Metal fabrication Toronto as it has evolved today came from a very basic process several centuries ago when there were only seven metals of antiquity discovered. The first metals that ancient people discovered were gold, silver, mercury, iron, tin, copper and lead. The next metal that was discovered in the 13th century was Arsenic which was discovered by Albertus Magnus. Arsenicus when heated twice became a metallic mineral. In the year 1641, arsenious oxide was reduced by charcoal. The characteristics of Arsenic include its being gray, crystalline and brittle. It easily tarnishes in air and when it is heated rapidly, it forms arsenious oxide which has the odor of garlic.
Compounds of arsenic when inhaled are poisonous. It symbol is As which is taken from the Latin word arsenicum. Arsenic was used in improving the sphericity of shot and in bronzing.
The next metal to arsenic which was successfully isolated was antimony. Antimony sulphide or stibium was placed in an iron pot and roasted in order to form antimony. This effective technique was reported by Agricola in the year 1560. Antimony comes from the Greek words “anti plus monos”- which means a metal not found alone. It has the symbol Sb in the periodic table coming from the Latin word Stibium. This metal is extremely flaky and brittle. Like the arsenic, the antimony and its compounds are also highly toxic. Its initial use was that of an alloy for lead when its hardness increased significantly. The most common ore of antimony is Stibnite. Stibnite was usually roasted in order to from the oxide and which was reduced by carbon.
During the year 1595, bismuth was created by reducing the oxide with carbon. It was not until the year 1753 when bismuth was officially considered as an element. In the 1400, Zinc was already widely used by the Chinese. It was not also until the year 1738 when William Champion patented the distillation process of zinc. Before 1738, zinc was imported from China and it was widely known as Pewter or Indian Tin. It was discovered from an ancient Chinese text dating back to 1637 that the method of production was done by heating a mixture of charcoal and zinc oxide inside an earthenware pot. Zinc was being recovered as an incrustation inside the pot. In the year 1781, zinc was being added to liquid copper in order to create brass. This particular method of manufacturing brass became very dominant.