Traditional British made Black antique Ironmongery.
All of our Black Antique malleable iron products are hand made by Kirkpatrick in Walsall using the greensand casting process. In this process the castingsare surrounded by an inert haematite ore within iron drums and loaded into ovens of six to eight tons capacity.The ovens take about two days to reach the Annealing temperature of 980C. The castings are then soaked at this temperature for around 80 hours after which they are allowed to cool naturally. During this process the carbon structure of the iron is changed. The resulting castings are no longer hard and brittle but soft and malleable.After shot blasting and grinding to remove any rough edges the castings are then assembled into finished or semi-finished products. Following assembly a rust proofing finish may be applied and a two-coat paint process is carried out before the products passon for final inspection, assembly and packaging ready for despatch.