Remember to turn on captions to see a description of what's happening. Experimenting with brick furnaces this time because they're quicker and easier to build than the in situ clay piled ones. They're also more portable, the height is easily adjusted (adding/subtracting bricks) and the bricks can be stored elsewhere when the furnace is not in use if space is an issue.
im curious now about the possibility of making a brick charcoal kiln! i know youve made the classic mud mound type before but that was before you had solidified (ha!) your brickmaking technique; you mention the open pit charcoal technique as good for producing non-dusty charcoal, but how much of that is due to the dousing with water at the end, and could a similar technique be applied to alternative methods of charcoal generation?
Thanks for posting this video! I love the captions, such a good idea. I know you get this a lot, but you're my favorite youtuber and it always makes my week when you post a new video. I love your metalworking exploring and use of things that are very common in otherwise relatively boring landscapes with the Iron bacteria!
I remember watching your videos a couple years ago without knowing this and I was so confused until I accidentally turned them on and got a whole new world
I remember watching your videos a couple years ago without knowing this and I was so confused until I accidentally turned them on and got a whole new world
Nice to see you active again on UA-cam, enjoy watching your shows. What iron tool could you make that would improve everything else you've done to date? Axe? Knife? Other?
Quite so. Smiths in ancient times were elevated to an almost mystical status in their community. They took seemingly useless rocks, and with the power of fire, transformed them into useful tools. Iron tools (and weapons) were *extremely* valuable. Iron was once thought to only be found in meteorites. Tools made from meteoric Iron became relics, as they were extremely strong and came "from the stars."
Bronze even more so. People actually started using iron because it was cheaper and more widely available, albeit of lower quality for tools and weapons.
@@pauljs75 There's a limit to recycling metals, like gross iron. There's always a loss, and primitive techniques were just not efficient. Nothing was discarded, but you still needed an influx over time.
I'm so happy that he takes his time with these videos. The amount of work is insane, but he can totally make a living from his pattern an a few million views per video. The fact that this get's us one of these absolute gems a video every other month is just beautiful
I think he has said he has a day job. This is a hobby and he only started making videos to demonstrate what he describes in his blog. He did recently turn it into a book, though. So that cool.
I just realized this channel has been going for 7 years. This guy is so OG that he outlived everybody that tried to copy him and is still going strong. Please keep it going man, these videos are great and always make me want to go out to the bush and mess around!
And he keeps it real. Some of the copycats do absolutely stupid projects that are nothing more than destructive to the environment for temporary enjoyment and video content. I've seen videos of people making in-ground "water park" slides and pools, and structures that are certainly going to flood and/or fall apart in short time. Primitive technology is much more akin to surviving and being in harmony with nature.
Is also because he's one of the few that actually sticks to the principle and does it out of his own curiosity how things might've worked when we had nothing to do things with
Yep - this is what it is to be an original. Whether an artist, a builder, an athlete - the best ones only care about exploring their talent to please themselves. He's an inspiration.
from my research into iron smelting, i believe that you need to scale up your process into a larger furnace with a larger smelt over all. you have the prills, but if you had enough they would congeal into one(ish) piece. also: try adding some limestone dust ir ash to your ore powder, it makes the slag melt faster letting the iron fuze together more
Can I just say again how happy I am that you're back and with such regularity too! This channel is what inspired me as a teenager to start bushcrafting and boy am I glad of it
That's awesome. I started it because of him, too, you could say. Watched a lot of Fritz Meinecke, a German bushcrafter, after i developed this interest, but the beginning was with these videos from primitive technology 😊
Man, this comment made me do a double take. What do you mean "as a teenager"? These videos haven't been around that long, surely. ...It's been 7 years. 7 years. Man, time flies.
I'm looking forward to this guy steadily advancing his tech, using the tech he has already created. Eventually he will have to rename his channel to "Modern Technology", and then things get real interesting when he needs to rename to "Future Technology"
It's funny how people don't appreciate where things come from....city people think milk comes from bottles and water comes from taps and have zero appreciation for the effort and energy required to produce things...thus the city people are the "greenies" who just want to turn stuff off having absolutely no idea of how things actually are produced and what affect it will have.
This is probably the most important comment in the whole video. So much technology and human ingenuity goes by people who never stop to think where it all started and how we got here. Most would probably go from "There were cavemen who invented fire" to "I can make TikToks" with nothing in between, except maybe a medieval movie. I find myself constantly in awe with how far we've come as a species and where we might go in the future. Sends chills down my spine it does!
We take most technology for granted. Now iron is made in vast quantities because of how efficient weve gotten and the amount of ore we can extract from the earth. It always starts out slow but as we gain technology, we gain the ability to do what we did before better/faster. farming, killing, housing, calculating, and so much more has come so far with technolgy. And when I say technology, I dont mean electronics, I mean nearly anything as at some point, it was revolutionary. The fork? the spade? everything.
