The Advantages of Iron

Q: What's the difference between iron and steel? A: Steel is iron that has most of its impurities removed and has a consistent concentration of carbon (0.5 percent to 1.5 percent).

• Relatively speaking, and especially when compared to wood or copper, iron is extremely strong.
• By heating it, iron is relatively easy to bend and shape using simple tools.
• Unlike wood, iron can handle heat, so you can build things like engines from it.
• Unlike most substances, you can magnetize iron, making it useful in the creation of electric motors and generators.
• Iron is plentiful -- 5 percent of the Earth's crust is iron, and in some areas it concentrates in ores that contain as much as 70 percent iron.
• It is relatively easy to refine iron using simple tools.

When you compare iron and steel with something like aluminum, you can see why it was so important historically. To refine aluminum, you must have access to huge amounts of electricity. To shape aluminum, you must either cast it or extrude it. Iron is much easier to deal with. Iron has been useful to man for thousands of years, while aluminum really did not exist in any meaningful way until the 20th century. (Fun fact: The 10-inch-high pyramid at the tip of the Washington Monument is made of aluminum rather than gold, because gold was less valuable than aluminum in 1884!)

"The Blacksmith," by Jefferson David Chalfant

An object like the flintlock rifle would be impossible to create without iron. Fortunately, iron can be created­ relatively easily with tools that were available to primitive societies. There will likely come a day when we become so technologically advanced that iron is completely replaced by aluminum, plastics and things like carbon and glass fibers. But right now, the economic equation gives inexpensive iron and steel a huge advantage over these much more expensive alternatives.

The only real problem with iron and steel is rust. But you can control rust with paint, galvanizing, chrome plating or sacrificial anodes.