (from
meteors) and mercury.

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T
I
M
E
L
I
N
E

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 Time-Life
Books
Emergence of
Man

The
Metalsmiths
1974

Fifth Century B.C.

Smiths forging
sickle at La Tene
in Lower Austria
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 Smiths
forge at
La Tene in
Lower
Austria
was used
2500
years ago

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 Celtic tools from
La Tene were used
2500 years ago

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 Technology Distribution Part 1

Celtic Iron Age technology is commonly considered to begin around 1000 B.C. and
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lasting through 100 A.D. in Celtic Britain and ended with the arrival of Roman
influence.
 The Advent of Iron in Celtic Briton

ƒ The use of iron had amazing repercussions.

ƒ First, it changed trade and fostered local
independence.
ƒ Trade was essential during the Bronze Age,
for not every area was naturally endowed
with the necessary ores to make bronze.
ƒ Iron, on the other hand, was relatively cheap
and available almost everywhere.

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 And then…..more technology distribution
….and removal
ƒ Roman influence shaped the world until
the “Barbarian” invasions changed it again,
and again…
– Goths
– Huns
– Vandals
– Viking
– (Crusades)
– Mongols

ƒ In England the Viking Age began

dramatically on January 6, 793 when
Norsemen destroyed the abbey on
Lindisfarne, a center of learning famous
across the continent.

ƒ The Vikings who invaded western and

eastern Europe were chiefly from
Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They also
settled the Faroe Islands, Iceland,
Greenland and (briefly) North America.

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/bog_iron.htm

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 Old World
Metal Centers
date to 9500
B.C. and were
either sources
or
manufacturing
sites.

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King Tut
funeral
mask of
beaten
gold.

1343 B.C.

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 Gold,
Silver, and
Electrum
(natural
alloy of
gold and
silver)

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 Multicolored Copper
Components of Bronze (Copper and Tin)

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 Iron,
a metal for the
Masses is
second most
common metal.

Early sources
were meteoric
forms before
smelting
mastered in
1200 B.C.
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 Smelting is Extraction of Metal from Ore

ƒ Smelting is Extraction of Metal from Ore

– Gold – already pure in nature and not extracted
– Silver and Lead – 4000 B.C.
– Tin – 3000 B.C.
– Iron – 2700 B.C.
ƒ Requires a very hot fire
– Technology borrowed from Ceramic/Pottery Crafts?
– Charcoal for fuel
– Air is blown into the fire

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 Common Issues
These seven metals: gold, silver, copper, lead, tin,
mercury and iron, and the alloys bronze and electrum
were the starting point of metallurgy and even in this
simple, historic account we find some of the basic
problems of process metallurgy. The problems are:

ƒ The ores must be found, separated and sized before

use. The ores must be reacted under a controlled
temperature and gas atmosphere.
ƒ The liquid metal must be collected and cast into a
desired shape.
ƒ The metal must be worked to achieve desired final
properties and shape.

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 History of Discovery
Before 1700 there were 12 12 Metals Discovered in 18th
metals in common use: Century:

