When did tin plating start?

Tinplate consists of sheets of steel coated with a thin layer of tin to impede rusting. Before the advent of cheap mild steel, the backing metal (known as "backplate") was wrought iron. While once more widely used, the primary use of tinplate now is the manufacture of tin cans.

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In the tinning process, tinplate is made by rolling the steel (or formerly iron) in a rolling mill, removing any mill scale by pickling it in acid and then coating it with a thin layer of tin. Plates were once produced individually (or in small groups) in what became known as a pack mill. In the late s pack mills began to be replaced by strip mills which produced larger quantities more economically.

Formerly, tinplate was used for tin ceiling, and holloware (cheap pots and pans), also known as tinware. The people who made tinware (metal spinning) were tinplate workers.

For many purposes, tinplate has been replaced by galvanised metal, the base being treated with a zinc coating. It is suitable in many applications where tinplate was formerly used, although not for cooking vessels, or in other high temperature situations&#;when heated, fumes from zinc oxide are given off; exposure to such gases can produce toxicity syndromes such as metal fume fever.[1] The zinc layer prevents the iron from rusting through sacrificial protection with the zinc oxidizing instead of the iron, whereas tin will only protect the iron if the tin-surface remains unbroken.

The practice of tin mining likely began circa B.C. in Western Asia, British Isles and Europe. Tin was an essential ingredient of bronze production during the Bronze Age. The practice of tinning ironware to protect it against rust is an ancient one. This may have been the work of the whitesmith. This was done after the article was fabricated, whereas tinplate was tinned before fabrication. Tinplate was apparently produced in the s at a mill of (or under the patronage of) the Earl of Southampton, but it is not clear how long this continued.

The first production of tinplate was probably in Bohemia, from where the trade spread to Saxony, and was well-established there by the s. Andrew Yarranton and Ambrose Crowley (a Stourbridge blacksmith and father of the more famous Sir Ambrose) visited Dresden in and learned how it was made. In doing so, they were sponsored by various local ironmasters and people connected with the project to make the river Stour navigable. In Saxony, the plates were forged, but when they conducted experiments on their return to England, they tried rolling the iron. This led to the ironmasters Philip Foley and Joshua Newborough (two of the sponsors) in erecting a new mill, Wolverley Lower Mill (or forge) in Worcestershire. This contained three shops, one being a slitting mill (which would serve as a rolling mill), and the others were forges. In one of these was making frying pans and the other drawing out blooms made in finery forges elsewhere. It is likely that the intention was to roll the plates and then finish them under a hammer, but the plan was frustrated by William Chamberlaine renewing a patent granted to him and Dud Dudley in .

The slitter at Wolverley was Thomas Cooke. Another Thomas Cooke, perhaps his son, moved to Pontypool and worked there for John Hanbury. He had a slitting mill there and was also producing iron plates called 'Pontpoole plates'. Edward Lhuyd reported the existence of this mill in . This has been claimed as a tinplate works, but it was almost certainly only producing (untinned) backplate.

Tinplate first begins to appear in the Gloucester Port Books (which record trade passing through Gloucester), mostly from ports in the Bristol Channel in . The tinplate was shipped from Newport, Monmouthshire.[a] This immediately follows the first appearance (in French) of Reamur's Principes de l'art de fer-blanc, and prior to a report of it being published in England.

Further mills followed a few years later, initially in many iron-making regions in England and Wales, but later mainly in south Wales, most notably the Melingriffith Tin Plate Works, Whitchurch, Cardiff, which was founded some time before . In , 80,000 boxes were made and 50,000 exported. The industry continued to grow until . One of the greatest markets was the United States, but that market was cut off in when the McKinley tariff was enacted. This caused a great retrenchment in the British industry and the emigration to America of many of those were no longer employed in the surviving tinplate works.

Despite this blow, the industry continued, but on a smaller scale. There were 518 mills in operation in , including 224 belonging to Richard Thomas & Co. The traditional 'pack mill' had been overtaken by the improved 'strip mill', of which the first in Great Britain was built by Richard Thomas & Co. in the late s. Strip mills rendered the old pack mills obsolete and the last of them closed circa the s.

The raw material was bar iron, or (from the introduction of mild steel in the late 19th century), a bar of steel. This was drawn into a flat bar (known as a tin bar) at the ironworks or steel works where it was made. The cross-section of the bar needed to be accurate in size as this would be the cross-section of the pack of plates made from it. The bar was cut to the correct length (being the width of the plates) and heated. It was then passed four or five times through the rolls of the rolling mill, to produce a thick plate about 30 inches long. Between each pass the plate is passed over (or round) the rolls, and the gap between the rolls is narrowed by means of a screw.

This was then rolled until it had doubled in length. The plate was then folded in half ('doubled') using a doubling shear, which was like a table where one half of the surface folds over on top of the other. It is then put into a furnace to be heated until it is well 'soaked'. This is repeated until there is a pack of 8 or 16 plates. The pack is then allowed to cool. When cool, the pack was sheared (using powered shears) and the plates separated by 'openers' (usually women).[11] Defective plates were discarded, and the rest passed to the pickling department.

In the pickling department, the plates were immersed in baths of acid (to remove scale, i.e., oxide), then in water (washing them). After inspection they were placed in an annealing furnace, where they were heated for 10&#;14 hours. This was known as 'black pickling' and 'black annealing'. After being removed they were allowed to cool for up to 48 hours. The plates were then rolled cold through highly polished rolls to remove any unevenness and give them a polished surface. They were then annealed again at a lower temperature and pickled again, this being known as 'white annealing' and 'white pickling'. They were then washed and stored in slightly acid water (where they would not rust) awaiting tinning.

