# Drawing iron wire by hand > A steel drawplate and tongs turn soft iron rods into wire - Date: c. 1100 - Era: Middle Ages - Domain: [Tools & Making](https://lastcodex.org/en/domains/tools/) - Rebuild stage: III (Crafts & cities) - Difficulty: 4/5 - URL: https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/wire-drawing/ A short rod of soft iron passes through successively smaller holes in a steel drawplate. Tongs pull it longer and thinner, while the smith checks for cracks, removes scale and prepares the iron for another pass. ![Drawing iron wire by hand · A steel drawplate and tongs turn soft iron rods into wire](https://lastcodex.org/_astro/plate.CMoqlQNz_Z1AcqXf.webp) ## Legend 1. Short soft-iron rod with a tapered point 2. Fixed steel drawplate with decreasing holes 3. Braced bench, wooden wedges and nailed iron strap 4. Drawing tongs aligned with the hole 5. Emerging wire, progressively thinner and longer ## What it is Wire drawing turns a metal rod into wire by pulling it through a hole smaller than its cross-section. A short piece of soft iron, a drawplate fixed to a bench and a pair of tongs are enough to do it by hand. The stock must be ductile and the holes smooth: a roughly drilled plate scores the iron or snaps it. The wire becomes rings, small fasteners and parts for assembly. Bloomery wrought iron carries slag inclusions, and neighbouring pieces of one billet can behave differently, so choosing the stock matters as much as pulling hard. Steel goes into the drawplate and the tools. A rod hardened all through would resist drawing. ## How it works ![An iron drawplate with a row of holes of decreasing size, cut open at one end to show a rod entering a flared hole, narrowing through its polished bearing and leaving as thin wire](https://lastcodex.org/_astro/v1.6cSsKLRU_Z2nqDTs.webp) _The hole guides the iron and reduces its cross-section as the tongs pull._ First, the tapered point slips through the hole, leaving enough metal beyond the plate for the tongs to grip. Pulling straight along the hole's axis then forces the thicker body of the rod against the working surface. The metal deforms, becoming thinner and longer. A flared entrance helps it feed into the hole, while a smooth bearing reduces scoring. The plate's mounting carries the pulling load, and the bench must stay still. Too small a hole breaks the wire or asks for more force than the operator has, so the reduction goes in small steps sized to the iron in hand. Cold deformation work-hardens the stock. Annealing restores ductility, but it cannot remove a large inclusion or mend a crack. Heating also leaves oxide scale, which must come off before the next pass because it hinders sliding and damages the surface. ## How to do it With a smith, select a small batch of soft iron or low-carbon wrought iron. Forge a short, reasonably even rod with a tapered end, rejecting cracked portions and those heavy with slag. Consistent [measures](/en/inventions/measures-and-standards/) help order the holes and record the gauge of the wire produced. Have a [steel](/en/inventions/steel/) drawplate made. After drilling or punching the blank, finish the entrances, size the passages and polish their working surfaces with suitable tools and abrasives. The smith sets the tool's hardness and tests the holes on sample stock. Stand the plate upright on a braced wooden bench, lock it between wooden wedges and nail an iron strap across its foot so that it can take the pull. ![Forged rod followed by forge annealing, scale removal and lubrication before drawing](https://lastcodex.org/_astro/v2.CFfzuj5f_Z1jJbkm.webp) _The iron is prepared and inspected between passes; annealing depends on the batch._ Feed the point through the flared entrance, grip the emerging end with serrated tongs and pull steadily in line with the hole. Coat the rod with grease, tallow or beeswax; the experiment reported by EXARC used beeswax, then sheep tallow. Between passes, the smith anneals the iron as the batch requires, knocks off the scale, inspects the stock and lubricates it again. Temperature, holding time and the number of passes between anneals change from one batch to the next. Wear eye protection, keep hands away from the hole and leave clear space behind the operator. Broken wire can whip, and slipping tongs can cause a fall. Stop when cracks appear or the pull becomes excessive. Annealing belongs in a ventilated forge under competent supervision because of burns, fire and carbon monoxide. Do not improvise acid descaling at home. ## History and evolution Around 1100, the monk Theophilus described iron plates pierced with graded holes for drawing wire, in Book III, Chapter VIII of his treatise on the arts. The tool is older. An iron drawplate from a workshop of the sixth to eighth century at Old Uppsala, in Sweden, still carries traces of the silver drawn through it. The Topoi project studied ancient drawplates and tested drawing a strip first rolled into a tube, comparing the result with a mail ring from Zemplín. That method asks less of the tool than drawing a solid rod. Much ancient wire was also hammered out or cut from strips. ![A wooden draw bench: an iron drawplate wedged upright, a thick rod passing through it and coming out as thinner wire, tongs gripping the wire with a ring over their handles, and a rope from the ring to a windlass drum turned by a crank](https://lastcodex.org/_astro/v3.Bcp7xYIJ_1ENodz.webp) _With a windlass, a rope pulls the tongs and the wire through the plate._ Water power later took over the heavy first passes. Nuremberg's city archive dates drawing driven by water wheels to 1408–1415, and Albrecht Dürer painted a wire-drawing mill on the Pegnitz, west of the city, in a watercolour of about 1489–1494 now in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. Biringuccio's Pirotechnia, printed in 1540, described the craft, with woodcuts of wire drawn on capstans, windlasses and drums and of heavy wire pulled by a water wheel. In the nineteenth century, wire rope and the telegraph raised demand, which new ways of rolling rod and drawing machines supplied. ## Key facts - Written record: Theophilus, around 1100 - Older