When was angle iron invented

There are varieties that are designed to support walls, shelves, and columns. Most of us think of the ones that we see at the local home improvement store. Though that type is very useful, the main and important use of them is in construction with different lengths serving various purposes. The majority of angle irons are made from galvanized steel, which is resistant to oxidation or rusting. Galvanizing is a protective process where the steel angle iron is dipped in a tub of zinc, which protects the angle iron from rust and prevents corrosion.

As long as the zinc remains coupled to the steel, it will continue to protect it even if portions of the zinc wears off. You can purchase angle irons in three different kinds — with nonadjustable holes, without holes, and with adjustable holes.

The nonadjustable holes version can have as many holes as the length of the placement requires. Ones without holes can have holes drilled where they are needed. Adjustable holes angle irons are used where the angle iron may need to be shifted slightly to fit properly. The purpose of angle iron is to offer extra support in situations where two materials meet at a right angle.

It is capable of bearing weight from the top or side regardless of the force that is applied. When holding an angle iron, regardless of its length, it may not feel sturdy enough for that purpose. Ask the Editors 'Everyday' vs. What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'? How 'literally' can mean "figuratively". Literally How to use a word that literally drives some pe Is Singular 'They' a Better Choice? The awkward case of 'his or her'.

Take the quiz. It looked just like the metal from heaven—and it was, but something was different. The iron was mixed with stones and minerals, lumped together as ore. To remove iron from the subterranean realms was to tempt the spirit world, so the first miners conducted rituals to placate the higher powers before digging out the ore, according to the book The Forge and the Crucible. But pulling iron ore from the Earth was only half the battle.

It took the ancient world another years to figure out how to separate the precious metal from its ore. Only then would the Bronze Age truly end and the Iron Age begin. To know steel, we must first understand iron, for the metals are nearly one and the same. Steel contains an iron concentration of 98 to 99 percent or more.

In the centuries and millennia before the breakthroughs that built skyscrapers, civilizations tweaked and tinkered with smelting techniques to make iron, creeping ever closer to steel. Around 1, BC, a people along the Black Sea called the Chalybes wanted to fabricate a metal stronger than bronze—something that could be used to make unrivaled weapons. They put iron ores into hearths, hammered them, and fired them for softening.

After repeating the process several times, the Chalybes pulled sturdy iron weapons from the forge. What the Chalybes made is called wrought iron, one of a couple major precursors to modern steel. They soon joined the warlike Hittites, creating one of the most powerful armies in ancient history. Beginning around BC, Chinese metalworkers built seven-foot-tall furnaces to burn larger quantities of iron and wood.

The material was smelted into a liquid and poured into carved molds, taking the shape of cooking tools and statues. Neither wrought nor cast iron was quite the perfect mixture, though.

Chinese cast iron, with 2 to 4 percent carbon, was more brittle than steel. The smiths of the Black Sea eventually began to insert iron bars into piles of white-hot charcoal, which created steel-coated wrought iron. But a society in South Asia had a better idea. India would produce the first true steel. Around BC, Indian metalworkers invented a smelting method that happened to bond the perfect amount of carbon to iron.

The key was a clay receptacle for the molten metal: a crucible. The workers put small wrought iron bars and charcoal bits into the crucibles, then sealed the containers and inserted them into a furnace. When they raised the furnace temperature via air blasts from bellows, the wrought iron melted and absorbed the carbon in the charcoal. When the crucibles cooled, ingots of pure steel lay inside.

Indian steel made it all the way to Toledo, Spain, where smiths hammered out swords for the Roman army. In shipments to Rome itself, Abyssinian traders from the Ethiopian Empire served as deceitful middlemen, deliberately misinforming the Romans that the steel was from Seres, the Latin word for China, so Rome would think that the steel came from a place too distant to conquer.

The Romans called their purchase Seric steel and used it for basic tools and construction equipment in addition to weaponry. The fiercest warriors in the world would now carry steel. According to legend, the great sword Excalibur was imposing and beautiful.

The word means "cut-steel. From the age of King Arthur through Medieval times, Europe lagged behind in iron and steel production. As the Roman Empire fell officially in , Europe spun into chaos. Knights brandished specially crafted swords. They were forged by twisting rods of iron, a process that left unique herringbone and braided patterns in the blades. The best swords in the world, however, were made on the other side of the planet. Japanese smiths forging blades for the samurai developed a masterful technique to create light, deadly sharp blades.

The weapons became heirlooms, passed down through generations, and few gifts in Japan were greater. The forging of a katana was an intricate and ritualized affair. Japanese smiths washed themselves before making a sword. If they were not pure, then evil spirits could enter the blade.

The metal forging began with wrought iron. A chunk of the material was heated with charcoal until it became soft enough to fold. A swordsmith used clay, charcoal, or iron powder for the next step, brushing the material along the blade to shape the final design. Patterns emerged in the steel that were similar to wood grain with swirling knots and ripples. Along the Rhine Valley in present-day Germany, metalworkers developed a contraption that stood about 10 feet high, with two bellows placed at the bottom, to accommodate larger quantities of iron ore and charcoal.

The blast furnace got blazing hot, the iron absorbed more carbon than ever, and the mixture turned into cast iron that could be easily poured into a mold. It was the ironmaking process the Chinese had practiced for 1, years—but with a bigger pot.

Workers dug trenches on the foundry floor that branched out from a long central channel, making space for the liquid iron to flow.

The trenches resembled a litter of suckling piglets, and thus a nickname was born: pig iron. Iron innovation came just in time for a Western world at war. The invention of cannons in the 13th century and firearms in the 14th century generated a hunger for metal. Pig iron could be poured right into cannon and gun barrel molds, and Europe started pumping out weapons like never before.

But the iron boom created a problem. As European powers began to stretch their power across the globe, they used up tremendous amounts of timber, both to build ships and to make charcoal for smelting. The British Empire turned to the untapped resources of the New World for a solution and began shipping metal smelted in the American colonies back across the Atlantic.

But smelting iron in the colonies destroyed business for the ironworks in England. Abraham Darby spent much of his childhood working in malt mills, and in the early s, he remembered a technique from his days of grinding barley: roasting coal, a combustible rock. Others had tried smelting iron with coal, but Darby was the first to roast the coal before smelting. Other and further objects of this invention will in part be obvious and will in part be pointed out hereinafter in the specification by reference to the accompanying drawings wherein like parts are represented by like characters throughout the several figures thereof.

Figure l is a side elevational view. Heretofore angular devices known as elbows or angles have been used for holding work in place on the beds of planers, milling machines, etc. When used as a testing device such tools are usually used in connection with surface plates. So far as applicant is aware these angle irons have comprised a body portion having face surfaces meeting at right angles, and having substantially an L-shaped crosssection. So far as applicant is aware angle irons have never been produced with a supporting member integral therewith for strengthening the iron and capable of sup-- porting the iron in various positions as may be desired.

The present invention relates to an addition, or an improvement, to the foregoing specified angle irons, which improvement resides more especially in a supporting web having its exterior surfaces lying in planes parallel to the surfaces on the body portion. This type of angle iron is universal, in that it may be effectively used in anyv one of six positions, as represented by the six faces of a parallelepiped.