im going to hazzard that either this isnt actually âironâ iron, or if it is this will be one brittle fence
as theyre pouring it as a liquid and its actually -flowing- iron would have to be around 3,000 degrees F, or around 1,600 C. normal âcast ironâ is rather brittle, which is why most iron fences were âwrought ironâ as in they were extruded and hammered into bars and then hammered into shape.
the way to counter this would be to anneal it by only allowing the temperature to lower slowly over the course of, say for something this size, about three days. i can asess this isnt the case as live humans are present so the temperature of the room as a whole has to be somewhere below the boiling point
these two points are dude to the nature of iron- as all metals it has a crystal latice structure when solid, which gives metal their strength, however moreso then other metals iron and iron based alloys have a wildly different crystal structure and grain size (yes, grain like the grain of wood) which relies on things like max temperature, the rate of cooling, alloy metals, pressure, and so fourth. knowing the hundred bullshit ways to screw with the grain is how we do absolutely bonkers stuff with ferrous compounds
consider history- there was the stone age, the bronze age, and then the iron age. iron is the fourth most common metal on earth (any more common metals were not usable untill the electric arc furnace, such as alluminum) whereas copper is the 26th most common- therefore why was the bronze age before the iron age? because iron was extremely difficult to turn into a usable metal until the development of far better furnaces just to get it red hot and kinda soft, known as âbloomery ironâ or âtamahaganaeâ if you live in japan- iron so impure you have to hammer it for days to remove all the residual crap that was still in the sponge of hot metal.
you may notice in this diagram your iron basically sits dirrectly on top of the charcoal for most of the history of iron, and âsponge is the right word.
after much development of bloomery furnaces a hotter method was invented to make âpig ironâ; reaching an almost liquid state where it could be poured into bar molds like honey.
this was not exactly easy as anyone who has seen princess mononoke knows, and still the iron was fairly shit although vastly superior to the bloomery process. only small ammounts could be produced and what you did make was expensive due to the process. in greece for example during the afforementioned âbronze ageâ iron tools existed, but were considered too valuable to use for weapons or armor which would be broken, lost, or siezed by an enemy. theyd rather make saws and chisels which could be handed down for several generations with what was to them a legendary metal. it wasnt untill the development of the blast furnace where heat retention and bellows were upgraded to actually create fully liquid iron for the first time- iron being fully liquid allows all the impurities stated before to just float off as a surface skum instead of having to be hammered out
this is where we have what we today would actually call âironâ yet it still being unusable in its present form- it would produce fairly brittle bars of mostly pure Fe, with a crystal structure similar to that of a distressed saltine cracker.
because liquid iron that was cooled to room temperature, which is why shit like this in movies
looks fucking cool but would result in a sword that would snap in half when you swing it. not even wait till you hit something, it would snap in midair
and thats currently where the above fence would be- fully liquid cast iron cooled quickly enough it becomes a brittle crystal, you could snap bits off by hitting it with a baseball bat.
ive actually seen people do things like this and it had been an issue for a LONG time that many things were made of cast iron because it was the only way to make things of a certain size and shape, but they broke very easily- for example cast iron ploughs, which would crack when farmers hit a largish stone and then you had to drag your plough to a blacksmith. by replacing a fully cast iron plough with a plough that if the cast iron cracked you could remove and replace that part with a new one, and have the far smaller one repaired while you went back to work
earlier i used the word âannealâ, one of the âhundred ways to bullshit with ironâ i mentioned, where by raising the irons temperature and then cooling it very sloooowly the crystal structure is very minimal, resulting in a soft metal that is far more impact resistant. which COULD be an option, provided they lower they temperature of that metal by less then a hundred degrees every 2-3 hours. typically annealing is done by just leaving a metal item IN the furnace but turning the heat off and then going home for the weekend. even leaving the furnace door open would be cooling too quickly. again im going to say this is not what theyre doing as live human beings are present so during the gif alone the temperature fo that metal has dropped at least 500 degrees
so how do you make iron that isnt brittle? you do this
all the earlier âimpuritiesâ talk- the sparks flying are the impurities leaving the metal, this his how before actually properly smelted pure iron you actually got to make a usable tool. hammering the still hot metal also changes how the metal is formed on the inside, no not by folding but simply by adding pressure to squeeze everything into alginment. but we today dont have a whole lot of blacksmits because weve instead changed to putting the metal through satans own playdough machine
no, wait, not enough satan
THERE we go
so now with our knowlege of infernal devices just spitting out refined metal, and by quality control of knowing what goes in we can do some dark wizardy in alloy production that would require me a week, overhead projector, and assorted test samples to demonstrate why i have to specifically use the word âbullshitâ for what you can do with iron.
how ive seen wrought iron fences made- you aquire some of the iron billets produced by the machinery, cut them to lengths, heat untill glowing, and make like a fire god shaping hard candy. theres even tools specifically for this
it is however entirely possible that the fence they poured wasnt made out of actual iron (or is but it is in fact stupid brittle), or perhaps some alloy that will not become brittile or explode by doing it that way. im leaning more towards this but then it raises more questions as to what material they chose. if i could see the finished product i could probably answer that, but at that point you could just ask someone what they did
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