As fancy new flats pop up left in right from hip lofts to the towering high rises, there is a lot of attention on what’s new and flashy. There is still more than just a niche community though for the simpler things, like tin, and tin on ceilings.
Places like SoHo saw these types of ceilings grow in popularity back when the neighborhood currently full of eateries and boutique stores was becoming an industrial powerhouse. Back in the 1850s, tin ceilings became more commonplace as cast-iron facades also started lining the southern portion of Broadway. As the New York Post explains, this material added a feeling of elegance, but it didn’t come at the cost of other popular materials of the time like marble.
Tin ceilings grew out from those few downtown neighborhoods and became commonplace across the country. The tin even provided tenants with some great benefits on top of the vanity purpose of the tin. Ceilings made with tin actually had a better durability and were fireproof.
The New York Post spoke with one of the people who has a tin ceiling, two in fact at his East Village shop at 6 E. Second St. and his nearby apartment. He joked that the tin, while at one time in history very popular, would draw confused and annoyed reactions. “When I first opened the store 24 years ago,” he said that he would “hear either ‘Charming!’ or ‘Ugh, tin!’” He said that people warmed up to the tin by now.
Art historian, author and former contractor Jonathan Lopez, 49, explained to the New York Post how “Old tin ceilings were actually ‘tinned’ ceilings.” These ceilings “were made of steel coated with an amalgam of lead and tin to inhibit rust.”
The material was actually known as “terne metal.” Thanks to advances in science and government oversight, there isn’t lead in these materials anymore, which “now use a galvanized coating of almost pure tin” that goes over the steel.
Terne is traditionally an alloy that is made up of lead and tin. The ratio will usually be typically four-to-one, that is used as a coating in producing terneplate. In recent years, zinc used in 50/50 rations have taken over for lead.
Terne can coat steel sheets in order to produce a strong, corrosion-resistant product that can commonly be found on gasoline tanks, packaging, roofing, and for other uses where lead is desired but would be too heavy.
As Corrosionpedia continues to explain, “Terne metals are produced by coating carbon steel, stainless and other select metals with a specially formulated alloy consisting of zinc, tin and trace amounts of other elements, in order to dramatically increase a metal’s corrosion resistance by up to ten times.” A terneplate is also a steel sheet that has an actual coating of terne metal on it.