The tinning set consisted of two pots with molten tin (with flux on top) and a grease pot. The flux dries the plate and prepares it for the tin to adhere. The second tin pot (called the wash pot) had tin at a lower temperature. This is followed by the grease pot (containing an oil), removing the excess tin. Then follow cleaning and polishing processes. Finally, the tinplates were packed in boxes of 112 sheets ready for sale. Single plates were 20 by 14 inches (51 cm × 36 cm); doubles twice that. A box weighed approximately a hundredweight (cwt; 112 pounds or 51 kilograms).[b]

The strip mill was a major innovation, with the first being erected at Ashland, Kentucky in . This provided a continuous process, eliminating the need to pass the plates over the rolls and to double them. At the end the strip was cut with a guillotine shear or rolled into a coil. Early &#; hot rolling &#; strip mills did not produce strip suitable for tinplate, but in cold rolling began to be used to reduce the gauge further. The first strip mill in Great Britain was opened at Ebbw Vale in with an annual output of 200,000 imperial tons (203,210 tonnes or 224,000 short tons).

The strip mill had several advantages over pack mills:

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• It was cheaper due to having all parts of the process, starting with blast furnaces, on the same site.
• Softer steel could be used.
• Larger sheets could be produced at lower cost; this reduced cost and enabled tinplate and steel sheet to be used for more purposes.
• It was capital-intensive, rather than labour-intensive.

Although tin as a metal has been used for thousands of years, its use as a coating for metal plate dates only to the 16th century. Historical records suggest the first manufacture and use of tinplate was in Bohemia (now a part of the Czech Republic) and parts of southern Germany. A coating of tin on thin metal plate provides a rust inhibitor. Because it&#;s non-toxic and food-safe, tinplate is a useful material for making cups, bowls, and plates.

Tin, which is contained in an ore called cassiterite, was mined in various places historically, including perhaps most famously in the British county of Cornwall. Cornish mines provided tin to the ancient Romans when they occupied what they called &#;Britannia&#;; later, Cornish tin was exported to Bohemia and other centers of tinplate production as a raw material. But the secret of how tin was made to coat very thin iron plates was kept a secret for many decades, until a bit of early industrial espionage made the secret available to the English in the third quarter of the 17th century. The impetus for covertly acquiring this knowledge was declining tinplate availability in England. The English (like many others) had been importing finished tinplate from the Bohemians and other producers for many decades. A shortage of tinplate, however, made them want to discover the secret of making it for themselves. An Englishman named Andrew Yarranton traveled to Germany in - with the express purpose of touring facilities and learning the process of making tinplate. Having learned the manufacturing process, Yarranton brought that knowledge back to England. Combining Cornish tin with thin iron sheets milled in Wales, British tinplate manufacturing took off rapidly.

The first tinsmiths came to the American colonies from England in the mid-17th century and began producing tinware for the colonial market. Tinware proved popular, and the few tinsmiths found themselves with more work than they could handle. This situation led to the training of new tinsmiths and to the creation of new foundries to produce tinsmith&#;s stakes and other tools. By the US Civil War, much tinware was being made in factories, although nearly every town across the country still had a working tinsmith who produced tinware for sale and made repairs.

Tinware remained popular until the s and s, when it began to be replaced with aluminum and stainless steel and later, plastics.

Karl and Nadine Schmidt tinsmithing at Fort Abercrombie, June,

A friend of the Fort Abercrombie State Historic Site, Karl Schmidt developed an interest in tinsmithing after he met a working historical tinsmith at the Brookings Summer Arts Festival in South Dakota some 12 years ago. Karl was fascinated by how the tinsmith turned flat sheets of tinplate into useful items. In spring , Karl learned that the resident tinsmith at the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, Loren Miller, was offering a weekend in Nebraska. Karl and his family signed up. For Karl, this was the beginning of a new adventure.

Historical Tinsmithing tools

By spring , Karl decided to become a working historical tinsmith (one who makes primarily historical tinware reproductions and uses primarily antique tinsmith&#;s tools). He found tools and hand-crank machines on Ebay. Some tools, like the tinner&#;s stakes, were ready to use, but some items, particularly the tinner&#;s machines, needed careful restoration work, which Karl did himself.

Tinware by Karl Schmidt

In June , Karl met William McMillen, arguably the best-known and most accomplished historical tinsmith in the country. Two months later, he attended McMillen&#;s week-long tinsmithing workshop, learning the fine points of historical tinsmithing, and making a variety of projects.

Tinsmith Karl Schmidt working with period tools

With excellent training under his belt and a tin shop full of tools, Karl began to make tinware and demonstrate his craft. Karl first demonstrated tinsmithing Fort Abercrombie State Historic Site for the Living History Weekend in June .He continues to demonstrate his craft each summer in historical dress, using his 19th century tools.

Lanterns by Karl Schmidt

If you are interested in meeting Karl and watching the art of tinsmithing, join us for Fort Abercrombie State Historic Site&#;s opening day on Saturday, May 26, . Karl and his family will be demonstrating and having wares for sale at this event and at Fort Abercrombie Living History Weekend, June 9 &#; 10.

Photos and history summary courtesy of Karl Schmidt.