Before Cast Iron - Rome made Bronze cookware

[Artful]

[fivefang]

Artful, what a wonderful post, & I have the Navy Sand Cast manual somewhere, & ido have Lodge Cast Iron Skillets ,10" & 12",the latter is almost too heavy to use but it is used to bake my Tex/Mex spicy bean Cornbread , Fivefang

[Artful]

I was looking at my scrap bucket of brass cases and thinking I might just recycle them myself.

[Wayne Smith]

Don't have enough brass, and brass and tin make bronze! Humm. I was taught in HS to sand cast. I see two or three things different. One drill location holes in the frame, dowels to locate. No chance of putting it back wrong. Two, use thin brass tubes to do your pouring holes when the pan is still in the frame - and a couple of wire holes for air to leave. Three, not completely filling the second frame he is taking the chance he will knock the whole thing loose when he turns it over. Fill and pack both frames full. Use green sand casting sand to cast as well - he didn't specify that. If I had a way to melt bronze - but then the neighbors might not be happy with the smell, either.

Note, we put the brass tubes in with just an inch or so of sand and packed the rest of the sand around them. Make sure the sand is well packed inside the tubes before you take thim out.

[swamp]

Bronze is copper and tin. 10/1 I believe.
swamp

[Artful]

By definition Brass is an alloy of Copper and Zinc (and usually lead).
Bronze is an alloy of Copper and Tin.
There are many Bronze alloy's.
This may not appear that important a difference but it really is.
Bronze is much stronger and more corrosion resistant than brass.

https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/di...-brass-bronze/

Bronze
Bronze is an alloy that consists primarily of copper with the addition of other ingredients. In most cases the ingredient added is typically tin, but arsenic, phosphorus, aluminum, manganese, and silicon can also be used to produce different properties in the material. All of these ingredients produce an alloy much harder than copper alone.

Bronze is characterized by its dull-gold color. You can also tell the difference between bronze and brass because bronze will have faint rings on its surface.

Applications

Bronze is used in the construction of sculptures, musical instruments and medals, and in industrial applications such as bushings and bearings, where its low metal on metal friction is an advantage. Bronze also has nautical applications because of its resistance to corrosion.

Other Bronze Alloys

Phosphor Bronze (or Tin Bronze)

This alloy typically has a tin content ranging from 0.5% to 1.0%, and a phosphorous range of 0.01% to 0.35%. These alloys are notable for their toughness, strength, low coefficient of friction, high fatigue resistance, and fine grain. The tin content increases the corrosion resistance and tensile strength, while the phosphorous content increases the wear resistance and stiffness. Some typical end uses for this product would be electrical products, bellows, springs, washers, corrosion resistant equipment.

Aluminum Bronze
This has an aluminum content range of 6% – 12%, an iron content of 6% (max), and a nickel content of 6% (max). These combined additives provide increased strength, combined with excellent resistance to corrosion and wear. This material is commonly used in the manufacturing of marine hardware, sleeve bearings and pumps or valves that handle corrosive fluids.

Silicon Bronze
This is an alloy that can cover both brass and bronze (red silicon brasses and red silicon bronzes). They typically contain 20% zinc and 6% silicon. Red brass has high strength and corrosion resistance and is commonly used for valve stems. Red bronze is very similar but it has lower concentrations of zinc. It is commonly used in the manufacturing of pump and valve components.

Nickel Brass (or Nickel Silver)
This is an alloy that contains copper, nickel and zinc. The nickel gives the material an almost silver appearance. This material has moderate strength and fairly good corrosion resistance. This material is typically used to make musical instruments, food and beverage equipment, optical equipment, and other items where the aesthetics are an important factor.

Copper Nickel (or Cupronickel)
This is an alloy that can contain anywhere from 2% to 30% nickel. This material has a very high corrosion-resistance and has thermal stability. This material also exhibits a very high tolerance to corrosion cracking under stress and oxidation in a steam or moist air environment. Higher nickel content in this material will have improved corrosion resistance in seawater, and resistance to marine biological fouling. This material is typically used in making electronic products, marine equipment, valves, pumps and ship hulls.

[Wayne Smith]

Wow! Thanks for the correction, guys. Memory is going, I guess.

[Geezer in NH]

Wow in 1965 my high school had pattern making as 1 required shop. We were taught to make brass castings of our pattern. Done the same way the shop teacher poured the melted brass. Done the same was as shown Neat! I had forgotten about that class till your post. Thanks

[Shumkles]

If I recall correctly there was also bronze wear found in the Xian tomb where the Terracotta warriors were found in China.

