I suspect that mots 'iron' wire is simply very poor grade steel of some sort.
Cast iron is very hiogh carbon, very hard, very brittle. As carbon content comes down it gets more ductile and less brittle, and eventually pure iron - which is very very expensive at any standard of purity at all, - is surprisingly soft AFAICR.
Agricultural 'iron' wire that I have used has merely been soft steel of poor quality.
Cast iron is hard, due to high carbon content, but don't try to use it in tension!
The reason the beam snapped was that the pumps were lift pumps, and a column of water was hanging on each end of the beam, putting the top of the beam in tension. Modifications were done afterwards to similar installations. Another outcome was that two shafts (or drifts ) have since been stipulated in law.
At school in the (very) late 50s "Archie" Campbell had us believe that "tinplate" was "tinned sheet iron".
Most proper conventional pliers have provision for shearing hard wires next to the fulcrum 'joint'. There are also some 'wire cutters' with a double nipping action and harder jaws especially for such as piano wire.
I'm near Newport and Pontypool. Two towns that became rich on sheet iron, first japanned with Pontypool japan (an asphalt lacquer) and then learning how to tin it, with or without the lacquer. This tinplate was made of iron for a very long time before it became a cheap ductile steel.
Although not quite the 50s, unless you're a century older than you appear.
Probably, but florist's is iron. If it isn't, you can feel the difference. The substitute for florist's iron wire isn't steel, it's aluminium and even then it has to be annealed after drawing.
Why do you think cast iron is hard? Chilled cast iron skin can be, but most isn't.
Pure iron's only a little expensive because there's so little call for it. If you buy it from real suppliers (it still has plenty of uses), then it's not that expensive. It's certainly cheaper than the magnetically soft iron alloys (with high silicon, sometimes with amorphous metallurgy) used for magnetic work.
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