1 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,800 Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 2 00:00:11,840 --> 00:00:14,000 Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 3 00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:16,880 Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and 4 00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:20,280 Speaker 1: how the tech are you. It's time for a classic episode, 5 00:00:20,280 --> 00:00:23,040 Speaker 1: and we're going to continue where we left off last 6 00:00:23,079 --> 00:00:27,440 Speaker 1: week in last week's classic episode about the Industrial Revolution. 7 00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:31,560 Speaker 1: This is part two of three. This episode originally published 8 00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:36,720 Speaker 1: on November two thousand and fifteen. Fortunately, unlike a lot 9 00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:39,480 Speaker 1: of my topics I cover on tech Stuff, the Industrial 10 00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:42,960 Speaker 1: Revolution has not changed significantly in the last seven years. 11 00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:47,199 Speaker 1: So let's sit back and listen. Now. In that last episode, 12 00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:51,559 Speaker 1: I focused mainly on the textile industry because it's a 13 00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:55,000 Speaker 1: great illustration of how quickly things changed just within a 14 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:57,840 Speaker 1: few decades and went from something that used to be 15 00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:01,600 Speaker 1: a specialized skill among we vers that would do you know, 16 00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:05,480 Speaker 1: maybe a couple would work together, but that would be it, 17 00:01:05,720 --> 00:01:07,520 Speaker 1: and it would be something that would be produced on 18 00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:11,000 Speaker 1: a very small scale, to a full blown industry which 19 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:15,119 Speaker 1: would end up employing thousands of people. Now, in this 20 00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:18,679 Speaker 1: week's episode, we're gonna look more closely at how iron 21 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:22,920 Speaker 1: shaped the Industrial Revolution and how innovations and inventions in 22 00:01:22,959 --> 00:01:27,840 Speaker 1: the iron industry really changed things, and it's it's fascinating 23 00:01:27,959 --> 00:01:31,800 Speaker 1: and also kind of complicated. Now, first of all, iron 24 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:36,000 Speaker 1: is the second most common metal in the Earth's crust. 25 00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:40,280 Speaker 1: The most common would be aluminum. But we would never 26 00:01:40,319 --> 00:01:44,240 Speaker 1: really use chemically pure iron, you know, the fe stuff 27 00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:49,200 Speaker 1: to build anything of any significance. And that's because of 28 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:51,919 Speaker 1: a couple of things. See, pure iron is really malleable, 29 00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:53,920 Speaker 1: so that it means it's really easy to shape, so 30 00:01:53,960 --> 00:01:58,960 Speaker 1: that's good. And you can even cut pure iron using 31 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:02,040 Speaker 1: something like a knife. If you've got a hunk of 32 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:05,280 Speaker 1: chemically pure iron, you can cut through it. It does 33 00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:07,560 Speaker 1: take some effort, it's not like it's gonna slice through 34 00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:10,760 Speaker 1: like butta, but you can do it. You can use 35 00:02:10,760 --> 00:02:14,120 Speaker 1: a hammer to beat pure iron into sheets, or you 36 00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:17,880 Speaker 1: can even draw it into wires. And it's great stuff. 37 00:02:17,880 --> 00:02:21,280 Speaker 1: I mean, it conducts heat, it conducts electricity. It's also 38 00:02:21,400 --> 00:02:24,239 Speaker 1: really easy to magnetize, so it's got a lot of uses. 39 00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:28,920 Speaker 1: But it isn't strong or hard enough in order to 40 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:33,440 Speaker 1: use for building structures like bridges or buildings or canals 41 00:02:33,600 --> 00:02:37,679 Speaker 1: or or even common tools. It's not strong enough to 42 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:40,280 Speaker 1: to do that. It will end up bending too too much. 43 00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:43,480 Speaker 1: So all of that is kind of a moot point 44 00:02:44,280 --> 00:02:47,519 Speaker 1: because there's something else about iron that gives it a 45 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:51,919 Speaker 1: huge drawback. We don't see much pure iron because it's 46 00:02:51,919 --> 00:02:56,760 Speaker 1: got a habit of getting really familiar with oxygen. Oxygen 47 00:02:56,840 --> 00:03:01,000 Speaker 1: corrodes iron, particularly in moist conditions, so that causes a 48 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:05,639 Speaker 1: chemical reaction in which pure iron forms an iron oxide 49 00:03:05,639 --> 00:03:09,560 Speaker 1: that we call rust. So that's essentially what's happening, is 50 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:13,639 Speaker 1: this chemical reaction with iron and oxygen creates this iron 51 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:17,440 Speaker 1: oxide of rust that we don't really want. You know, 52 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:19,640 Speaker 1: there's always about you know, you have to scrub down 53 00:03:19,720 --> 00:03:21,320 Speaker 1: the rust and get rid of it, or else it 54 00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:25,520 Speaker 1: just continues to corrode. Well, because iron reacts so readily 55 00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:28,679 Speaker 1: to oxygen, we don't mind iron in its pure form. 56 00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:30,760 Speaker 1: In fact, we just we don't find it because it 57 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:34,840 Speaker 1: oxidizes so quickly. Instead, we mine iron oxides that are 58 00:03:34,880 --> 00:03:39,200 Speaker 1: locked inside various types of ore, including hematite, which is 59 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:44,119 Speaker 1: the most plentiful ore that contains iron, limonite or limonite, 60 00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:46,200 Speaker 1: depending on how you want to pronounce it, sometimes called 61 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:50,560 Speaker 1: bog iron, and magnetite, which is also known as loadstone, 62 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:53,360 Speaker 1: among others. There are a few other versions of iron 63 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:56,760 Speaker 1: ore as well. Not all ores contain the same percentage 64 00:03:56,760 --> 00:03:59,880 Speaker 1: of iron by volume, and we mine iron both in 65 00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:03,600 Speaker 1: underground mines and in surface mining. It all depends upon 66 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:07,800 Speaker 1: where you are and where the iron deposits happened to be. Now, 67 00:04:07,800 --> 00:04:11,480 Speaker 1: the iron ore in Britain, because that again is where 68 00:04:11,480 --> 00:04:16,160 Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution began, had really high concentrations of sulfur 69 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:20,279 Speaker 1: and phosphorus, and both of those things will make iron 70 00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:23,520 Speaker 1: brittle if you don't get rid of them. So until 71 00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:27,360 Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution, iron masters hadn't really quite worked out 72 00:04:27,520 --> 00:04:31,599 Speaker 1: how to do that on an efficient basis. For that reason, 73 00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:36,800 Speaker 1: British iron was often used in very cheap items like nails. Now, 74 00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:40,640 Speaker 1: this was also a little tricky because iron making iron 75 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:43,839 Speaker 1: required a lot of labor, a lot of backbreaking hard work, 76 00:04:44,240 --> 00:04:47,280 Speaker 1: and that drove up the price of the final product. 77 00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:52,400 Speaker 1: So Britain was starting to supplement its own iron supplies 78 00:04:52,440 --> 00:04:55,040 Speaker 1: by importing about half of all the iron it was 79 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:58,560 Speaker 1: using from Sweden. The iron from Sweden did not have 80 00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:02,440 Speaker 1: the high concentrateations of sulfur or phosphorus, so it wasn't 81 00:05:02,520 --> 00:05:06,080 Speaker 1: as problematic, and Britain just couldn't produce enough of its 82 00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:10,240 Speaker 1: own despite ample supplies of iron ore. Now, once we 83 00:05:10,279 --> 00:05:13,320 Speaker 1: get hold of iron ore, we have to smelt it. 84 00:05:14,360 --> 00:05:16,200 Speaker 1: That's in order for us to get to the iron 85 00:05:16,200 --> 00:05:19,120 Speaker 1: that's inside of it. Now, this involves heating the ore 86 00:05:19,320 --> 00:05:23,040 Speaker 1: up to the melting point of iron. We also use 87 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:26,280 Speaker 1: fuels that will produce chemicals that can bond with the 88 00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:32,120 Speaker 1: iron during this process, which changes iron's physical characteristics. We're 89 00:05:32,120 --> 00:05:35,719 Speaker 1: talking chemical reactions here, and what we're really doing is 90 00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:40,039 Speaker 1: creating iron alloys. And an alloy is a mixture that 91 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:43,080 Speaker 1: has a metal with something else. Sometimes it's another metal, 92 00:05:43,200 --> 00:05:46,640 Speaker 1: sometimes it's a different substance. But these are chemical mixtures 93 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:51,560 Speaker 1: that have their own features that are different from the 94 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:57,320 Speaker 1: features of the individual elements or or ingredients in that mixture, 95 00:05:57,640 --> 00:06:01,880 Speaker 1: so you're getting something new. The main ingredient we mix 96 00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:06,000 Speaker 1: with iron to produce useful material is carbon, and if 97 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:08,479 Speaker 1: you get the mix of carbon to iron just right, 98 00:06:08,520 --> 00:06:12,719 Speaker 1: you produce steel. Steel is an iron alloy that has 99 00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:16,760 Speaker 1: around two or less carbon in it. Other types of 100 00:06:16,800 --> 00:06:20,200 Speaker 1: iron hab between two to four of carbon in the alloy, 101 00:06:20,279 --> 00:06:23,279 Speaker 1: and mixing other metals or substances will create different types 102 00:06:23,360 --> 00:06:28,240 Speaker 1: of steel or iron. So how do you mix carbon 103 00:06:28,600 --> 00:06:32,279 Speaker 1: into the iron? What exactly are you doing here is 104 00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:35,719 Speaker 1: there's some sort of powder that you're pouring in. Well, 105 00:06:35,760 --> 00:06:40,080 Speaker 1: one way is by using a carbon rich fuel as 106 00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:42,560 Speaker 1: the means of heating up your iron to melt it 107 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:44,880 Speaker 1: in the first place. So if you're using something a 108 00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:47,640 Speaker 1: fuel that has a lot of carbon in it, then 109 00:06:47,760 --> 00:06:50,440 Speaker 1: some of that carbon gets transferred into the iron as 110 00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:55,800 Speaker 1: it melts. Charcoal is a great example, and iron masters 111 00:06:56,040 --> 00:07:00,400 Speaker 1: in Britain and really all over Europe relied very heavily 112 00:07:00,440 --> 00:07:05,000 Speaker 1: on charcoal for centuries when smelting iron ore. But if 113 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:07,440 Speaker 1: you remember from our last episode, I talked about a 114 00:07:07,480 --> 00:07:11,240 Speaker 1: man named Abraham Darby who came up with an alternative 115 00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:16,280 Speaker 1: to charcoal, and it was coke. Now, coke is a 116 00:07:16,320 --> 00:07:20,280 Speaker 1: fuel product you make by baking coal in an airless 117 00:07:20,320 --> 00:07:24,560 Speaker 1: oven or furnace at a really high temperature, and at 118 