ƒ Gold ƒ 1735 Cobalt

ƒ Silver ƒ 1751 Nickel
ƒ Copper
ƒ Lead ƒ 1774 Manganese
ƒ Mercury ƒ 1781 Molybdenum
ƒ Iron ƒ 1782 Tellurium
ƒ Tin ƒ 1783 Tungsten
ƒ Platinum
ƒ 1789 Uranium
ƒ Antimony
ƒ Bismuth ƒ 1789 Zirconium
ƒ Zinc ƒ 1791 Titanium
ƒ Arsenic ƒ 1794 Yttrium
ƒ 1797 Berylium
ƒ 1797 Chromium
Before 1805 all metals were reduced by either carbon or hydrogen 24
 42 METALS DISCOVERED IN 19th
CENTURY
ƒ 1801 Niobium
ƒ 1802 Tantalum ƒ 1843 Erbium, Terbium
ƒ 1803 Iridium, ƒ 1844 Ruthenium
Palladium, Rhodium ƒ 1860 Cesium, Rubidium
ƒ 1807 Potassium, ƒ 1861 Thallium
Sodium ƒ 1863 Indium
ƒ 1808 Boron, Barium, ƒ 1875 Gallium
Calcium, Magnesium, ƒ 1878-1885 Holmium, Thulium,
Strontium Scandium, Samarium,
ƒ 1814 Cerium Gadalinium,Praseodynium,
ƒ 1817 Lithium, Neodynium, Dysprosium
Cadmium, Selenium ƒ 1886 Germanium
ƒ 1823 Silicon ƒ 1898 Polonium, Radium
ƒ 1827 Aluminum ƒ 1899 Actinium
ƒ 1828 Thorium
ƒ 1830 Vanadium
ƒ 1839 Lanthanum 25
 20 METALS DISCOVERED IN 20th
CENTURY
ƒ 1901 Europium ƒ Californium
ƒ 1907 Lutetium ƒ Einsteinium
ƒ 1917 Protactinium ƒ Fermium
ƒ 1923 Hafnium ƒ Mendelevium
ƒ 1924 Rhenium ƒ Nobelium
ƒ 1937 Technetium ƒ Lawrencium
ƒ 1939 Francium
ƒ 1945 Promethium
ƒ 1940-61Transuranium
elements
ƒ Neptunium
ƒ Plutonium
ƒ Curium
ƒ Americum
ƒ Berkelium 26
 Civilizations and Eras defined by their
Material Technology
ƒ Stone Age ƒ Age of Steel
ƒ Copper Age
ƒ Petroleum Age
ƒ Bronze Age
ƒ Iron Age ƒ Industrial Age
ƒ Dark Ages ƒ Age of Flight
ƒ Medieval Ages ƒ Space Age -Sputnik
ƒ Modern Metal
ƒ Nuclear Age
Age consists of ƒ Computer Age
many over-
lapping ƒ Composite Material Age
Technical Ages ƒ Nano Tech Age
after 1300 27
ƒ Green Age ?
 Design Technology Change form
Compression to Tension
ƒ With the Industrial Revolution in the
19th century, truss systems of
wrought iron were developed for
larger bridges, but iron did not have
the tensile strength to support large
loads. With the advent of steel,
which has a high tensile strength,
much larger bridges were built,
many using the ideas of Gustave
Eiffel.

ƒ The Eiffel Tower was built for the

International Exhibition of Paris of
1889
ƒ Riveted lattice wind resistant design

ƒ The Forth Bridge is a cantilever

railway bridge over the Firth of
Forth in the east of Scotland
opened in 1890

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 Technologies Fade Away
ƒ Blacksmith
– Essential skills for 12,000 years
– Industrial Age made the skill ‘obsolete’ around 1930
– Smiths migrated into towns and were absorbed by other
industries such as large industrial forge shops and auto
repair garages

ƒ Metallurgy and Materials

– Essential skills for 500 years
– Tomorrow? Will Green Age and composite materials render
metallurgy obsolete?

ƒ Will natural and/or man-made disaster erase today’s

centers of learning and manufacture?

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 Georgius Agricola (1494-1555)
ƒ Georg Bauer, better known by the Latin version of his name Georgius Agricola,
is considered the founder of geology as a discipline.
ƒ He died in 1555, one year before the posthumous publication of De Re
Metallica, his greatest work.
ƒ De Re Metallica (Latin for On the Nature of Metals (Minerals)) is a book
cataloging the state of the art of mining, refining, and smelting metals,
published in 1556.
ƒ The publication was delayed until the completion of the extensive and detailed
woodcuts.
ƒ He describes the method of breaking hard rocks using fire-setting, which
involved making a fire against a rock-face, and then quenching the rock with
water to induce cracking by thermal shock.
ƒ In 1912, the first English translation of De Re Metallica was privately published
in London by subscription. The translators were Herbert Hoover, a mining
engineer (and later President of the United States), and his wife, Lou Henry
Hoover, a geologist and Latinist.
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Bronze Age Weapons

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 Coins
ƒ Romans exported coin technology to
Celtic Britton.
ƒ Currency evolved from two basic A Roman denarius, a standardized
innovations: the use of counters to silver coin.

assure that shipments arrived with the

same goods that were shipped, and
later with the use of silver ingots to
represent stored value in the form of
grain. KINGS of Lydia Electrum coin.
ƒ Both of these developments had Early 6th century BC.

occurred by 2000 BC.

