See also my earlier reply
William Wood's efforts produced something that he called raw iron. Even
when forged this was black on the facture and brittle. It was supposed to
be bar iron, but (at best) was usually poor quality, though there were some
testimonies that it was alright. I was looking at original documents on
this yesterday and hope to deal with this in an article in due course;
suffice it to say that this is irrelevant to the subject under discussion.
There were air furnaces at Coalbrookdale for foundry work by 1718, and these
certainly used coal as fuel. This would be for heat only as there is no
contact between fuel and metal in such a furnace.
I have little doubt that canals would have been used to transport charcoal
if there was a canal available, but the canal era in Britain only began as
the charcoal era was (for the most part) ending. My impression is that
charcoal was usually gathered within a radius of about 5 miles for an
ironworks, but the limitation was more the cost of transport than
friability: See G. Hammersley in Economic History Review c.1973. Examples
can be found of it coming from further afield. I can think of one case in
Shropshire of a charcoal purchase that might have been carried on the river
Severn in the 1670s, but this would only work if there was a convenient
navigable river; and they were few in number.
There was a foundry in London in the 1700s, where the usual domestic fuel
was coal. Abraham Darby had one at Bristol in the same decade. However,
urban foundries were scarce in this period. They did not become prevalent
until end of 18C or early 19C. These probably had small foundry cupolas,
but I am not clear how they were blown.
Peter King
49, Stourbridge Road,
Hagley,
Stourbridge
West Midlands
DY9 0QS
01562-720368
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-----Original Message-----
From: Arch-Metals Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of
James Brothers
Sent: 04 July 2008 18:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Early Use of Coal in Foundries
I've encountered much the same problem. While the history of smelting
is covered, no one seems especially interested in the history of
foundries. Happy to talk about contemporary technology, but what got
them there. About all that I have found that is "early" is discussions
of the failed attempts of William Wood to use a coal fired air furnace
to smelt iron. Which again is smelting not foundry.
While thinking over the problem it also became clear that with the
advent of the use of steam power and the building of ironworks off
rivers coal would be increasingly necessary as a fuel. Foundries built
in cities must have used coal or coke, because until the railroads
built special cars to transport charcoal it was too friable to move
more than a few miles. So any foundry that is not in the middle of a
forest, must have used coal.
I also don't know much about the transport of charcoal by canal. While
moving charcoal by wagon resulted in charcoal dust, it must have been
possible to move in in barges? Anyone have data on the transport of
charcoal by barge in the 17-19th centuries?
On Jul 3, 2008, at 11:22 PM, Peter Hutchison wrote:
> I do not have information earlier than 1908. In "Iron" by T.Turner
> he states
> that hard coke is usually used as the fuel in a cupola, though
> occasionally
> gaseous or charcoal is employed. There s nothing further.
>
> Peter Hutchison
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