[frkelly74]

There is an armored chariot built of Bronze at the exhibit outside of Xian. the emperor was to ride in it. Most of the small weapons were looted over the years but the chariot was still on exhibit there when we were in 2006. It was quite the tourist trap but still impressive to look at. The emperor was going to have live soldiers buried with him but his advisers convinced him that they might not remain loyal if they knew his plans.

could you use pewter for the tin?

[Artful]

could you use pewter for the tin?

Pewter is an alloy of tin with copper and antimony (formerly, tin and lead), I have seen tankards and plates made of pewter but don't recall it's use in cooking vessels.
So if you know that your pewter is made with which alloy you might substitute - personally I'd like to keep the lead % down.
And avoid Antimony as Antimony toxicity occurs either due to occupational exposure or during therapy.
Occupational exposure may cause respiratory irritation, pneumoconiosis, antimony spots on the skin and gastrointestinal symptoms.
In addition antimony trioxide is possibly carcinogenic to humans.

[frkelly74]

I read someplace that Antimony was called antimonk in the past due to some illness and death caused to some monks who were working with it. I have been thinking of belt buckles and house numbers but the frying pan has caught my imagination.

[woodbutcher]

Just think how nice your kitchen would look with a whole set of high polished bronze skillets hanging on the wall ready to use.Would SWMBO like that?
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I read someplace that Antimony was called antimonk in the past due to some illness and death caused to some monks who were working with it. I have been thinking of belt buckles and house numbers but the frying pan has caught my imagination.

No verbal confusion needed. In French both are "antimoine". It may have been used to increase the strength of alloys during the BronzAge, and later it was used for medical purposes, although I believe the only confirmed useful effect was as an emetic (if your needs run that way), when wine was left for some time in a cup made of it. Any way you treat the lead part of a lead-antimony alloy should be safe with the antimony part of it.

If you want to mix tin into a copper alloy, I think the tricky part is using a flux or other protection of tin, to stop it oxidising at the temperature that melts the copper. I don't want to be around anyone making leaded bronze. You could, however, put a piece of copper, brass or bronze in your mouth, and I don't think you would want to cook with that taste. It ought to be tinned with plumber's lead-free solder.

[Artful]

US Lead-free solders in commercial use may contain tin, copper, silver, bismuth, indium, zinc, antimony, and traces of other metals.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

In Saudi Arabia, when we encountered a trainee whose needle didn't point north (neither more nor less frequent than anywhere else), we used to wonder whether his coffee-pot was tinned with the wrong kind of solder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallah_(coffee_pot)

[Echo]

whose needle didn't point north (neither more nor less frequent than anywhere else),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallah_(coffee_pot)

LOVE IT! Will use, for sure!

[AllanD]

You can also (if you have it or afford it) add Silver or Gold into your bronze alloy mixture

Depending on your exact composition this would yield either something modern called "Gamma Bronze"(silver containing)
or "Corinthian Bronze" with Gold and some smaller quantity of Silver, both of these are distinctive in developing a purple patina over time.

While I like the idea of a Bronze skillet, I'd much rather have the funds available to have a skillet cast of "fine" (22k or greater)
Gold, Yes it would be expensive(probably ($500.000-$800,000), but it would be perfectly even heat idea for frying eggs or making Omlets of Creapes.

Yes silver would be a better conductor of heat but any eggs fried in a Silver skillet would turn the skillet and eggs Blue-Black.
Due to the reaction between Sulfur in the eggs and Silver.

A golden skillet would also be nonstick, but easily scratched with metallic cooking utensils.

[Bazoo]

That is really neat. I seen a video almost identical showing the casting of a skillet out of aluminum.

What are the benefits of bronze vs aluminum vs iron for cooking? Is the only benefit of iron that it adds iron to your food?

[AllanD]

Someone here must be aware that there is a UN program to supply cast Iron cookware to people in various Southeast Asian countries, because Anemia (Iron deficiencies are endemic) and a cast Iron skilled per family is one of the easiest ways to correct the issue.

BTW they make special food grade fluxes to recoat copper cookware that has lost or damaged it's tin coating.

Copper cookware typically of French or Belgian origin is usually tin coated, because copper can create some seriously "off" flavors, tin prevents this.

If you have pure tin and the proper flux coating the inside of a skillet like this should be rather easy because of the difference in melting points. as in heat the skillet with a chunk of tin until the tin melts and tilt it around until you've got the interior coated