History of Metal Building Hardware
Metal building hardware begins with manual workshop like blacksmith shop, copper smith shop, tinsmith shop etc. In China, workshops to make nail, bolt, lock, knocker etc appeared as early as in Tang Dynasty dated AD 618. But in ancient times, most buildings are made from stone and wood, so metal building hardware including timber wood connector developed very slow in past thousands of years.
As time comes to the 19th century, with the wide usages of metal material and necessities from life, metal building hardware have been developing rapidly. A lot of small factories and workshops to produce steel nails, hinges, bolts, catch, hose, metal wire mesh etc founded. As time goes on, machinery processing gradually substitutes manual work, which promotes to developing into many professional modern enterprises.
With continuous development of building construction standard, modern metal stamping parts have been developed from single product to serial products, and have high demanding on appearance and decoration effect. Meanwhile, production processing also made massive progress. Most of product processing method have development from half-manual, half machinery processing to semi-automatic or full automatic production line. Raw material of metal stamping hardware have developed from traditional ones like copper alloy, low-carbon steel to zinc alloy, aluminium alloy, stainless steel, plastic, glass steel and clad material etc.
Metal building hardware includes door & window hardware, plumbing hardware, decoration hardware, metal wire mesh, kitchen equipment per different usage.