00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:27,440 Speaker 1: that high temperature, some of the coal begins to ash. 119 00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:32,160 Speaker 1: That ash will end up melding with the the coal 120 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:35,559 Speaker 1: itself and it converts into this other fuel called coke, 121 00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:39,880 Speaker 1: which is once it cools down, grayish in color and 122 00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:43,680 Speaker 1: has a very porous structure. When you burn coke, it 123 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:47,400 Speaker 1: creates carbon monoxide, among other things, which is important in 124 00:07:47,440 --> 00:07:52,400 Speaker 1: this process of creating iron useful iron. But why would 125 00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:55,360 Speaker 1: anyone worry about switching from charcoal to coke in the 126 00:07:55,360 --> 00:07:57,720 Speaker 1: first place. I mean, charcoal is pretty simple. You just 127 00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:01,680 Speaker 1: have to burn wood to make charcoal. Uh. And in fact, 128 00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:04,720 Speaker 1: this is where the problem would come in. In order 129 00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:10,760 Speaker 1: to fuel a single iron works for one year, it 130 00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:15,160 Speaker 1: would take two acres of forest to supply enough charcoal 131 00:08:15,200 --> 00:08:19,440 Speaker 1: for operations. So for one iron works, you would need 132 00:08:19,480 --> 00:08:22,840 Speaker 1: two hundred acres of woods. And keep in mind that 133 00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:25,920 Speaker 1: once you've gone through that that two acres of forests 134 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:28,520 Speaker 1: in a year, you're not gonna be able to use 135 00:08:28,560 --> 00:08:31,440 Speaker 1: those same two hundred acres the next year because it's 136 00:08:31,440 --> 00:08:34,120 Speaker 1: going to take time for that forest to grow back. 137 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:39,160 Speaker 1: So we saw a steady decrease in the forests of 138 00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:43,040 Speaker 1: Britain during this time period. At this time, iron works 139 00:08:43,080 --> 00:08:46,720 Speaker 1: were mostly located in forests because it was cheaper to 140 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:50,160 Speaker 1: ship the iron ore and iron from the iron works 141 00:08:50,280 --> 00:08:52,040 Speaker 1: or to the iron works, and from the iron works 142 00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:56,600 Speaker 1: then it was to ship charcoal around, so they located 143 00:08:56,640 --> 00:08:59,360 Speaker 1: the iron works near the fuel, not the iron ore, 144 00:08:59,559 --> 00:09:04,720 Speaker 1: which seems counterintuitive at first, but eventually the growth of 145 00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:08,640 Speaker 1: the iron industry and the fact that more and more 146 00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:13,440 Speaker 1: people were building ships during this time period for England 147 00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:16,080 Speaker 1: meant that England was using up more wood than it 148 00:09:16,120 --> 00:09:20,959 Speaker 1: could replenish, So charcoal became more expensive because forests were 149 00:09:20,960 --> 00:09:25,200 Speaker 1: being chopped down, wood was becoming a scarce commodity comparatively 150 00:09:25,280 --> 00:09:28,160 Speaker 1: speaking compared to how it had been in previous centuries, 151 00:09:28,679 --> 00:09:31,880 Speaker 1: so it became really expensive to use forests just to 152 00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:36,080 Speaker 1: generate charcoal. So an alternative fuel was definitely needed to 153 00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:41,800 Speaker 1: make British iron and actual commodity. Now, some iron masters 154 00:09:41,840 --> 00:09:46,840 Speaker 1: tried using coal as fuel, but burning coal produces sulfur, 155 00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:49,920 Speaker 1: and that sulfur would react to the melted iron ore 156 00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:51,880 Speaker 1: and produce an iron that was too brittle to be 157 00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:56,520 Speaker 1: of much use. Coke, however, didn't produce nearly as much 158 00:09:56,559 --> 00:10:00,280 Speaker 1: sulfur when burned, and the carbon monoxide coke produces wind 159 00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:02,480 Speaker 1: burn would mix with the melted iron ore to create 160 00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:06,240 Speaker 1: useful iron. And if you listen to that last episode, 161 00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:09,920 Speaker 1: you heard that Abraham Darby had developed a process for 162 00:10:10,040 --> 00:10:13,120 Speaker 1: making pig iron by using coke as the fuel while 163 00:10:13,240 --> 00:10:17,120 Speaker 1: smelting iron ore, but his approach wasn't adopted by the 164 00:10:17,160 --> 00:10:20,880 Speaker 1: iron industry during his lifetime. There are a couple of 165 00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:24,160 Speaker 1: reasons for that that, you know, the iron industry didn't 166 00:10:24,200 --> 00:10:28,080 Speaker 1: immediately swap to using coke instead of charcoal. One of 167 00:10:28,120 --> 00:10:31,760 Speaker 1: those reasons is that Darby pretty much kept his process 168 00:10:31,760 --> 00:10:36,160 Speaker 1: a secret and only told his son, Abraham Darby the second, 169 00:10:36,679 --> 00:10:39,800 Speaker 1: how to do it. At the time, anyone wanted to, 170 00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:42,520 Speaker 1: you know, get an advantage over their competitors, what they 171 00:10:42,520 --> 00:10:45,320 Speaker 1: did was they kept their methods secret. Some people would 172 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:48,800 Speaker 1: choose to patent ideas to protect them. Others decided that 173 00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:52,080 Speaker 1: patents were bad because if you if you file a patent, 174 00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:55,400 Speaker 1: the information on how you do something becomes public knowledge 175 00:10:55,960 --> 00:11:00,320 Speaker 1: and eventually passes into the public domain. So other than 176 00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:03,199 Speaker 1: patent of process, some people would try and keep it 177 00:11:03,280 --> 00:11:06,920 Speaker 1: a secret. That's what Derby did. But the other reason 178 00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:09,760 Speaker 1: is that Darby didn't live to a very ripe old age. 179 00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:13,600 Speaker 1: He actually had a really long illness and died at 180 00:11:13,679 --> 00:11:19,520 Speaker 1: age thirty eight in seventeen seventeen. Now, his grandson, Abraham 181 00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:22,960 Speaker 1: Derby the third would build the first iron bridge in 182 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:26,760 Speaker 1: the late seventeen seventies. But the Derby's method was really 183 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:29,760 Speaker 1: only good for creating a particular type of iron called 184 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:32,960 Speaker 1: cast iron. And I'll talk more about what cast iron 185 00:11:33,040 --> 00:11:36,760 Speaker 1: is in just a minute. But first, let's talk about 186 00:11:36,800 --> 00:11:40,120 Speaker 1: the smelting process. All right. So let's say you've got 187 00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:43,560 Speaker 1: yourself an iron furnace. Typically we would talk about a 188 00:11:43,600 --> 00:11:49,520 Speaker 1: blast furnace. Blast furnaces are really giant cylinders. We're talking 189 00:11:49,720 --> 00:11:52,200 Speaker 1: some of them being around thirty to forty ft tall 190 00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:56,160 Speaker 1: and twenty to thirty ft square at the base, often 191 00:11:56,160 --> 00:12:00,320 Speaker 1: built into the side of a hill. So that way, uh, 192 00:12:00,360 --> 00:12:04,720 Speaker 1: in order to bring materials to the blast furnace, which 193 00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:08,120 Speaker 1: you would deposit in the top of the furnace, you 194 00:12:08,160 --> 00:12:11,440 Speaker 1: would climb the hill as opposed to putting scaffolding up 195 00:12:11,520 --> 00:12:13,640 Speaker 1: or a long ramp or however you would you know, 196 00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:16,080 Speaker 1: be able to have an access point to get to 197 00:12:16,120 --> 00:12:19,120 Speaker 1: the top of the furnace. Now, if you want to 198 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:21,760 Speaker 1: imagine what these things look like, they did like a 199 00:12:21,960 --> 00:12:25,280 Speaker 1: look like a tapering cylinder. So the top is a 200 00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:30,000 Speaker 1: bit narrower than the bottom. Uh. The topmost portion of 201 00:12:30,040 --> 00:12:32,599 Speaker 1: the cylinder is called the shaft, and that's where you 202 00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:35,760 Speaker 1: would feed the fuel, the iron ore and some other 203 00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:40,600 Speaker 1: materials called flux, which is typically limestone. The purpose of 204 00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:43,920 Speaker 1: the flux is to absorb some of the other elements 205 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:48,280 Speaker 1: inside the iron ore that you don't want corrupting your iron. 206 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:51,600 Speaker 1: You don't want it to mix with the iron so 207 00:12:51,679 --> 00:12:54,559 Speaker 1: that it makes it have properties that you weren't intending. 208 00:12:55,120 --> 00:12:59,160 Speaker 1: So you've got your your flux, your fuel in this 209 00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:02,400 Speaker 1: case coke or charcoal, and then the iron ore itself. 210 00:13:03,480 --> 00:13:05,840 Speaker 1: You would put all that down the shaft. If you 211 00:13:05,920 --> 00:13:09,760 Speaker 1: look down the cylinder, then the next section is called 212 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:15,760 Speaker 1: the bosch. This is a roughly circular chamber where uh 213 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:19,800 Speaker 1: it gets incredibly hot. And below the bosch, at the 214 00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:24,520 Speaker 1: base of the blast furnace was the hearth or crucible, 215 00:13:24,559 --> 00:13:27,200 Speaker 1: and that's where the molten iron would accumulate before being 216 00:13:27,280 --> 00:13:30,040 Speaker 1: drawn off by the iron master. Drawn off just means 217 00:13:30,120 --> 00:13:36,920 Speaker 1: essentially drained from the furnace chamber. So this was actually 218 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:40,720 Speaker 1: a pretty complicated process. Uh. In fact, they were called 219 00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:45,040 Speaker 1: blast furnaces because you would blow large drafts of air 220 00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:49,400 Speaker 1: into the furnace and what we're called blasts. The earliest 221 00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:53,280 Speaker 1: blast furnaces were cold air furnaces, meaning that the the 222 00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:56,679 Speaker 1: air being blown into the furnace had not been preheated 223 00:13:56,720 --> 00:13:59,520 Speaker 1: in any way. The air would typically be forced through 224 00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:02,480 Speaker 1: an entry point that's down the cylinder. It's not at 225 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:07,040 Speaker 1: the top, so you're not blowing air down into a chimney. Rather, 226 00:14:07,160 --> 00:14:10,760 Speaker 1: you would have an entry point inside the furnace and 227 00:14:10,920 --> 00:14:13,760 Speaker 1: air would come in there towards the bottom. You want 228 00:14:13,760 --> 00:14:17,760 Speaker 1: it near the bottom to fan the flames, and that 229 00:14:17,800 --> 00:14:19,760 Speaker 1: would allow you to keep the fire burning at the 230 00:14:19,880 --> 00:14:23,120 Speaker 1: right temperature. And you would do this with an enormous 231 00:14:23,320 --> 00:14:28,200 Speaker 1: set of bellows. So you've probably seen bellows. These are 232 00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:34,160 Speaker 1: the devices made to actually blow air into a an area, 233 00:14:34,280 --> 00:14:38,520 Speaker 1: usually some form of furnace or fire that would provide 234 00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:41,080 Speaker 1: the blasts of air. And in the early Industrial Revolution 235 00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:43,760 Speaker 1: they were powered by a water wheel. And when I 236 00:14:43,840 --> 00:14:46,240 Speaker 1: say an enormous pair of bellows, I mean we're talking 237 00:14:46,760 --> 00:14:50,040 Speaker 1: a big, big piece of machinery. They