How many stove for sale adds did you sift through to just get an idea of what your looking for? You know you want a new stove but what kind do you want to buy? As I looked through the paper and websites on the subject I got more interested in the history of the heating stove. I mean it is just crazy that we are looking through stove for sale adds on a computer now a days. And how about the many options consumers have on the styles, designs and functions of the stoves made new today. How did we get here?
One of the early contributor to modern day heating stoves was cast-iron. What is cast-iron exactly? Well, its grey iron, named after the color the crack leaves, for the most part. But now there are many other alloys that fall under the name cast-iron. You can usually tell what kind of alloy you are working with by the color of the fractured surface. White cast iron has a white fractured surface form the carbide impurities. Grey cast-iron of course has a grey surface fracture and that come from the graphite flakes.
Malleable cast iron is the only type that can be used for heating stoves. It has a low melting point, is machinable, fluid and cast-able. It is resistant to deformity and has great track record with wear and tare. This makes for a great substance to use for many applications like pipes, auto parts and other building materials. Cylinder heads and blocks as well as gear boxes in automobiles are a few of the places were cast iron has excelled.
History has many pieces of cast iron products in many museums around the world. King Henry VIII had one of the first cannons made of cast iron in England. They were much cheaper than the previous bronze cannons but they were heavier. Cast iron pots made there way into the scene around 1707 with Abraham Darby’s patented method of a thinner pot and kettle. The big steam engine created by Thomas Newcomen became a big use for cast iron which replace brass because it was cheaper. Anyway, there is quite a history to heating stoves that goes beyond just a simple add.