ƒ Originally money was a form of
receipting grain stored in temple
granaries in ancient Egypt and
Mesopotamia.
Gold 20-stater of Eucratides I ( reigned 171–145 BC),
the largest gold coin ever minted in Antiquity 32
 Celtic Metal Art

ƒ La Tène culture developed and

flourished during the late Iron
Age (from 450 BCE to the
Roman conquest in the 1st
century BCE) in eastern France,
Switzerland, Austria, southwest
Germany, the Czech Republic,
Slovakia and Hungary.

ƒ Celtic art in the Middle Ages

was practiced by the Celtic
speaking people of Ireland and
Britain in the 800 year period
from the Roman withdrawal
from Britain in the 5th century,
to the establishment of
Romanesque art in the 12th
century

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ƒ Bronze nails, found in
Egypt, have been dated
3400 BC. Nails
ƒ In 1959 during excavation
of the legionary fortress at
Inchtuthil near Dunkeld,
archaeologists uncovered a
singularly remarkable haul
of a single kind of Roman
artifact from around 83 - 87
AD.
Roman nail
ƒ Located in a twelve foot found in Wales
deep pit below the beaten 19th Century "Square" Nails
earth floor of the workshop
- the Fabrica- was a
remarkable hoard of nails,
over eight hundred
thousand in number, many
in a remarkable state of An original 7" (180mm) long Roman nail found in Scotland
preservation.

ƒ Pig iron was commonly

imported into Roman Britain
from iron producing areas Replica of the hand made nails found on board the 'Mary Rose‘ -
of the empire- notably lower Tudor flag ship of Henry VIII built in 1509
Germany- in small man
hand-able billets.
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 Viking Swords and Utensils
ƒ Viking Age is the
term denoting the
years from about 700
to 1066 in European
history.
ƒ Viking society was
based on agriculture
and trade with other
peoples.
ƒ They ‘acquired’
technology from
around the world.
ƒ Metal crafts in
Scandinavia were of
a very high standard
as regards the
execution and craft
skills.

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 History of Metals

ƒ Iron Smelting
– Iron production began in Anatolia in 2000 B.C.
– Iron production well established by 1000 B.C.
– Widely available sources of charcoal (from wood)
and iron ore caused iron production to spread
widely (in China) by 500 B.C.
– Intentional reduction of iron oxide ore using
charcoal (from wood) was widespread in Egypt by
1500 B. C.
– Egyptians were tempering iron by 900 B.C.

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 History of Metals

ƒ Iron Smelting
– Requires higher temperatures than for lead.
– Involves oxide reduction using carbon in the form
of charcoal or coke to reduce iron oxide to iron,
forming carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
o Carbon serves two purposes
• Reduction agent

• Fuel

o Early furnaces used either natural draft air or forced air.

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 History of Metals

ƒ Iron smelting (hearth processes)

– Early iron process were variations of “closed-pit”
or “hearth” furnaces:
– Used charcoal embedded in iron ore to reduce ore
to iron.
– Incorporated various air blowing techniques to
make a “hot” fire.
o Natural draft and forced draft.

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 Revolutionary Furnace
-1200 B.C. for Egyptian
copper smelting in
Timna in the Negev
Desert

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Making Charcoal – recent technology
method

Air flow in and out of the mud encased pile was controlled and
limited for a slow oxygen starved burn to refine the wood into high 40
carbon charcoal.
 History of Metals

ƒ Iron Smelting (hearth processes)

– Early product of smelting was “wrought” iron.
o Soft, spongy, ductile, low carbon, malleable.
– If carbon absorbed, the iron was somewhat harder
than low carbon wrought iron.
– Quenching to form a hard iron discovered early.

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 History of Metals

ƒ Iron smelting (hearth processes)

– In all furnaces iron oxide was reduced to iron.
– Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide formed.
– Product was “sponge” iron.
o High in carbon, silicon, phosphorous, manganese.
– If sponge iron kept in contact with the charcoal, it
would absorb carbon
o Good or bad?