would be more 238 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:53,280 Speaker 1: than twenty ft long and four or five ft wide, 239 00:14:54,280 --> 00:14:59,000 Speaker 1: So these were huge and would create very powerful blasts 240 00:14:59,080 --> 00:15:02,400 Speaker 1: of air. Now, later iron masters would actually rely upon 241 00:15:02,520 --> 00:15:05,760 Speaker 1: steam engines to power a blower for the furnace. But 242 00:15:05,800 --> 00:15:08,480 Speaker 1: we'll talk more about steam engines towards the end of 243 00:15:08,520 --> 00:15:13,600 Speaker 1: this episode. So if you wanted to start up in ironworks, 244 00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:16,520 Speaker 1: you've just you've just decided to get into the business, 245 00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:20,720 Speaker 1: and you're an eighteenth century England then what you would 246 00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:24,320 Speaker 1: need to do is build your blast furnace in a 247 00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:28,360 Speaker 1: in a good location, get all the stuff ready, like 248 00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:31,240 Speaker 1: the bellows and everything all prepared, and then you would 249 00:15:31,240 --> 00:15:33,800 Speaker 1: need to get your furnace up to the right temperature 250 00:15:34,200 --> 00:15:39,200 Speaker 1: before you actually started to add iron ore. Uh. You 251 00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:42,920 Speaker 1: would do this in a process that was called blowing in. 252 00:15:43,880 --> 00:15:46,280 Speaker 1: Now that involved bringing a large amount of fuel into 253 00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:49,640 Speaker 1: the furnace, whether it's charcoal or coke or whatever. You 254 00:15:49,640 --> 00:15:52,000 Speaker 1: would have to ignite the fuel and allow it to 255 00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:56,720 Speaker 1: gradually heat the furnace over about a week's worth of time, 256 00:15:57,640 --> 00:16:00,520 Speaker 1: and once it was up to the proper temperature, you 257 00:16:00,520 --> 00:16:03,200 Speaker 1: could finally get started with iron working. And when you're 258 00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:06,280 Speaker 1: ready to smell iron, you feed the fuel, flux and 259 00:16:06,360 --> 00:16:09,080 Speaker 1: iron ore into the top of the furnace. You're essentially 260 00:16:09,200 --> 00:16:14,280 Speaker 1: dumping things down this this cylinder, this chimney. Now, as 261 00:16:14,280 --> 00:16:16,840 Speaker 1: those materials fall through the length of the furnace, they 262 00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:19,120 Speaker 1: begin to heat up. There's a lot of very hot 263 00:16:19,160 --> 00:16:22,960 Speaker 1: gases that are rising up through this cylinder, and the 264 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:26,360 Speaker 1: material passes through those hot gases, getting hot before they 265 00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:31,280 Speaker 1: even get toward the hearts the crucible. The fuel begins 266 00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:34,360 Speaker 1: to burn and the iron starts to heat up to 267 00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:37,880 Speaker 1: melting temperature. The iron ore reacts with the charcoal or 268 00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:41,080 Speaker 1: the coke, and that absorbs the oxygen in the iron 269 00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:44,360 Speaker 1: oxide that was locked away inside the iron ore. Now 270 00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:47,920 Speaker 1: this is a process called reduction, and what you're left 271 00:16:47,960 --> 00:16:52,520 Speaker 1: with is liquid iron and slag. Slag is actually not 272 00:16:52,560 --> 00:16:54,320 Speaker 1: that hard to get rid of. You would think that 273 00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:59,520 Speaker 1: this is a big, messy, slushy liquid that's molten hot, 274 00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:02,840 Speaker 1: but in fact, liquid iron is very heavy and slag 275 00:17:02,880 --> 00:17:05,320 Speaker 1: would float to the top, so you'd have the liquid 276 00:17:05,359 --> 00:17:08,040 Speaker 1: iron underneath and the slag on top. When you are 277 00:17:08,119 --> 00:17:11,359 Speaker 1: ready to draw off the molten iron, you would open 278 00:17:11,440 --> 00:17:14,800 Speaker 1: up a tap hole located in the heart level of 279 00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:19,280 Speaker 1: the blast furnace, so towards the base of this cylinder. 280 00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:25,320 Speaker 1: And typically these taps also had a little gate on them, 281 00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:28,160 Speaker 1: and the gate would go up and down, and by 282 00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:31,159 Speaker 1: setting the gate at the right height, you can allow 283 00:17:31,400 --> 00:17:33,960 Speaker 1: the molten iron to pass through and it would hold 284 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:36,720 Speaker 1: back the slag. So that way you just get the 285 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:39,520 Speaker 1: molten iron and the slag is left behind, because again 286 00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:42,600 Speaker 1: the slag is floating at the top of this molten material. 287 00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:46,800 Speaker 1: We'll be back with more about the Industrial Revolution after 288 00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:58,800 Speaker 1: this quick break, so that molten iron would then run 289 00:17:58,840 --> 00:18:03,320 Speaker 1: through a channel a trench essentially, and branch off into 290 00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:06,880 Speaker 1: smaller channels on either side that acted as molds. So 291 00:18:07,600 --> 00:18:13,200 Speaker 1: imagine that you've dug into some sand, uh some some 292 00:18:13,200 --> 00:18:17,879 Speaker 1: some shapes for ingots, and you draw off this molten iron. 293 00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:21,000 Speaker 1: It flows down a large channel and then splits off 294 00:18:21,040 --> 00:18:25,560 Speaker 1: into these smaller channels that are inget molds. Essentially, that 295 00:18:25,640 --> 00:18:29,399 Speaker 1: cooling iron would solidify into the ingots, and those ingots 296 00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:33,880 Speaker 1: were called pigs and the iron is referred to as 297 00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:37,280 Speaker 1: pig iron. And you might wonder, well, where did this 298 00:18:37,760 --> 00:18:40,080 Speaker 1: name come from? Why is it pig iron? Is it 299 00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:43,520 Speaker 1: dirty iron? What? What's the deal? Well, the reason for 300 00:18:43,640 --> 00:18:46,199 Speaker 1: the name is that iron workers thought that the the 301 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:51,000 Speaker 1: little channels leading away from the central channel were similar 302 00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:54,920 Speaker 1: to suckling piglets that were feeding from a sow. That 303 00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:59,399 Speaker 1: the idea that these little splits, these channels were like piglets. 304 00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:04,959 Speaker 1: And that's why it's called pig iron. I am not 305 00:19:05,040 --> 00:19:07,439 Speaker 1: making that up. Pig iron is sort of a transitional 306 00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:11,160 Speaker 1: point for usable iron. By the way, it's stronger than 307 00:19:11,240 --> 00:19:14,960 Speaker 1: pure iron by about a hundred times, but it's still 308 00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:20,200 Speaker 1: too weak to be of practical use for certain certain 309 00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:22,960 Speaker 1: purposes like that, you can use it for tools and stuff, 310 00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:27,240 Speaker 1: but you typically would use pig iron again by reheating 311 00:19:27,280 --> 00:19:30,760 Speaker 1: it and doing something else with it. Now, the next 312 00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:34,919 Speaker 1: basic type of iron after pig iron is cast iron, 313 00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:38,359 Speaker 1: which is really not that different from pig iron. Uh. 314 00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:41,240 Speaker 1: It's the stuff that the Darbies were making in their 315 00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:45,080 Speaker 1: iron works. It has the same high carbon content around 316 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:49,159 Speaker 1: three to four percent as pig iron does. Now, there 317 00:19:49,200 --> 00:19:52,000 Speaker 1: a lot of examples of stuff made from cast iron. 318 00:19:52,080 --> 00:19:55,240 Speaker 1: Cast Iron skillets are probably my favorite version of something 319 00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:58,639 Speaker 1: made from this material. And you would typically make a 320 00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:03,879 Speaker 1: cast iron object by pouring the iron into a mold 321 00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:08,199 Speaker 1: and allowing it to cool in that shape. And the 322 00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:11,119 Speaker 1: reason you would want to do that is because cast 323 00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:14,520 Speaker 1: iron is hard and it's brittle, which makes it very 324 00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:18,000 Speaker 1: difficult to shape even when you heat it up. So 325 00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:22,240 Speaker 1: if you pour the molten material into a mold so 326 00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:25,159 Speaker 1: that it takes whatever shape you want and let it cool, 327 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:28,320 Speaker 1: you're in good shape. But if you let it cool 328 00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:31,160 Speaker 1: at all and then you try and work with it, 329 00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:35,680 Speaker 1: it tends to break, It tends to resist being being shaped, 330 00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:40,000 Speaker 1: so it's not terribly useful. In that case. Um. So 331 00:20:40,680 --> 00:20:43,520 Speaker 1: that's why it's called cast iron. It's best used if 332 00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:46,640 Speaker 1: you cast it into molds. Cast iron, by the way, 333 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:50,240 Speaker 1: is also prone to rust, which made it less useful 334 00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:53,879 Speaker 1: for material that was constantly exposed to the elements or 335 00:20:53,960 --> 00:20:57,920 Speaker 1: was in damp areas. Now the next type of iron 336 00:20:58,119 --> 00:21:02,359 Speaker 1: is wrought iron. To you are o U g HT 337 00:21:02,960 --> 00:21:06,600 Speaker 1: wrought iron like a wrought iron fence. We produce wrought 338 00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:09,639 Speaker 1: iron by taking pig iron and heating it up again 339 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:13,840 Speaker 1: in a different type of iron works called a finery. 340 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:16,119 Speaker 1: Now you'd heat the pig iron up to the liquid 341 00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:19,680 Speaker 1: point and mix it with other slag materials, which lowers 342 00:21:19,760 --> 00:21:24,399 Speaker 1: the carbon content. By introducing non carbon material you create 343 00:21:24,440 --> 00:21:28,240 Speaker 1: a new alloy and the overall percentage of carbon is reduced. 344 00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:32,200 Speaker 1: As a result, wrought iron is easier to work with 345 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:35,920 Speaker 1: than cast iron, and it's not as susceptible to rusting. 346 00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:39,399 Speaker 1: Wrought iron ended up becoming the most important type of 347 00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:43,680 Speaker 1: iron in the Industrial Revolution until people finally figured out 348 00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:48,960 Speaker 1: how to make steel on a consistent and large scale basis. 