Smelting Tin with Neil Burridge
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- Rocks go in; Metal comes out. This is the process of turning Tin ore into Tin metal together with some discussion of Cornish mining history.
Check out Neil's work at: bronze-age-swor...
Neil is such a font of knowledge. Also the most relaxing voice in the blademaking world.
Oh! Ice cold Cornish stream! I've been on camping trips where the water tastes better than the beer. That stream looked so good!
My hometown in Brixham, Devon, Roman tin mines shaped the coastline at Sharkham Point...
For context, the mineral cassiterite is about 79% tin. The reason many modern mines operate at 1% to 2% tin "head grade" is because the proportion of cassiterite per tonne of ore mined is very low and the scale of the mining is large. Thus mining selectivity has a great deal to do with how "rich" the ore will be.
As cassiterite is rare in very high concentrations over large masses of rock, there will only be occasional instances where you find very rich veins; this is why alluvial tin was so sort after as mother nature had done much of the liberation and concentration of the mineral for you.
However, with modern mining technology and processing, mining large volumes of ore is economically sound, whereas such a feat would not have been possible in the early ages of human civilisation. :)
This deserves more views great video my man I generally feel like I've learned something
Thank you! JB
Enjoyable and informative video. Makes you wonder how long it took them to figure out how hot the fire had to be. Or that they needed a reducing atmosphere when smelting.
Your videos are always so compelling, so awesome.
I appreciate that! JB
It’s wild to see the native copper ores where the occur at the surface. It’s often highly pure, and you can indeed just beat it out of the rocks. No wonder the Welsh got so excited about Michigan.
You beat HTME at his own game!
Hmmm. I need to go prospecting for tin...
rare stuff sir
🤔 You occasionally hear people mention "tin cans" and "tin foil", although neither cans nor foil are made of tin). But the erroneous talk of "tin cans" has given people false assumptions about tin, such as it being common, cheap, that it easily rusts, and that it's a hard metal. Tin is none of those things! It doesn't rust, it's not common, cheap or hard. 🚫
👉 Out of 78 naturally occurring elements in the Earth's crust, tin is ranked #50 by abundance, making it about as common as uranium, and about 30x less abundant than copper! During the bronze age(and now) it was much more difficult to find than copper, and there were only a few sources of it, which provided a great strategic and economic advantage to the few ancient nations where tin was mined. Fortunately for everyone, they didn't need a lot of tin to make bronze. Bronze alloys only require about 8-12% tin + 85%+ copper(plus small quantities of other elements, such as zinc or arsenic, in some bronze alloys).
@@HighlanderNorth1 yeah, tins were once made from tin plated steel sheet.
I don't think they use tin for the plating anymore and tins are now lined with a polymer coating on the inside.
Tins not intended for food storage are often zinc plated instead.
"Tinfoil" is also a legacy term from before the introfuction of Aluminium (aluminum) .
Foil for kitchen use was made from tin before that.
We still talk about tinfoil, tinfish, tinbeans, etc.
In short, "Tin plated Steel" came to be referred to simply as "Tin" in the vernacular. While canisters made from tin plated steel were variously called either tins or cans depending on which regional dialect of English you speak.
if you're still about in Penwith i'd recommend asking about Cornish Hedging, and the stone circles and Menhirs, Cornish history going back further than the discovery of any metal, to the very beginnings of human ingenuity. for me an old stone hedge perfectly encapsulates harmony with nature.
it's still strange how i know this place well enough that i know exactly where you were doing the panning and talking about the copper.
there is something mystical about all of these ancient crafts, isn't there?
I love the combination of archaic bellows and digital thermocouple.
How do you think those bellows compare to your clever Japanese contraption?
Physically easier to use. Less airflow per stroke. I was deeply impressed with the convenience of his setup. JB
this is freakn fascinating! I am a nerd with ancient processes and its just amazing how smart people were 4-6k years ago.
I think I know why it must be melted at higher temps to release and why it settles higher in formations than other heavy metals. It holds heat better, less conductive, than most other metals.
Nice video
Awesome video! Be great to see more of Neil on the Tube - you guys gotta convince him to start making videos. My hobby is making reproduction anachronistic bronze age axes from a fictional world, so he is kind of one of my heroes.
Ever cast an axe of nine score pounds?
@@Cadwaladr nope, wrong planet. The epic of Gilgamesh is from our own Earth's mythology.
@@tobhomott i imagine the odd axes of the bronze age middle east like luristan would make for a useful source of inspiration
@@tobhomott i am impressed
I clicked the video because i read "smelling tin" and got curious why would you smell tin and what purpose does it serve.
Ah yes. The old tin smelling trick. So many fake metallurgists on UA-cam who don't even know about smelling metals. JF
This made me laugh. I suppose it's the image of a man pondering the potential benefits of smelling a piece of tin, and again the image of a man going through the laborous process of smelting the ore, casting the bits into a sizable piece, - then smelling it. I'm still laughing.
I do like your vids
Copper can't. But, tin can. Too punny?
Awesome!
i might be a bit late to the party but that link to Neil's website is absolutely cooked, broken even, DO NOT CLICK IT
Whay they use iron tools and modern ways? It looks like something wrong with anchent ways and chronology.
tyvm
How on Earth did ancient people figure this out?
That, my friend, is a question that boggles my mind. JB
Lots and lots of time and no Tv
@@GoodandBasic El libro de Enoc da a entender que esa sabiduría la enseñaron los demonios.Enoc fue padre de Matusalem. Busca en los apócrifos .
@@marioalberto5772schizo
@@pickler_pickler ?
Tin was mostly panned.
hi imyanmar tin metal
Please for the love of god tell Cody to stop tasting toxic heavy metals. I haven't clicked on either of these two vids, but it's freaking me the fuck out.
It's pretty freaky. JB
@@GoodandBasic - Thank you. I just. I know I'm just some random on the intra-tubes, but I want him to be safe, you know?