--- In
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Harvey White <madyn@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:55:24 +1100, you wrote:
>
> >I thought Wikipedia would have the answer, but it does not.
> >
> >I'm guessing it predates soldering - as we have clothes "irons" (which
> >may have actually been iron (wikipedia again deficient)) and the
> >phrase "strike while the iron is hot" - which I take to mean a
> >branding iron and they usually are iron 'cos that's what guys on farms
> >have handy.
>
> Clothes Irons were iron, you wanted weight as well as heat. Strike
> while the iron is hot has more to do with blacksmithy than branding
> cattle. Why "strike" a cow?
Copper is heavier than iron. But copper oxidizes more easily, is harder to find, and is more expensive. And I suspect it would leave marks on the clothing.
As to "striking" a cow, strike has more than one meaning, not necessarily violent.
However, I suspect it is more of a blacksmith term.
> >Just a generic phrase for hot metal from back when there weren't many
> >around?
> >
> >It's also just occurred to me that you'd want the handle to be iron
> >because it doesn't transfer heat well, and it's probably a bit hard to
> >fuse iron and copper manually.
> >
>
> You want the handle to be wood, which is an insulator. Soldering
> "coppers" are such because the copper can be tinned, which ensures a
> better heat transfer from a compatible metal (tin/lead).
Yes, iron transfers heat quite well, just not as well as copper. I have cast iron pans, I have to use a mitt to handle them. I'm certain the handles don't get as hot as they would if they were all copper, but they get too hot to handle and that is with a pan that is well below soldering temperature.
Steve Greenfield