349 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:53,479 Speaker 1: So wrought iron ended up being really the king of 350 00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:55,679 Speaker 1: iron once people were able to do it on a 351 00:21:55,760 --> 00:22:00,960 Speaker 1: large enough and consistent enough basis. So what's the big 352 00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,120 Speaker 1: deal with steel? I mean, why wasn't Why wasn't steel 353 00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:08,399 Speaker 1: the material of choice? Well, steel is just another alloy 354 00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:11,320 Speaker 1: of iron. First of all, it's not like it's a 355 00:22:11,359 --> 00:22:15,520 Speaker 1: totally different material. It's an alloy. It has less carbon 356 00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:18,040 Speaker 1: in it than other types of iron, like I mentioned before, 357 00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:22,159 Speaker 1: less than two and sometimes has other materials mixed in 358 00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:25,399 Speaker 1: to create the steel. Different types of steel used different 359 00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:28,120 Speaker 1: materials mixed in with the iron, and it gives it 360 00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:32,760 Speaker 1: various properties. People have been making steel in small amounts 361 00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:35,840 Speaker 1: for centuries. It's not like it was brand new in 362 00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:40,320 Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution. But it was a laborious process and 363 00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:42,879 Speaker 1: it was easy to mess up. You could make errors 364 00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:46,920 Speaker 1: that would produce iron rather than steel. For a long time, 365 00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:53,520 Speaker 1: people weren't entirely uh certain of the what was causing 366 00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:57,800 Speaker 1: the output to be steel versus iron. Sometimes they just thought, oh, well, 367 00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:00,639 Speaker 1: this was a good batch of iron, or not realizing 368 00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:04,040 Speaker 1: that the process they were using, or the materials they were, 369 00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:06,119 Speaker 1: the fuel they were using, the materials they were mixing 370 00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:08,600 Speaker 1: with it, we're actually making a huge difference. It took 371 00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:12,360 Speaker 1: a long time of experimentation to figure out the right approach. 372 00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:19,080 Speaker 1: One man who improved steel making techniques was Benjamin Huntsman, 373 00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:24,479 Speaker 1: who opened a steel plant in Sheffield, England, in seventeen forty. 374 00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:28,600 Speaker 1: His steel was kind of controversial actually at the time. 375 00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:31,800 Speaker 1: His fellow countrymen considered the steel to be too hard 376 00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:36,119 Speaker 1: to be useful. These were people called cutlers, who would 377 00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:40,560 Speaker 1: take the steel produced by someone like Huntsman and then 378 00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:45,680 Speaker 1: try and shape it into useful tools, often cutting tools. 379 00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:48,320 Speaker 1: That was the main use of steel for a really 380 00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:52,320 Speaker 1: long time. But the cutlers said, no, the steel is 381 00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:57,199 Speaker 1: too hard, it's not any good. However, Huntsman began to 382 00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:02,320 Speaker 1: form relationships with cutlers who were in Europe, not in England, 383 00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:06,320 Speaker 1: so in mainland Europe, and they began to rely heavily 384 00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:08,640 Speaker 1: on his steel and he started to do a lot 385 00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:13,080 Speaker 1: of business. Well. England at the time was incredibly protective 386 00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:17,199 Speaker 1: of its various industries. They wanted to preserve their dominance 387 00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:21,640 Speaker 1: in as many areas as possible, including textiles and iron 388 00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:27,800 Speaker 1: and uh and later on steam power. So because of that, 389 00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:33,359 Speaker 1: the cutlers in England began to reconsider their feelings about 390 00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:37,840 Speaker 1: the difficulty of working with Huntsman Steele, so they began 391 00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:40,360 Speaker 1: to use it as well. Now Huntsman tried to keep 392 00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:43,120 Speaker 1: his methods a secret. He was one of those people 393 00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:46,879 Speaker 1: who decided never to patent his processes because he wanted 394 00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:51,040 Speaker 1: to try and maintain full control over them. However, one 395 00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:55,320 Speaker 1: of his competitors named Samuel Walker, found out how Huntsman 396 00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:59,440 Speaker 1: was making his steel and began to copy him. According 397 00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:04,040 Speaker 1: to report, Walker's work was never quite as good as Huntsman's, 398 00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:09,240 Speaker 1: but his steel was also sought after, and so soon 399 00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:13,280 Speaker 1: this technique of making steel began to spread outward and 400 00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:17,560 Speaker 1: more iron workers began to experiment making steel, but at 401 00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:20,359 Speaker 1: this stage they were still making it in fairly small amounts. 402 00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:26,600 Speaker 1: By the seventeen seventies, the iron industry in Britain was booming. 403 00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:30,479 Speaker 1: Coke was the fuel of choice by this point, so 404 00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:34,400 Speaker 1: this was decades after Darby had first started using coke 405 00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:37,600 Speaker 1: as fuel, and by the seventeen seventies now everybody was 406 00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:41,280 Speaker 1: really onto this and many iron works were in production 407 00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:45,439 Speaker 1: at the time. In Plymouth, a man named Henry Court 408 00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:49,520 Speaker 1: bought a small iron works just outside the city and 409 00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:52,960 Speaker 1: began to experiment with new methods of producing wrought iron, 410 00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:57,399 Speaker 1: and his experiments led to what was called the puddling process. 411 00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:02,800 Speaker 1: Now This approach a little tricky to explain, particularly without 412 00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:07,159 Speaker 1: the use of visual aids. It involved heating refined iron 413 00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:09,400 Speaker 1: in a furnace. So you would first have to take 414 00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,119 Speaker 1: iron ore and smelt it through one of the processes 415 00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:15,920 Speaker 1: that talked about earlier, and then the refined iron you 416 00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:18,760 Speaker 1: would get from that process would be used as the 417 00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:22,280 Speaker 1: main ingredient for this new process. So you would take 418 00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:25,560 Speaker 1: this refined iron uh and put it in a furnace 419 00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:29,880 Speaker 1: and mix it with some iron oxides on purpose and 420 00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:34,439 Speaker 1: stir the molten material using these very long rods. And 421 00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,560 Speaker 1: the rods had hooks on the end. And we're called 422 00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:43,240 Speaker 1: either puddling bars or rabble rebbels. So I guess like 423 00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:46,520 Speaker 1: the hamburglar. He says, rabble rabble right. Well, anyway, they 424 00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:50,919 Speaker 1: were called rebbels. You would have a worker hold one 425 00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:55,120 Speaker 1: of these long bars. Uh. They would sometimes be called rabblers. 426 00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:58,040 Speaker 1: This is not a joke. They really were uh. And 427 00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,840 Speaker 1: of course you couldn't put them inside the furnace they 428 00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:04,080 Speaker 1: would burn up and die. So what they would do 429 00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,919 Speaker 1: is they use these working doors that were built into 430 00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,399 Speaker 1: the sides of the furnace that would allow you to 431 00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,639 Speaker 1: pass a rod through the door. Into the furnace itself 432 00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,280 Speaker 1: so that you could stir the molten material from a 433 00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:22,120 Speaker 1: safe distance UH and the rattlers would stir this mixture 434 00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:28,040 Speaker 1: as they would continue to blast air at the mixture, 435 00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:30,879 Speaker 1: and that would allow oxygen to react with the iron 436 00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:34,800 Speaker 1: oxides in the molten material, and impurities would form slag 437 00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:36,919 Speaker 1: that again would float on top of the iron or 438 00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,399 Speaker 1: would vaporize into gases that could be vented out of 439 00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:44,879 Speaker 1: the top of the furnace. During this process, carbon would 440 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,239 Speaker 1: begin to burn off in the iron, and as the 441 00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:54,120 Speaker 1: carbon burns off, the melting temperature of the iron increases. So, 442 00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,760 Speaker 1: in other words, in order to keep that iron molten, 443 00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:00,840 Speaker 1: you would have to increase the temperature in the furnace. 444 00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:04,119 Speaker 1: And this is because the impurities that the carbon in 445 00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:07,720 Speaker 1: this case is getting burnt off, and the melting point 446 00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:11,840 Speaker 1: for pure carbon is higher than the melting point of 447 00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:14,840 Speaker 1: or not pure carbon, but pure iron. The melting point 448 00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:18,359 Speaker 1: of pure iron is higher than it would be with 449 00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,760 Speaker 1: an iron carbon mix. So that meant that you had 450 00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:24,320 Speaker 1: to continue to increase the temperature in the furnace. You 451 00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:27,360 Speaker 1: would have to add more fuel to make the temperature 452 00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,840 Speaker 1: go higher, and you would continue to do this process 453 00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,320 Speaker 1: until you've burned off enough carbon so that the mixture 454 00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:39,719 Speaker 1: itself begins to change. It uh in in puddling terms, 455 00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:44,239 Speaker 1: it comes to nature. Now that means that the the 456 00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:48,000 Speaker 1: iron itself has very different qualities, and by change, I 457 00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:51,240 Speaker 1: mean it stops being a molten liquid instead becomes kind 458 00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:56,840 Speaker 1: of a spongy mass of iron. So it's still shapeable, 459 00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:01,920 Speaker 1: it's still very you know soft compare too solid iron, 460 00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,200 Speaker 1: but it's no longer in liquid form. And it's at 461 00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:07,520 Speaker 1: that point that the rabblers would have to hook the 462 00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:12,320 Speaker 1: masks using the rabbles or the puddling bars, and once hooked, 463 00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,480 Speaker 1: they then have to pull out these masses, these these 464 00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:21,640 Speaker 1: puddles or puddle balls rather of iron, which were incredibly heavy. 