Tinning

Tinning is the process of thinly coating sheets of wrought iron or steel with tin, and the resulting product is known as tinplate. It is most often used to prevent rust.

While once more widely used, the primary use of tinplate now is the manufacture of tin cans. Formerly, tinplate was used for cheap pots, pans and other holloware. This kind of holloware was also known as tinware and the people who made it were tinplate workers.

The untinned sheets employed in the manufacture are known as black plates. They are now made of steel, either Bessemer steel or open-hearth. Formerly iron was used, and was of two grades, coke iron and charcoal iron; the latter, being the better, received a heavier coating of tin, and this circumstance is the origin of the terms coke plates and charcoal plates by which the quality of tinplate is still designated, although iron is no longer used. 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.

The practice of tinning ironware to protect it against rust is an ancient one. This may have been the work of the whitesmith. This was done after the article was fabricated, whereas tinplate was tinned before fabrication.

The manufacture of tinplate was long a monopoly of Bohemia, but about 1620 the industry spread to Saxony. 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.

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