The Iron Bed

Wrought iron furniture is an antique form of furniture design that has never gone out of style. There is a wide range of products available such as beds, chairs and tables, patio furniture, and small accent items such as pot racks, towel bars, shelf brackets, fireplace accents, hat and coat racks, and more. It is possible to decorate with the elegance of wrought iron design everywhere in your home.

There are many styles of iron bed frames available, such as American and European antique reproductions, modern and custom designs, as well as cribs and cradles, childrens' beds and daybeds.

Some companies specialize in restoring real antique cast iron furniture, since items made of this durable material exist dating back to the 1700s and 1800s. Since bed sizes used to be smaller, original twin and full size beds can be converted to king and queen sizes. Many of these antiques are canopy beds, exotic and stylish, especially if draped in fabrics to match the decor of the bedroom.

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The term “wrought” is the archaic past tense of the verb to work. As the English language changed over time, the word has been changed to "worked". Therefore, wrought iron literally means "worked iron". The process of making these products is quite precise and complicated. Some mass-produced, light-weight ornamental metal work is not made of iron, but is actually milled steel.

True wrought iron is a very pure form of commercial iron with a low carbon content. It is tough, bendable and easy to weld. It is too soft to be made into high-quality knives or swords, and rusts easily. For the purpose of weapon-making, societies which discovered how to carbonize iron and mix it with other metals to make steel had a great advantage in warfare over their more primitive neighbors. Because wrought iron is a more basic and universal product, it is the "iron" referred to throughout history.

Archeologists find evidence of iron smelting as far back as 3000 BC in China. Wrought iron was originally made by a method called bloomery. Bloomeries employed small charcoal smelters, often pots or ladles, into which iron ore (iron oxide, or rusted iron) was placed and covered with a thin layer of charcoal. The charcoal was lit and air was blown onto it with a bellows, causing the ore to melt partially. During this process, the oxygen atoms would be released from the iron to bind with the carbon in the charcoal, releasing carbon dioxide which would bubble away. Therefor, little of the carbon entered the melted iron.

Using this old method, the fire does not get hot enough to melt the iron completely, so a spongy mass is produced containing iron and silicates from the ore, called iron bloom, which is how the technique gets its name. The bloom is then manually worked to remove the slag and impurities, giving rise to the term "wrought", as the iron was pounded, twisted, and folded. Hammering a piece of wrought iron compacts the fibers, increasing the strength of the product, though it lacks the carbon content necessary for heat-tempering. During this process, many thin layers of slag are mixed into the metal, producing a distinct "grain", and a fibrous appearance when broken or bent. Old, rusted pieces of wrought iron have a very distinct grain and resemble reddish-brown wood.

Producing iron by hand in a bloomery was a slow, small-scale and labor-intensive process. Iron production began on a much larger scale with the introduction of blast furnaces, which date back to approximately 1100 to 1300 in Europe. These furnaces produce bars of pig iron, a brittle compound with a high carbon content. By the 1750s, a number of oxides had been discovered to remove the carbon as carbon dioxide, similar to the process in a bloomery. Because blast furnaces completely melt the iron, the metal can be molded into cast iron products at this stage. However, cast iron is too brittle to be worked into shapes as is possible with wrought iron.

Wrought iron would be further processed by faggoting, a method whereby the iron bars would be bundled together like sticks of firewood and hammered into one piece, just as iron was worked by hand in medieval times. Each time the iron was folded and stretched, it became a bit stronger. Wrought iron which had been faggoted twice was referred to as "Best", and had a tensile strength of 23 tons per square inch; if faggoted again it would become "Best Best", then "Treble best" with a strength of 28 tons per square inch. With each processing, impurities would form as long thin inclusions, just as with hammering.

Due to the unique grain of wrought iron, it is difficult to work with; like wood, if stressed too much, it will split along the grain. Working with wrought iron is an art form that can take years to perfect. Unlike mass-produced milled steel items, a wrought iron product is a piece of art.

Wrought iron can be painted in any color, and many manufacturers do custom painting and design. Cast iron can be formed into any shape, so if you have a design or picture you want replicated, bring it to a cast iron shop and they will work the image into your furniture. Buying wrought iron will give you a unique piece of furniture, and helps support local artisans and industries.

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