465 00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,960 Speaker 1: We're talking like eighty pounds or more. And they would 466 00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,640 Speaker 1: grab the stuff with the bar, pull it out of 467 00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:34,000 Speaker 1: the furnace and then take the puddle balls. They're still 468 00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:39,200 Speaker 1: incredibly hot to some massive hammers. Now, originally those hammers 469 00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:44,640 Speaker 1: were manually wielded by people who were known as shinglers um, 470 00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:47,760 Speaker 1: but eventually they would be used with the water and 471 00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:52,000 Speaker 1: steam powered hammers instead of manual labor, which was good 472 00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:55,320 Speaker 1: because being a shingler was it was it was a 473 00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:58,480 Speaker 1: specialized skill, but it also usually meant you didn't live 474 00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:02,960 Speaker 1: very long. You had a very strenuous, difficult job with 475 00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:08,320 Speaker 1: a high degree of danger to it. So the process 476 00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,440 Speaker 1: of hammering the puddle balls would put them into a 477 00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:14,720 Speaker 1: shape that resembled roof shingles, which is where the process 478 00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:18,160 Speaker 1: kind of got its name is shingling. And you would 479 00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:20,960 Speaker 1: do shingling not just to get the iron into a 480 00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,320 Speaker 1: new shape. It was actually meant to hammer out slag 481 00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,440 Speaker 1: and other impurities, and also to hammer out cracks that 482 00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:32,959 Speaker 1: were inside the mass. So slamming a hammer against this 483 00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,320 Speaker 1: puddle ball would create uh, you know, smushed the iron 484 00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:40,600 Speaker 1: together so that that cracks would be would be completely 485 00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:45,400 Speaker 1: sealed and once heated, or once shingled rather, you would 486 00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:49,040 Speaker 1: then heat the iron again until it was malleable and 487 00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:52,040 Speaker 1: then roll it out into bars of wrought iron or 488 00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:56,400 Speaker 1: sometimes in the poles of iron. Uh. Quartz process sped 489 00:30:56,480 --> 00:31:00,440 Speaker 1: up the production of of making wrought iron consider toerably, 490 00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:04,959 Speaker 1: and he patented the approach in the seventeen eighties. So 491 00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:08,320 Speaker 1: by Courts time, iron was beginning to become the material 492 00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:13,480 Speaker 1: of choice for tools and for industrial machines, largely replacing wood, 493 00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:17,040 Speaker 1: which had previously been the material of choice. So if 494 00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:22,520 Speaker 1: you look at machines previous before, before like seventeen seventeen, 495 00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:27,000 Speaker 1: you know, really seeing a lot of wood uh components. 496 00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:30,080 Speaker 1: You know, even gears and things often would be made 497 00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:33,520 Speaker 1: of wood rather than iron. Some cast iron was being 498 00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:37,800 Speaker 1: used in gears and some other uh parts of machinery, 499 00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:42,440 Speaker 1: but wood was largely the main material, with stone being 500 00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,080 Speaker 1: used for foundations and things like that, for things like 501 00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:49,240 Speaker 1: mills and that sort of stuff. But now by courts time, 502 00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:54,160 Speaker 1: iron has become the really important material for tools, industrial machines. 503 00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:57,360 Speaker 1: It's uh, it's really taking off. And looking at the 504 00:31:57,360 --> 00:31:59,840 Speaker 1: amount of iron produced in England during these decades of 505 00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:03,520 Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution, you can see how these improvements in 506 00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:08,320 Speaker 1: technology really made a huge impact. So here's an example. 507 00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,800 Speaker 1: Just before the era of the Industrial Revolution, in seventeen forty, 508 00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:16,440 Speaker 1: Britain was producing about seventeen thousand tons of pig iron 509 00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:20,280 Speaker 1: per year. By seventy eight that Amountain had increased to 510 00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:25,680 Speaker 1: nearly seventy thousand tons, So seventeen thousand to seventy thousand, 511 00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:30,600 Speaker 1: and by seventeen ninety six, you know, it's not even 512 00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:34,280 Speaker 1: a full decade later it was producing more than a 513 00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,440 Speaker 1: hundred twenty five thousand tons of pig iron and that 514 00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:41,000 Speaker 1: number would just continue to grow over the next century. 515 00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:43,680 Speaker 1: So by the mid nineteenth century you're talking an enormous 516 00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,120 Speaker 1: amount of iron being produced out of out of Britain, 517 00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,720 Speaker 1: and it was being used in construction to make bridges 518 00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:56,400 Speaker 1: and tunnels and iron rails. So the rails actually predated 519 00:32:56,440 --> 00:33:00,880 Speaker 1: locomotives and trains. The rail system was men to allow 520 00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:05,640 Speaker 1: carts to pass easily over land. Uh special cards would 521 00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:09,600 Speaker 1: be pulled by horses or other animals, and it would 522 00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,040 Speaker 1: be a while before the first steam powered train would 523 00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:14,240 Speaker 1: pull carts along rails, but the rail system in general 524 00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:18,440 Speaker 1: made it much easier to transport goods over land. Meanwhile, 525 00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:22,320 Speaker 1: there was also a lot of work in creating transportation 526 00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:26,960 Speaker 1: lanes over water. As I mentioned in the last episode, 527 00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:31,240 Speaker 1: Britain was really well positioned for the Industrial Revolution for 528 00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:33,040 Speaker 1: a lot of reasons, and one of them is that 529 00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,440 Speaker 1: it has a lot of port cities. So shipping was 530 00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:41,760 Speaker 1: a big part of British industry. But within the countries 531 00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:46,120 Speaker 1: of Britain, within England and Wales and Scotland in particular, 532 00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:49,959 Speaker 1: it was really important to try and ship various materials 533 00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:54,920 Speaker 1: between cities, and that meant creating special waterways, including canals, 534 00:33:55,400 --> 00:34:00,200 Speaker 1: to connect rivers together that otherwise wouldn't easily meet. So 535 00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:03,480 Speaker 1: there were a lot of canals, but one really impressive 536 00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:08,239 Speaker 1: iron structure was the Potka Sulta Aqueduct, also known as 537 00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:12,440 Speaker 1: the Stream in the Sky. Now that name is Welsh, 538 00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,399 Speaker 1: if you could not guess before, and that means I've 539 00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:19,680 Speaker 1: probably butchered the pronunciation, as the Welsh believed language is 540 00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:22,440 Speaker 1: something no one should ever be able to actually speak. 541 00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:28,759 Speaker 1: But this aqueduct was a raised waterway that allowed this 542 00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:35,040 Speaker 1: canal to cross over a valley. Now, the goal here 543 00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:37,960 Speaker 1: was to have a canal connecting two different rivers together, 544 00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:43,200 Speaker 1: but there was a valley in the way, and how 545 00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:47,319 Speaker 1: would you get the water to cross over the valley. 546 00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:50,760 Speaker 1: You could build a series of locks which would allow 547 00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:54,799 Speaker 1: you to very slowly lower or raise a barge in 548 00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:58,239 Speaker 1: a series of stepped approaches, But that takes a lot 549 00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:00,560 Speaker 1: of time. It's not terribly afici and if you want 550 00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:05,360 Speaker 1: to get a lot done so Instead, there was a 551 00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:09,759 Speaker 1: guy named Thomas Telford who proposed this raised aqueduct that 552 00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:13,680 Speaker 1: would bypass the valley entirely by going over it. So 553 00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:18,359 Speaker 1: essentially you're looking at a big iron trough and that 554 00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:23,760 Speaker 1: holds all the water. Use arch stone pillars to support 555 00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:27,400 Speaker 1: the trough, and you can see pictures of this or 556 00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:31,800 Speaker 1: video even of this particular aqueduct, and it is pretty 557 00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:35,240 Speaker 1: amazing to look at. So a barge could float down 558 00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:38,760 Speaker 1: the canal and over the aqueduct without having to descend 559 00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:42,040 Speaker 1: into the valley, and this saved a lot of time. Now, 560 00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:45,040 Speaker 1: Telford's original design was met with a lot of skepticism, 561 00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:47,919 Speaker 1: but he was allowed to build it and it ended 562 00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,719 Speaker 1: up working out just fine. So it was a big 563 00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:54,799 Speaker 1: success in the Industrial Revolution and really proved how far 564 00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,440 Speaker 1: the the industry had come as far as iron production 565 00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:02,560 Speaker 1: and making sure it is reliable and safe. And it 566 00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:08,440 Speaker 1: also added