drawplate: Old Uppsala, 6th–8th century - Starting stock: Soft iron or low-carbon wrought iron - Change in shape: Smaller cross-section, greater length - Iron preparation: Annealing, cleaning and lubrication between passes ## Requires - [Steel](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/steel/): Iron with just enough carbon (c. 1,000 BCE) - [Measures and standards](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/measures-and-standards/): The cubit, the balance and the metre (c. 3,000 BCE) ## Leads to - [Aeroplane](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/airplane/): Lift, thrust and control (1903) - [Battery](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/battery/): Chemistry that pushes a current (1800) - [Bee venom collector](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/bee-venom-collector/): An electric frame at the hive entrance that gathers the venom of honeybees (1954) - [Berimbau](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/berimbau/): A struck bow with a gourd against the belly (c. 1814) - [Bicycle](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/bicycle/): Two wheels driven by the legs (1817) - [Cable-stayed bridge](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/cable-stayed-bridge/): A deck hung from towers by straight stays (1784) - [Canning & Pasteurisation](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/canning/): Seal, heat, keep the microbes out (1810) - [Coffee pulper](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/coffee-depulper/): A rasping roller that strips the skin and pulp from fresh coffee cherries (1765) - [Coilgun](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/coilgun/): Pulling iron along a barrel of coils (1845) - [Electric heating element](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/electric-heating-element/): Turning an electric current into useful heat (1857) - [Electric Motor](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/electric-motor/): Current turned into rotation (1834) - [Eyeglasses](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/eyeglasses/): Lenses that extend a working life (c. 1286) - [Electric Generator](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/generator/): Motion turned into current (1831) - [Headphones](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/headphones/): Two electric receivers held to the ears for listening alone (1879) - [Hydrogen fuel cell](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/hydrogen-fuel-cell/): Electricity from hydrogen and oxygen (1838) - [Insulated electric cable](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/insulated-electric-cable/): Carrying current inside a sheath that does not conduct (1795) - [Jacquard loom](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/jacquard-loom/): Punched cards choose the warp threads (1804) - [Incandescent Light Bulb](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/light-bulb/): A glowing filament in a vacuum (1879) - [Resistor and rheostat](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/resistor/): Opposing a current by a known amount (1840) - [Rotor cipher machine](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/rotor-cipher-machine/): Wired discs that change the alphabet at every letter (1915) - [Safety lamp](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/safety-lamp/): A flame caged in wire gauze for gassy mines (1813) - [Saxophone](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/saxophone/): A single reed on a conical brass tube (1841) - [Sitar](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/sitar/): Gourd, movable frets and sympathetic strings (c. 1740) - [Electric Telegraph](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/telegraph/): Written messages sent along a wire (1837) - [Transformer](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/transformer/): Raising and lowering the voltage (1885) - [Water electrolysis](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/water-electrolysis/): Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen with a current (1789) ## Sources - [Drawing Wire](https://exarc.net/issue-2023-3/ea/drawing-wire), EXARC Journal - [Wire](https://www.britannica.com/technology/wire), Encyclopaedia Britannica - [Wire Drawing and the Associated Tools in Antiquity](https://www.topoi.org/project/d-5-5-1/), Topoi / Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies - [The Production of Gold Wire in Antiquity](https://scispace.com/pdf/the-production-of-gold-wire-in-antiquity-1159tz3vue.pdf), Gold Bulletin; Andrew Oddy, Research Laboratory, The British Museum (copy hosted by SciSpace) - [A 6th-8th c. wire-drawing iron plate with silver residue from a Vendel Period workshop in Old Uppsala, Sweden, Wärmländer, Ljungkvist, Jahrehorn and Hennius, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 51 (2023) 104193, doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.104193](https://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1810725/FULLTEXT01), Uppsala University (DiVA) - ['Westphalian' fining: a tool mis-identified, Martha Goodway, Historical Metallurgy 39(1) (2005) 29–31](https://hmsjournal.org/index.php/home/article/download/242/231/231), Historical Metallurgy Society - [Stadtgeschichte: Entdeckungen und Erfindungen (Drahtzug durch Wasserkraft, 1408/15)](https://www.nuernberg.de/internet/stadtarchiv/stadtgeschichte_entdeckungen_erfindungen.html), Stadtarchiv Nürnberg - [Albrecht Dürer, Die Drahtziehmühle, watercolour, KdZ 4](https://smb.museum-digital.de/object/97616), Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - [The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio, translated by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi (front matter and list of illustrations)](https://www.tms.org/pubs/books/pdfs/09-1002-e/09-1002-0.pdf), The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society Fact-checked on 2026-10-15. --- The Last Codex · https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/wire-drawing/ · © The Last Codex. Texts, plates and figures: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.