Metal Working and the Art of Making Tools

People have developed different ideas for making tools since the beginning of time. After all, tools have been a societal necessity for all cultures. Today's tools consist of complex machines such as computers, kitchen appliances and cellular phones. In the early years of humans, however, tools were simple objects used to provide basic needs. The first humans built out of simple materials such as rock and bone. Today's tools are much more complicated and often require complex machines such as roll forming equipment in order to form metal into intricate parts. The necessity of tools has motivated human beings to evolve their tool making ability over time.

Arguably, one of the most innovated discoveries made by humans since the beginning of time would have to be the discovery of fire. Basically, all metals found in nature are found as ores. Ores are mineral bearing rocks. Gold, believed by some to be the first metal, is the only metal found in nature in its true form. It was only a matter of time before humans discovered that they could liberate metal from rock form by adding heat. With this discovery, humans could now experiment with metal for the making of tools.

The ancients believed that there were seven metals including Iron, Tin, Lead, Copper, Mercury, Silver and Gold. Over time different people living among different cultures across Earth experimented by attempting to make things out of these seven metals. Thus, metal forming was born sometime around 6000 BCE with the practice of copper smelting. Ancient peoples would apply fire to copper ore and use the new metal to build jewelry and basic tools. As copper continued to be too soft to construct substantial tools, early peoples eventually discovered that by adding tin to copper the substance known as bronze was formed. Bronze was sturdy enough to make strong metal tools and weapons. Bronze was the most commonly used metal for tool making until the discovery of iron.

As people build tools out of iron rather than bronze, the Iron Age began. The switch to Iron could be attributed to the fact that iron was cheaper than bronze. During the dawn of the Iron Age, tin was expensive and copper began to be scarce, two factors which likely inspired the switch from bronze to iron. Either way, the development lead to iron work and, eventually, the development of steel. Steel weapons and tools were considered to be superior to those made out of bronze.

Today, steel is often used to form tools. Today's tools are also much more intricate than the basic tools of early times. Tool making itself has evolved into a much more intricate process. As the complexity of the tools that we use and require has increased, so has the specificity of the parts required to build the tools. Various types of metal forming equipment have been engineered to form metal into the precise size and shape required for the building of the tools we use.

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