a lot of confidence to areas like architecture 567 00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:12,120 Speaker 1: for everything from bridge building to tunnels and stuff like that. 568 00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:16,520 Speaker 1: We will continue our story about the Industrial Revolution after 569 00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:28,720 Speaker 1: we take this break for some ads, it wasn't until 570 00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:33,120 Speaker 1: eighteen fifty six that the steel industry really took off. 571 00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,080 Speaker 1: That's when a man named Henry Bessemer came up with 572 00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:40,200 Speaker 1: a method to produce steel in large amounts. So before 573 00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:43,759 Speaker 1: the most reliable processes would only produce small amounts of 574 00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:47,400 Speaker 1: steel over time, which made steel difficult to produce in 575 00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:49,840 Speaker 1: quantities large enough for it to meet demand, and it 576 00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,480 Speaker 1: also meant that the price was really high. But Bessemer 577 00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:56,319 Speaker 1: came up with a lot of improvements. So Bessemer's father 578 00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:01,000 Speaker 1: was an engineer, and Bestmer himself took after his dad. 579 00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,839 Speaker 1: He was largely self educated and learned about engineering by 580 00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:08,319 Speaker 1: observing his father's work and doing his own experiments. He 581 00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:12,480 Speaker 1: generated an enormous fortune before ever getting into the steel 582 00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:15,760 Speaker 1: business by producing a type of powder that was used 583 00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,439 Speaker 1: in gold paints, and at the time, gold paints were 584 00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:22,600 Speaker 1: in really high demand in Britain and in Europe. So 585 00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:24,759 Speaker 1: he made a fortune off that and then used that 586 00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,640 Speaker 1: to fund his other experiments. He also created a machine 587 00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:31,200 Speaker 1: designed to crush sugarcane, but it was in the steel 588 00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:35,399 Speaker 1: industry that he became a legend. So Bessemer was trying 589 00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,319 Speaker 1: to create a harder type of iron, and it was 590 00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,960 Speaker 1: all out of necessity. It's kind of a funny story. 591 00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:45,080 Speaker 1: He had developed a type of artillery shell and he 592 00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:48,239 Speaker 1: was trying to sell it to the French, but the 593 00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:51,240 Speaker 1: French were looking at his his artillery shell, and they said, 594 00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:55,239 Speaker 1: we can't take this because our cannons are made out 595 00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,759 Speaker 1: of cast iron and they wouldn't be strong enough to 596 00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:03,239 Speaker 1: fire this artillery shell without exploding, which in war would 597 00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:08,880 Speaker 1: be not an incredibly effective tactic. So Bessemer decided that 598 00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:11,840 Speaker 1: the best way to solve this problem would be to 599 00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:15,400 Speaker 1: create a stronger type of iron so that the French 600 00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,600 Speaker 1: could make their cannons out of that, and then he 601 00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:22,000 Speaker 1: could sell the shells he had created to them. So 602 00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:24,560 Speaker 1: it was a roundabout way of doing things, but ended 603 00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:27,720 Speaker 1: up working out pretty well. So Bessemer started by using 604 00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:30,320 Speaker 1: a blast furnace much like the one I've already described 605 00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:34,000 Speaker 1: earlier in this episode. As he experimented, he found that 606 00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:37,080 Speaker 1: oxygen in the furnace would remove some of the carbon 607 00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,120 Speaker 1: from the pig iron that he was using. Inside the furnace, 608 00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:44,160 Speaker 1: Blowing air through the purified iron caused it to heat 609 00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,680 Speaker 1: up more, and the oxygen was heating up the remaining 610 00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:51,719 Speaker 1: carbon inside the the melted iron as well as silicon, 611 00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:56,279 Speaker 1: and this made the resulting molten material easy to pour, 612 00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:00,400 Speaker 1: and the process became known as the Bessemer process. The 613 00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,400 Speaker 1: result was that you would get these slag free ingots 614 00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:07,400 Speaker 1: of metal. Combining this approach with a discovery from another 615 00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:12,520 Speaker 1: engineer named Robert Forrester Mushnitt, Bessemer could use an iron 616 00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:17,680 Speaker 1: manganese alloy to remove extra oxygen from the decarborized iron, 617 00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:21,160 Speaker 1: and this is what allowed him to create steel. Now, 618 00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,280 Speaker 1: Bessemer hit a snag when he discovered his process really 619 00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:28,879 Speaker 1: only worked if he used phosphorus free iron ore. So 620 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,440 Speaker 1: if you remember I mentioned, materials like phosphorus and sulfur 621 00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:36,200 Speaker 1: turn iron brittle, so it becomes less useful, it'll shear off. 622 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:42,040 Speaker 1: And Bessemer was just by chance using iron ore that 623 00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:46,799 Speaker 1: didn't have a high phosphorus content. So when he was 624 00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:50,279 Speaker 1: doing his experiments, everything was coming out great. But then 625 00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:54,320 Speaker 1: when iron workers at large began to try his very process, 626 00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:57,640 Speaker 1: they started getting very different results because much of that 627 00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:01,759 Speaker 1: iron ore in Britain contained phosph us. Bessemer found the 628 00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:05,440 Speaker 1: source of iron ore in northwestern England that was free 629 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:09,520 Speaker 1: of phosphorus, but that solution wasn't ideal because it meant 630 00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:11,440 Speaker 1: that you had to get all your iron ore from 631 00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:16,600 Speaker 1: one place. Now, another improvement in eighteen seventy seven made 632 00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:20,600 Speaker 1: Bessemer's approach more useful. There was a another person named 633 00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:25,040 Speaker 1: Sydney Gilchrist Thomas who created a furnace lining that removed 634 00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:28,040 Speaker 1: phosphorus from the iron ore as it was heating up, 635 00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,560 Speaker 1: which meant that iron workers didn't have to rely exclusively 636 00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:35,359 Speaker 1: on that phosphorus free iron ore from Northwest England. The 637 00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:40,719 Speaker 1: end product of this process was called mild steel. Now 638 00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,239 Speaker 1: it's called mild steel because it was different from the 639 00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:46,919 Speaker 1: steel produced by the earlier methods, the kind that that 640 00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:52,880 Speaker 1: court was known for, because it didn't it wasn't it 641 00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:56,760 Speaker 1: wasn't as hard, it wasn't only useful for cutting tools, 642 00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:59,239 Speaker 1: which is pretty much what all the hard steel was 643 00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:02,240 Speaker 1: used for in earlier versions. It was easier to work 644 00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:07,600 Speaker 1: and became the material of choice for applications like girders, rods, wires, rivets, 645 00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:12,080 Speaker 1: and other uses. So while iron had replaced wood earlier, 646 00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:16,120 Speaker 1: now steele was beginning to replace iron. In the late 647 00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,440 Speaker 1: eighteen sixties, there was a new process called the open 648 00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:24,040 Speaker 1: hearth process that rivaled the Bessemer approach. Now, this technique 649 00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:28,120 Speaker 1: was created by a German engineer living in England and 650 00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:32,319 Speaker 1: his name was William Siemens. Siemens found a way to 651 00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:36,080 Speaker 1: use the waist heat generated by a furnace to feed 652 00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:40,800 Speaker 1: back into the furnace itself to increase the temperature inside 653 00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,160 Speaker 1: the furnace. So what you would do is that you 654 00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,239 Speaker 1: would have this hot air being given off by the 655 00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:48,680 Speaker 1: furnace and he would pump that air back into the 656 00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:52,279 Speaker 1: furnace using that same pathway, which meant that the air 657 00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:55,719 Speaker 1: being blasted into the furnace was already preheated, so it 658 00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:57,920 Speaker 1: was no longer the cold air blast. This is a 659 00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:01,880 Speaker 1: hot air blast that in turn made the flame temperature 660 00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:05,680 Speaker 1: hotter and using a combination of pig iron and scrap 661 00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:09,440 Speaker 1: wrought iron, iron workers could use this technique to produce 662 00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:13,400 Speaker 1: steel quickly. William Siemens would go on to invent the 663 00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:17,800 Speaker 1: electric furnace in eighteen seventy nine, which provided another enormous 664 00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:21,480 Speaker 1: boost to the steel industry in England. He also worked 665 00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:25,279 Speaker 1: in electric telegraphy and in lighting, so this is also 666 00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:29,319 Speaker 1: the era where people are experimenting with those technologies. Uh. 667 00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:32,719 Speaker 1: William Siemens and Henry Bessemer both were knighted for their 668 00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:37,040 Speaker 1: contributions to Britain, so that was very interesting because William Siemens, 669 00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:41,040 Speaker 1: obviously he was German born, but became an English citizen 670 00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:45,000 Speaker 1: and became a knight, and Bessemer was a self taught 671 00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:48,399 Speaker 1: man who became a knight. So very interesting that both 672 00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:51,520 Speaker 1: of them were able to create such important contributions to 673 00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:55,680 Speaker 1: the entire nation. