The ironsmith and malleability

Yashwant and Anandi live in a village in Rajasthan. For a school project they visit the local ironsmiths with their grandfather and meet Sudarshan uncle. He makes everyday things: tawas, baltis, chimtas, and farm tools like phawras (spades), kulhadis (axes), khurpis (trowels) and jelees (rakes). He uses iron for the tools, wood for the handles, and coal to heat his furnace.

He heats an iron block till it is red hot and beats it hard with a hammer to shape an axe. Anandi is amazed: iron can be beaten flat! Can other metals do this too?

Activity 4.1 looks at copper, aluminium, an iron nail, coal, sulfur (gandhak) and a block of wood, then hammers each one (with an adult).

The shine of metals is called metallic lustre. Being beaten into thin sheets is called malleability, and most metals have it. The silver vark on kaju katli and barfi is silver beaten so thin you can eat it. Aluminium foil for wrapping food is made the same way. Gold and silver are the most malleable metals.

Things that break into pieces when hit, like coal and sulfur, are brittle. Wood is neither malleable nor brittle.

Not every metal is hard and solid. Sodium and potassium are so soft you can cut them with a knife, and mercury is a liquid at room temperature; you may have seen it in old thermometers.