What could be interesting about ordinary wire? It turns out that she is fraught with many mysteries! For example, did you know that in ancient times it was used as the basis for spectacular jewelry. Filigree compositions of ingenious wire, made of gold, copper and bronze, adorned the neck of monarchs - the pharaohs in ancient Egypt, the rulers of the Etruscans - the most ancient civilization that preceded the development of the Roman Empire.
The first wire machine was built in 1568 in England by the Company of Mineral Battery and Works. For more than a century, it remained a monopoly in its field. By this time, production was carried out entirely by hand.
Fine wire was made by hand until the 19th century. By the beginning of the mass automation of production, there was no technology that would make it possible to carry out rolled metal with a minimum diameter on a machine.
Wire sizes are traditionally measured in millimeters. However, it is not always convenient, therefore, completely different measures for determining the diameter are used. For example, in electrical engineering, its own scale is used, which allows you to determine the diameter by the cross-sectional area. It more accurately determines the electrical resistance of the conductor. In music, in the manufacture of instruments, the thickness of the wire is indicated by the note that it gives out when touched (with a finger, a bow). Modern machines make it possible to produce rolled metal with a minimum diameter. To obtain it, the raw material is repeatedly passed through the drawing dies. The diameter or caliber of the finished product is denoted by a number equal to the number of passes of the raw material through the die. In this case, the caliber is also indicated by the letter designation AWG, BWG, etc.
The metal from which the wire is made can be almost anything. Basically, craftsmen use copper, brass, nickel silver, cupronickel, silver. But recently, the use of nichrome wire has become popular. Nichrome is an alloy based on nickel and chromium and also contains small amounts of silicon, manganese and iron.
There is a Wire Museum in Germany. It is located in the city of Altén. The exposition of the museum is based on the idea that human civilization would be unthinkable without a metal cable. The motto of the amazing museum is "from chain mail to superconductors." Its exhibits include medieval wire drawing machines, clothes decorated with wire rods, flags and icons, even Christmas tree and children's toys, whose age has crossed the century, and the same metal thread served as the material for their manufacture.
Fencing, which consisted of flat and thin wire, was first proposed in France in 1860. Already in April 1865, Louis François Janin patented a double wire with diamond-shaped metal prongs. And Michael Kelly from New York (USA) suggested using wire in animal husbandry. This was the end of 1872.