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of 674 00:42:55,760 --> 00:43:08,359 Speaker 1: this tex Stuff classic episode right after we take this break. Now, 675 00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,360 Speaker 1: both the best simer process and the open hearth process 676 00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,520 Speaker 1: significantly reduced the amount of time it took to convert 677 00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,720 Speaker 1: iron into steel, and that created a new industry in Britain. 678 00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,560 Speaker 1: Before long, steel replaced iron and all those applications, just 679 00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:25,000 Speaker 1: as iron had replaced wood back in the eighteenth century. 680 00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:27,840 Speaker 1: But now we've got to backtrack a little bit to 681 00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:31,239 Speaker 1: talk about steam engines. So all that's going on with 682 00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:34,839 Speaker 1: the iron and steel industry from the seventeen forties up 683 00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:39,719 Speaker 1: until the late eighteen hundreds, but steam engines actually go 684 00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:44,560 Speaker 1: back before the Industrial Revolution. Now, in October two thirteen, 685 00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:47,799 Speaker 1: tech Stuff did a full episode about steam engines and 686 00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:50,120 Speaker 1: how they work. So I'll try to be brief because 687 00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:52,360 Speaker 1: you can always go back and listen to that episode 688 00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:56,040 Speaker 1: for a more detailed account of how steam engines came 689 00:43:56,040 --> 00:44:00,840 Speaker 1: about and the developments over time. But here's a submarine. 690 00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:03,879 Speaker 1: First of all, we've known about steam for quite some time. 691 00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:07,000 Speaker 1: The ancient Greeks were aware of steam's ability to do work, 692 00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:10,280 Speaker 1: but it wasn't really until the Industrial Revolution that anyone 693 00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:14,080 Speaker 1: made real practical steam engines. And part of the reason 694 00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:17,799 Speaker 1: for that is that steam is incredibly dangerous. Not only 695 00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:21,680 Speaker 1: can it be hot enough to cause devastating burns, but 696 00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:23,640 Speaker 1: if you want it to do useful work, you have 697 00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:26,640 Speaker 1: to put it under pressure, and that means you have 698 00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:29,760 Speaker 1: to have materials strong enough to deal with that pressure 699 00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:33,880 Speaker 1: to contain the steam without failing, because if there is 700 00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:38,200 Speaker 1: a failure, your device is going to fly apart, and 701 00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:41,880 Speaker 1: what you've really created is a steam powered bomb, not 702 00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:46,600 Speaker 1: entirely useful for industry. So it took a long time 703 00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:50,600 Speaker 1: for engineers to figure out ways to harness steam in 704 00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:54,600 Speaker 1: a way that wasn't inherently dangerous every time you used it. 705 00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,000 Speaker 1: The development of the early steam engines actually predates the 706 00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:04,200 Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution. In sixt a guy named Thomas Savory patented 707 00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:08,439 Speaker 1: a device meant to draw water from mines using steam, 708 00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:12,080 Speaker 1: and it would allow mining operations to continue. It worked 709 00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:15,360 Speaker 1: on the principle of vacuum power, so the device would 710 00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:18,000 Speaker 1: fill a chamber with steam. You would have a boiler. 711 00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:22,640 Speaker 1: So you've got essentially a pot filled with water, and 712 00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:26,400 Speaker 1: you put heat to the pot. The water begins to 713 00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,680 Speaker 1: boil and gives off steam. Uh, there's a pipe leading 714 00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:32,640 Speaker 1: from the pot to a chamber, so the chamber fills 715 00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:36,680 Speaker 1: up with steam until you've got a nice amount of 716 00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:39,960 Speaker 1: steam built up inside that chamber. You would then cut 717 00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:45,160 Speaker 1: off the pathway between the chamber and the boiler. There 718 00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:49,000 Speaker 1: would be another line leading from the chamber down into 719 00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:52,160 Speaker 1: a mine, and the end of the line would be 720 00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:57,120 Speaker 1: under the water level. As the steam cools, it condenses, 721 00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:01,479 Speaker 1: and when it condenses, it's taking up less space, which 722 00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:06,240 Speaker 1: is creating a vacuum that's negative pressure. So this vacuum 723 00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:10,040 Speaker 1: would start to pull the water from the pipe. You know, 724 00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:12,719 Speaker 1: the water that's in the mine that there's an end 725 00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:14,640 Speaker 1: of a pipe that's underneath that water level, would pull 726 00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:19,560 Speaker 1: water up the length of that pipe into the chamber. Now, 727 00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:23,239 Speaker 1: once you've got a chamber filled with water, you have 728 00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:25,200 Speaker 1: to get rid of that water, and often the way 729 00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:27,640 Speaker 1: they would do that is they would close off the 730 00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:30,560 Speaker 1: pathway down the pipe that goes down into the mine 731 00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:35,399 Speaker 1: and heat it up and then expel the water with 732 00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:40,320 Speaker 1: using steam power. Sometimes they would go upwards of eighty feet, 733 00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:44,080 Speaker 1: or sometimes it would explode. Even if it worked properly, 734 00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:50,960 Speaker 1: the invention had pretty tough limitations. It was really limited 735 00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,680 Speaker 1: to shallow depths. You couldn't go very deep with this 736 00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:57,400 Speaker 1: because the vacuum power wasn't strong enough to pull water 737 00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:02,520 Speaker 1: up more than a few or so comparatively speaking to 738 00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:06,799 Speaker 1: other types of pumps. Then alone came a guy named 739 00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:10,760 Speaker 1: Thomas Newcomen who would come up with a significant improvement 740 00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:16,319 Speaker 1: over savories approach, and he used a steam powered water pump. Now, 741 00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:20,840 Speaker 1: the best way to imagine this is imagine a giant seesaw. Alright, 742 00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:25,160 Speaker 1: one end of the seesaw is weighted down, so it's 743 00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:30,040 Speaker 1: naturally in the down position at any given time. That's 744 00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:32,759 Speaker 1: the pump end. That's the end that is attached by 745 00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:36,800 Speaker 1: a chain to a pump that is designed to pull 746 00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:40,840 Speaker 1: water up from underground. The other end of the pump, 747 00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:43,640 Speaker 1: which is up in the air, is attached by a 748 00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:47,719 Speaker 1: chain to a steam piston inside a cylinder. So you've 749 00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,520 Speaker 1: got a cylinder and a piston. The piston is in 750 00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:54,239 Speaker 1: the up position. It's dangling from the chain that's on 751 00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:59,560 Speaker 1: the upper part of the seesaw. Now Newcomman's invention would 752 00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:02,080 Speaker 1: fill the cylinder with steam. Again, you would have a 753 00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:06,360 Speaker 1: boiler that would boil water generate steam. Steam would fill 754 00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:10,840 Speaker 1: this cylinder up, and then you would cool the cylinder 755 00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:14,160 Speaker 1: cylinder down, which would cause the steam to condense, creating 756 00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:17,560 Speaker 1: a vacuum, and that vacuum would pull on the piston. 757 00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:22,440 Speaker 1: So you have a pulling force that would pull on 758 00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:25,360 Speaker 1: the upper end of the seesaw, pulling it down, making 759 00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:27,960 Speaker 1: the lower end of the seesaw go up and pump 760 00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:33,760 Speaker 1: water out of the mine. So again it's using steam 761 00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,719 Speaker 1: as a vacuum source, not as a pushing source. It 762 00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:39,440 Speaker 1: was never used to push in those early steam engines, 763 00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:42,480 Speaker 1: only to pull, and that was largely because the materials 764 00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:45,560 Speaker 1: being used to create the cylinders and boilers weren't strong 765 00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:48,520 Speaker 1: enough to hold steam under greater pressures. So it was 766 00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:50,759 Speaker 1: just too dangerous to create a steam engine that you 767 00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:54,000 Speaker 1: steam as a pushing power. At that time, it made 768 00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:57,279 Speaker 1: way more sense to create the pulling power because it 769 00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:01,279 Speaker 1: was much less dangerous. Now new Cummins invention worked, but 770 00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:05,080 Speaker 1: it was inefficient, and that's largely because it required you 771 00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:08,319 Speaker 1: to heat the cylinder that has the piston in it. 772 00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:09,840 Speaker 1: You have to heat it up and then you have 773 00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:11,640 Speaker 1: to cool it down, and you have to heat it 774 00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:14,359 Speaker 1: up and cool it down over and over again, which 775 00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:16,280 Speaker 1: meant that you had to expend a lot of extra 776 00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:19,520 Speaker 1: energy just to get the cylinder at the right temperature 777 