I’ve heard references to the material a few times, but I’ve never been able to figure out what it was. I always wondered about it…
-Tezza :wally
Might wanna get an alchemi… er… metallurgist to answer this, but, IIRC, it’s iron that has only been extracted from the ore rather than being further refined…
Essentially, you toss your ore into your blast furnace, and cast ingots of pig iron, which you then melt down to make all sorts of useful cast iron products.
From http://www.m-w.com
I think this means the metallic iron that is gained from the ore. It needs to be further refined to be made into something useful.
From brittanica
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/1/0,5716,119871+2+110659,00.html?query=pig%20iron
small portion of article below
The blast furnace appeared in Europe in the 15th century when it was realized that cast iron could be used to make one-piece guns with good pressure-retaining properties, but whether its introduction was due to Chinese influence or was an independent development is unknown. At first, the differences between a blast furnace and a Stückofen were slight. Both had square cross sections, and the main changes required for blast-furnace operation were an increase in the ratio of charcoal to ore in the charge and a taphole for the removal of liquid iron. The product of the blast furnace became known as pig iron from the method of casting, which involved running the liquid into a main channel connected at right angles to a number of shorter channels. The whole arrangement resembled a sow suckling her litter, and so the lengths of solid iron from the shorter channels were known as pigs.
If you have a chance to visit the Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark in Birmingham, AL (and probably at other places too, but this is a nice place and is featured in untold hundreds of high school photography projects) you can see there the sand casting pit with the above-mentioned channels adjacent to the blast furnace and under the casting shed roof. Black455 is correct - the pigs or ingots thus produced were low-grade iron that could be melted and recast as is or, more often, used as a raw material for making high-grade iron, steel, or other alloys.
It’s what you have to pay toll for on the Rock Island Line.
and is often used for ballast in theatre productions, especially for flying effects.
jb