>19th century wrought iron and medieval wrought iron are quite different.
>Most 19th century wrought iron was a fairly cheap mass produced product.
>Medieval wrought iron was an expensive craft product. It was probably a
>matter of careful attention to the production variables such as the ore
>used, the charcoal, and the temperature at which the bloom was made and
>forged. The final test was probably to try a bit. Like all Medieval crafts
>almost nothing was written down perhaps because the craftmen could not read
>or write.
>
>I expect there were horses for courses. The wire drawers would know or
>employ a smith who usually produced the right quality. Drawn wire is, of
>course, quite different from the sizing operation you have described. I do
>not see how you would tell whether the base material was slit from a plate
>by examining the finished wire.
You are of course correct Peter and unfortunately the 19th century sources
of wrought iron I have tried are to brittle for wire drawing.
To quote Dr. Cyril Smith .. "medieval bloomery wherein the ore was reduced
directly to metallic iron in spongy aggregationwithout everhaving
beenheavily carburized or melted." This source was then refined in the
forge under the hammer to drive out impurities. The smith must have had a
methodology that he followed to make the higher quality iron for drawing.
Some how he must have been able to either tell by testing whether the
product was suitable. Perhaps he simply tried a bending or drawing test.
As to your question on telling whether the maille came from slitted source
material. You can tell part of the time. If the mail consists of round
wire and you do a cross section that shows slag stringers running non
circumferentially then you know the wire was shapped by abbrasion or perhaps
forging rather than drawing.
For maille with a flattened cross-section the above method applies. In
addition there is evidence which I am researching further and which is also
found in Smiths's mettalurgical analysis on Maille in "Technology and
Culture" 1959 that artifacts of the drawing operation remain that show a cut
strip was cleaned up in drawing dies but not drawn fully round.
What I am not sure of at this point is whether it is possible to distinguish
between a strip cut or sheared from the sheet and then cleaned up vs a strip
forged to size and then cleaned up.
Regards,
Mark
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