00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,440 Speaker 1: each time. And it also meant that heating it up 778 00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:24,600 Speaker 1: and cooling it down would create a lot of stress 779 00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:27,840 Speaker 1: on the material, so you'd have to replace the cylinder 780 00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:32,040 Speaker 1: fairly regularly, because if you kept doing it indefinitely, it 781 00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:35,640 Speaker 1: would become too weak to operate safely. But that all 782 00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:40,280 Speaker 1: changed when a fellow named James Watt came around. James 783 00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:44,680 Speaker 1: Watt invented a device called a condenser in seventeen sixty five. 784 00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,759 Speaker 1: So the condenser was a pretty simple idea. It was 785 00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:52,920 Speaker 1: a separate chamber that allowed steam to condense, and by 786 00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,160 Speaker 1: creating a separate chamber, you didn't have to change the 787 00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:58,840 Speaker 1: temperature of the cylinder anymore. You just kept the cylinder 788 00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:01,080 Speaker 1: at a high temperature. You didn't have to lower it 789 00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:04,960 Speaker 1: at all because once the steam was created in the cylinder, 790 00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:08,799 Speaker 1: it could pass into the condenser chamber, cool down and 791 00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:13,200 Speaker 1: create that vacuum poll. So this was a huge improvement 792 00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:16,879 Speaker 1: on the efficiency of the newcoming engine. So what really 793 00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:20,320 Speaker 1: made a big contribution here, now, late in his career, 794 00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:23,359 Speaker 1: what would make something else that he was even more 795 00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,080 Speaker 1: proud of. He thought that this was his most important 796 00:50:26,120 --> 00:50:30,320 Speaker 1: invention out of everything he did. It was a solid 797 00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:33,440 Speaker 1: mechanism that allowed the up and down motion of the 798 00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:37,040 Speaker 1: piston to translate into the arc motion of that see 799 00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:41,600 Speaker 1: saw pump I was talking about. Now, As I mentioned, 800 00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:44,640 Speaker 1: earlier models used a chain to connect the pump to 801 00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:48,399 Speaker 1: the piston. And there's a limitation right there, right because 802 00:50:48,440 --> 00:50:50,560 Speaker 1: if you have a chain, you can only pull. You 803 00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:53,799 Speaker 1: can't push a chain or a rope. If you try 804 00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:57,120 Speaker 1: and do that, you don't get any useful work out 805 00:50:57,160 --> 00:51:02,120 Speaker 1: of that. But by the late seventeen hundreds, you could 806 00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:06,120 Speaker 1: actually create materials strong enough to contain steam under a 807 00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:11,280 Speaker 1: decent amount of pressure. So what created this solid mechanism 808 00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:14,400 Speaker 1: instead of a chain that would connect the end of 809 00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:17,719 Speaker 1: a of a of a pump, you know, the the 810 00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:19,960 Speaker 1: working in not the not the pumping end, but the 811 00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:24,200 Speaker 1: other end to the piston. And because it was solid, 812 00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:27,959 Speaker 1: it could push or pull, and the up and down 813 00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:31,200 Speaker 1: motion of the piston was translated into this arc motion 814 00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:35,799 Speaker 1: of the pump going see sawing back and forth, and 815 00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:38,600 Speaker 1: that meant that you could actually use the piston to 816 00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:43,480 Speaker 1: push and to pull. So by pumping steam into the cylinder, 817 00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:46,640 Speaker 1: you could push the piston up, and by allowing the 818 00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:49,360 Speaker 1: steam to condense, you could pull the piston back down. 819 00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:53,680 Speaker 1: That meant you created a double acting piston. And this 820 00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:56,200 Speaker 1: meant that you could make a steam engine much more 821 00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:59,600 Speaker 1: efficient because it could work in both directions. Now, the 822 00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:03,600 Speaker 1: steam engine had an enormous impact on both the textile 823 00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:06,719 Speaker 1: and the iron industries, so that's kind of why I 824 00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:10,520 Speaker 1: put it here at this point to talk about how 825 00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:12,920 Speaker 1: it affected the other two industries I've already covered in 826 00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:17,400 Speaker 1: this series. So factories began to use steam power in 827 00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:20,440 Speaker 1: place of water wheels, or in addition to water wheels. 828 00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:23,320 Speaker 1: Steam power freed up factories from having to be placed 829 00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:26,600 Speaker 1: alongside a river. You could actually put a factory anywhere 830 00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:31,280 Speaker 1: by creating steam engines to provide the power for whatever 831 00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:34,080 Speaker 1: it was you were doing. So there were steam powered 832 00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:38,280 Speaker 1: looms and textile mills, and steam powered blowers and iron works, 833 00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:40,840 Speaker 1: so you didn't have to have the river to provide 834 00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:43,840 Speaker 1: the water wheel power or You could even use a 835 00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:47,880 Speaker 1: steam engine to pull water to continuously supply the water 836 00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:52,839 Speaker 1: wheel with enough water to turn and provide the mechanical 837 00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:56,000 Speaker 1: power that you needed. So there were combinations as well. 838 00:52:56,920 --> 00:53:00,680 Speaker 1: Harnessing steam made these industries more efficient, and that led 839 00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:04,239 Speaker 1: to lower prices on goods, and it also increased a 840 00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:08,160 Speaker 1: need for workers. You began to be able to produce more, 841 00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:10,320 Speaker 1: but you needed more people to work on the stuff 842 00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:13,000 Speaker 1: you were doing. And that was great news for the 843 00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:15,880 Speaker 1: population of Britain because the population was growing and there 844 00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:18,680 Speaker 1: weren't enough jobs to go around otherwise. So this was 845 00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:23,320 Speaker 1: creating a demand for jobs um and there were plenty 846 00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:26,200 Speaker 1: of people to fill those jobs. And the Industrial Revolution 847 00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,920 Speaker 1: was producing something besides just iron and cloth. It was 848 00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:33,600 Speaker 1: producing the working class. Now that kind of leads me 849 00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:36,120 Speaker 1: to the conclusion of this episode. There's a lot we 850 00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:39,480 Speaker 1: could talk about with steam, obviously, including the development of 851 00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:42,759 Speaker 1: the locomotive and steamships, but I'm going to save that 852 00:53:42,840 --> 00:53:45,920 Speaker 1: for the final episode. So I'm going to conclude the 853 00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:49,080 Speaker 1: series on the Industrial Revolution with the next one, and 854 00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:52,880 Speaker 1: we'll look at how transportation was changing, including those steamships 855 00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:55,680 Speaker 1: and locomotives. We'll talk about some of the conflicts that 856 00:53:55,719 --> 00:53:59,640 Speaker 1: were going on around the same span of time, So 857 00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:03,319 Speaker 1: that includes the American Revolution that took place during the 858 00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:07,360 Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution in England, as well as the Napoleonic Wars 859 00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:11,239 Speaker 1: and the American Civil War, and there were other conflicts 860 00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:13,759 Speaker 1: as well, so that was a big part of what 861 00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:17,960 Speaker 1: was driving innovation as well. It became necessity for the 862 00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:22,920 Speaker 1: war efforts to create iron and steel products more efficiently 863 00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:25,520 Speaker 1: and as well as textiles and other elements as well. 864 00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:27,799 Speaker 1: So that's gonna be part of the discussion in the 865 00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:30,960 Speaker 1: next episode. I hope you enjoyed that classic episode of 866 00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:33,960 Speaker 1: tech Stuff. Next week we will wrap up this three 867 00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:37,560 Speaker 1: part series and uh in the meantime, if you have 868 00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:40,600 Speaker 1: suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of 869 00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:44,000 Speaker 1: tech Stuff, whether it's a look back on big historical 870 00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:47,480 Speaker 1: trends in tech or something that's cutting edge and brand new. 871 00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:49,760 Speaker 1: You can do that in a couple of different ways. 872 00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:52,560 Speaker 1: One is to download the I Heart radio app. It 873 00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:55,280 Speaker 1: is free to download and to use. You can navigate 874 00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:57,879 Speaker 1: over to tech Stuff using the little search bar. You'll 875 00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:00,719 Speaker 1: see that there is a microphone icon. Let's you leave 876 00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:03,399 Speaker 1: a voice message up to thirty seconds in length. Letting 877 00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:05,200 Speaker 1: me know what you would like on on the show, 878 00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:09,800 Speaker 1: or if you would prefer an alternative. You can always 879 00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:12,160 Speaker 1: use Twitter and you can send me a tweet. The 880 00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:15,920 Speaker 1: handle for the show is text Stuff hs W and 881 00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:24,360 Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is 882 00:55:24,400 --> 00:55:27,560 Speaker 1: an I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I 883 00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:31,279 Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 884 00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:33,400 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.