HISTORY OF IRON CASTING The use of metals through human history has been developing since ancient times,

this story has been studying archeology. Archaeology is a science that studies the behavior of ancient societies as objects and traces left by different cultures, generally, these objects are found underground, this science is to explain the behavior of past civilizations, which helps us to understand the history of most of the technological and natural processes around us. To differentiate important phenomena, archaeologists have divided the history of mankind in ages or eras, these are significant periods of time in which man has undergone major changes, one of the most popular age is called the Stone Age, in this time humans had no knowledge of metals, but they had technological developments in the use and creation of tools made of stone, wood, bones, horns, and other objects, they found ways to carve soapstone with hard rock and thus creating lances that served to defend and hunt, and many other tools that make life easier. Another period of time named, also change the way you view the world was called the Metal Age, this period many times as divided into three stages, Copper Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age, these names tube due to developing each of these metals in each period. The Copper Age, as its name indicates, was a stage of human development, in which the predominant material was copper, although other materials also worked as gold. With these materials began to primarily create jewelry, sculptures and some materials useful to mankind, it is known that in antiquity these materials are worked with forging, that is they were given a harder elements, but copper was a problem because the hammer is hardened and became difficult to work. It is also known, developed a technique easier to handle, which consisted of heating the material so this model was left at room easier than normal, but temperatures that were used were not enough to melt. It is said that the smelter was discovered in Mesopotamia by mistake while preparing copper for the process of hammering. In our era is beginning to develop the copper smelters and its alloys, mainly arsenic and tin, the latter alloy is known as the bronze and its development was the one who started at the age that bears his name. When it began to develop the casting process, the parts were manufactured in molds made in soft stone, as they knew how to work with her and had the tools to carve, mold cavity surface consisted only gave a general to the piece, for example, jewelry, plates were made of gold or copper and then gave them forged circle shape. The furnaces that were used were rudimentary and the fuel used for the smelting process was coal, because enclose reduced heat loss, thus providing high temperatures. The Bronze Age comprises approximately between the years 5000 and 3000 BC As mentioned earlier in this time developed the copper-tin alloy, bronze items found dating from that era, they found a composition of 4% tin, this percentage was

standard, but are also found pieces with 12% or more. This alloy gave better results than the copper-arsenic, as this had better properties, melting point was lower than that of copper alone, also improved strength and surface finish that was reproduced with great precision texture mold, the latter property was very important as the casting process was done mostly to create art and needed to reproduce fine detail. The smelter was moving progressively, largely through the intervention of the church, some sources say that many of the founders of the church were monks, who were dedicated to the art of casting bells, to the great churches and cathedrals, the great demand bells, made the casting out of the artistic field moves to the field of technological processes. After this stage, progress was made in the manufacture of guns, cast the first cannon was built in Ghent, Belgium in 1313, was made by a monk. In the manufacture of these artifacts came a breakthrough in the manufacture of molds, casting made in pits, these were large cavities that were held in front of the oven to facilitate the process of casting, for these objects using a "heart "this serves to shape the piece inside (the soul of the bell and the barrel in this case). When you make the first cannon was found that the roughness of the cannon took away the soul of precision, so this was no good for use over long distances, then sought a solution and it was better if this problem was given to a just to the inside surface of the barrel, this finish were given by machines. This progress allowed some cultures advance faster than others. There is also evidence that the third millennium BC, there were pieces of the lost wax method, were small objects in bronze and silver. It is known that part of the lost wax process, there were other advances in casting molds, but so far no evidence of the type of material used to manufacture them. In the 70's in a dig at England, they found remains of a factory in the Iron Age, it was engaged in the process lost wax casting, making shoe parts in brass and other metal accessories, such as harnesses or parts for carriages. There they found thousands of pieces of molding clay. This suggests that at that time and advances in the smelter were highly developed. The basis of this process has not changed much since ancient times as the casting process can be summarized in 3 steps: Melt the material, empty it into a mold and let cool finally (solidify) has been progressing so are the technologies related to it, that is, all parts and materials concerning this process, for example, mold materials, the type of furnace used, the way of emptying the molten material, the different types of materials that can now be cast and how to solidify the parts. All these parts of the cast, their characteristics, their patterns, their properties will be explained in detail later.