How was the first anvil created? I mean, wouldn’t you need an anvil to hammer out the iron to make the anvil?
a really big bang. i said bang–get it? bang?
I treated Art as the supreme reality, and life as a mere mode of fiction–Oscar Wilde
Yeah, and how come we park…
Yikes, whats that noise…?
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- For most of history iron was too brittle to be hammered into much of any shape - it was and still is generally cast. The reason is that iron cracks easily and also rusts quickly. Moisture gets into the tiny cracks left by bending the metal and it begins to rust from the inside out (sort of).
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- There are alloys available today that are called “malleable iron alloys” but I dunno offhand anything that they’re used for. - MC
On a related note, I’ve always wondered how they make the huge buckets that are used to hold molten metal in manufacturing. What do they melt the metal that will be used to make the bucket in?
I won’t dignify the anvil question - no hard feelings - but I will say that as a child I was convinced that the only way dinosaurs could have become extinct was for the last two to have killed each other at the same time. Any other outcome and there would have to be one left.
Since anvils are cast, not hammered, there’s not much of a paradox here, lumpy. Early anvils were probably rocks, anyway.
Same with the buckets for molten metal. They’re possibly made of stone as well.
But different metals have different melting points, and alloys make them stronger again. (Or weaker, depending)
“Thus spake the man who knoweth null of metallic properties. Thank you.”
-PIGEONMAN-
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When I worked in the steel foundry the buckets for the motel metal were made of steel but lined with firebrick.
“Vandelay!! Say Vandelay!!”
I, too, spent time in a foundry. (Small lot, lost wax.) Our crucible was steel with a ceramic lining.
Tom~
Gee and I thought “motel metal” was the lounge lizard version of Metallica.