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 History of Metals

ƒ Iron Smelting
– Modern basic reduced iron is termed “pig” iron.
o Contains significant quantities of carbon, sulfur and
phosphorus.
• Carbon = 3.5% - 4.25%

• Silicon = 1.25% - 1.25%

• Manganese = 0.90% - 2.50%

• Sulfur = 0.04% - 0.04%

• Iron = Balance

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 History of Metals

ƒ Pig iron vs. wrought iron

– Wrought iron is ductile
– Pig iron is brittle
o What element causes the difference?

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Laminating Iron without melting it
– 1000 B.C.

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Laminating Iron without melting it
– 1000 B.C.

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Afgan Silversmith
using historic
technology today

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 Iranian
Coppersmith
using historic
technology
today

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Afgan Iron
Making
using
historic
technology
today for
plowshares

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 Goldworking in
ancient America
2000 years
before Columbus

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 Peru was a
center of
metal
working for
Copper and
Gold using
hammered
sheets before
the Aztecs

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Medieval Smithing in Europe

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 German
Smithing
shown in
1500 A.D.
woodcuts
from
"De Re
Metallicus"
by Agricola

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Smithing in 1500's, from a Flemish woodcut

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From "the Boy's Book
of Trades", 1888

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Colonial Firearms and Artillery

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 Colonial
Kitchen Tools
and all
Hardware for
the Home,
Barn, and
Equipment

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Colonial Smithing at Sturbridge Village

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Colonial Smithing at Williamsburg

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 Colonial Smelting Furnace West Virginia
Small, workable iron veins were
discovered in many areas of West
Virginia, and small furnaces were set
up at these spots for smelting the ore
and manufacturing bar iron for the
pioneer blacksmiths.

Start of Operation: 1836

Blowout: 1847
Daily Tonnage: 4 tons
Built By: Leonard Lamb
for Tassey & Bissel
Stack: ?
Blast: Cold
Type: Charcoal

Located in Cooper's Rock State

Forest just east of Morgantown, West
Virginia 60
 Blast Furnace Operation
ƒ From 1760 to the 1880s,
charcoal fires heated to
temperatures of up to 3,000
degrees with the aid of
water- or steam-powered
fans converted locally
mined ore into iron in at
least 25 locations. Most of
the state's iron furnaces
were found in the
northeastern counties,
where veins containing iron
nodules are relatively
common.

ƒ West Virginia's handful of

furnace operators decided
the effort of building
furnaces and producing the
charcoal and ore needed to
make iron was a better
bargain than paying the
high cost of freighting bar
iron or pig iron from existing
furnaces east of the Blue
Ridge.
ƒ West Virginia iron was used to make everything
from stoves to nails and any number of tools,
cooking utensils and household items that could
be produced by pioneer blacksmiths.
ƒ West Virginia furnaces were also credited with
producing the cannonballs used by Commodore
Oliver H. Perry to defeat a squadron of six
British vessels in the Battle of Lake Erie during 61
the War of 1812.
 Tannehill Ironworks near Birmingham
before Civil War
Trees on the hillsides were felled to be made
into charcoal that fed the huge blast furnaces.
Roupes Creek and a mighty steam engine
powered the blowing machines to heat the
fires that melted ore to be formed into "pigs" of
iron which, in turn, formed the tools of war for
the Confederacy. At the height of production
Tannehill could turn out 22 tons of iron a day.
The iron was cast into ordnance, skillets, pots
and ovens for the Southern army.

On March 31, 1865, it all ended in fire and

destruction. Three companies of the Eighth
Iowa Cavalry swept through the area as a part
of Union General James H. Wilson's raid on
Alabama war industry sites. Smoke rose from
the charred remains of the ironworks and
cabins that housed 500 workers. At day's end
the furnaces were no longer operational, and
the foundry, tannery, gristmill, and tax-in-kind
warehouse were in ruins.

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Tannehill Museum

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Steel Making begins in Birmingham 1897

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Sloss Furnaces
fueled by Coal
in Birmingham,
Alabama

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Sloss Furnaces
once fueled by
Coal are silent
today

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 Vulcan
on Red Mountain in
Birmingham

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Blacksmithing Survives and Thrives
www.habairon.org

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