Tinning
[1] It is most often used to prevent rust, but is also commonly applied to the ends of stranded wire used as electrical conductors to prevent oxidation (which increases electrical resistance), and to keep them from fraying or unraveling when used in various wire connectors like twist-ons, binding posts, or terminal blocks, where stray strands can cause a short circuit.
Tinplate was consumed in enormous quantities for the manufacture of the tin cans in which preserved meat, fish, fruit, biscuits, cigarettes, and numerous other products are packed, and also for the household utensils of various kinds made by the tinsmith.
[3] The first detailed account of the process appears in Zosimus of Panopolis, Book 6.62, part of a work on alchemy written in Roman Egypt around 300 AD.
Aside from an attestation in 14th century England, the process is not attested again in Europe until the description in Lazarus Ercker's Das Kleine Probierbuch (1556)[4] The manufacture of tinplate was long a monopoly of Bohemia, but in about the year 1620 the industry spread to Saxony.
[2] Tinplate was apparently produced in the 1620s at a mill of (or under the patronage of) the Earl of Southampton, but it is not clear how long this continued.
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.
It is likely that the intention was to roll the plates and then finish them under a hammer, but the plan was frustrated by one William Chamberlaine renewing a patent granted to him and Dud Dudley in 1662.
The industry continued to spread steadily in England and especially Wales, and after 1834 its expansion was rapid, Great Britain becoming the chief source of the world's supply.
This caused a great retrenchment in the British industry and the emigration to America of many of those who could no longer be employed in the surviving tinplate works.
The cross-section of the bar needed to be accurate in size as this dictates the length and thickness of the final plates.
The squeezer was like a table where one half of the surface folds over on top of the other and a press flattens the doubled over plate so the rolled end will fit in the rollers.
When cool, the pack is sheared slightly undersized from the final dimensions and the plates separated by openers.
The process grew somewhat in complexity over time, as it was found that the inclusion of additional procedures improved quality.
Hot tin-dipping is the process of immersing a part into a bath of pure molten tin at a temperature greater than 450 °F or 232 °C.
Tinplate made via hot-dipped tin plating is made by cold rolling steel or iron, pickling to remove any scale, annealing to remove any strain hardening, and then coating it with a thin layer of tin.
When an electric current is passed through the circuit, metal ions in the solution are attracted to the item.
To produce a smooth, shiny surface, the electroplated sheet is then briefly heated above the melting point of tin.
Most of the tin-plated steel made today is then further electroplated with a very thin layer of chromium to prevent dulling of the surface from oxidation of the tin.