On a related note, people often fail to realize that complex things like ships or cellphone networks are NOT the product of one brain. I've heard SO many people say "how could anyone do that?", totally missing the fact that almost everything we have is a small improvement on something else. The explanation of "how to build a moon rocket" really starts with "break a rock with another rock, then your buddy decides he can do it better".
May allah grant him wisdom and patience in these endevors, for the rediscovery of such ancient technologies is a truly noble thing. For it may be benefial in understanding the way of life during the lifetimeof the great Prophet Muhammad saw.
10:47 - Fun fact, the water is what's actually "burning" here. Charcoal is a reducing agent, and can reduce hot steam into hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which then ignites due to the high temperatures inside the furnace. That's why the flames went crazy when the water was thrown into the furnace. This reaction only happens at temperatures above 1000°C, so the furnace was at least that hot. This mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide is called "water gas".
5:00 - The centrifugal blower never gets old for me. The underlying mechanism is surprising, its role is important, the design is simple, and the resulting pulsating "roar" in use is almost anachronistically industrial, like the sound of a coal-powered train warming up, but in the Bronze Age. A bridge between the primitive and the modern.
It would be amazing to me to see him utilize flywheels for some of these tools, to avoid directional changes being needed. Though he'd also have to make "belts" out of leather or cordage then. Just that having a "bike" to let him spin up a flywheel, an act as a power system for some of his tasks sounds like it could be beneficial. Leg muscles are significantly stronger than arms, and tire less easily. I feel like pulleys acting as gears could accomplish quite a lot for advancing how automatic some of this stuff is going like for the ore crushing, or for the slag crushing, both steps could benefit from a bike-powered grinder or crusher.
I remember the first time he showed how to make charcoal with all that enclosed mud container and stuffs. Look at him now, he just need a hole and piece of woods!
Very very few UA-cam channels I literally drop everything to watch a new video but this channel has had my undivided attention for the better part of six years. It’s a pleasure watching him work
I love seeing your previous developments like pots, bricks and the blower used to accelerate new projects. Insane how much ingenuity, knowledge and sheer effort goes into every inch of technological progress. But at least with every new tool, it gets a bit easier. Excited to see what this iron will be used for.
@@Eralen00 In one of his older videos I think I remember him taking the prills & trying to melt them down into a knife mold. I can't remember how well the blade came out though.
Two things to consider, the first is a taller bloomery furnace, the second is you should reuse your slag to get a bigger puddle going sooner so the prills have more time to fuse together. You could also consider adding limestone to make the slag more fluid.
@@Galanchris Does the high surface area of using powdered ore not mean that there is a risk of the resultant metallic iron burning? I know the opposite is happening and the iron oxide is being reduced, and oxygen is limited, but there is air being pumped in and some of it might be reaching the metal as well as the charcoal. Or is the iron forming as the prills, rather than forming prills after becoming iron (if you see what I mean). Ironworks don't use powdered ore I don't think.
This is probably the best fire footage I've ever seen in your videos, John. That purple flame is beautiful. And that furnace in the last sequence of dousing at 10:47 looks like a rocket and a volcano had a baby! Definitely worth watching that bit at half speed. Also interesting that you didn't pack mud around the sticks when making charcoal like you have previously. Did you determine that step wasn't necessary to get the charcoal quality and quantity you need?
I think it's just mich quicker and easier to do for these small amounts. The historic charcoal mounds were sometimes multiple meters wide / tall. There it makes sense to cover.
Adding the mud takes more time, building and removing. everything about efficiency and time, semi-same results. I think he "talked" about that in one of the previous videos
This guy is one of if not the only one that really does things step by step, without tools or a big team behind... This is educational and if he gather people to make a documentary about this, i am sure lots of people will like it
@@xxheavenbotxx5263 I’m sorry. You know how the saying goes…people don’t quit bad jobs, they quit bad leaders! Hope you find a leader worth following soon!!
@@Miguel_Molina I work as a mechanic in a steel pipe mill; Had multiple breakdowns throughout the day I had to fix, and barely got my breaks in. Some days we're really busy, some days our workload is light. It's always a gamble c: Thanks for asking!
Cool! With my limited experience I would still like to propose two things. 1. I think you have a too short furnace. You need at least 50 cm of height (from tuyere to top), so the ore has a chance to reduce on the way down. If I remember right the ore grains needs about 1h per mm thickness in a reducing zone 2. You should roast the ore before smelting to drive off moisture (which cools the furnace) and also make it more porous so it can accept the CO gass. It's also very important to have dry charcoal so extinguishing with water may not be the best thing to do. Just some thoughts.
Torbjörn Åhman is an amazing blacksmith and builder. If you haven't seen his channel I'd highly recommend. This video had me looking for iron algae in/near the streams in my area. Haven't found any yet.
I also have limited experience with smelting ore, but everyone I’ve ever seen do it (Japanese tomahagane, African tribal smelting, etc) makes a hole at the bottom to drain the slag, causing the iron to congeal together into a “bloom”. Quenching it at all seems like a mistake and is the reason you’re picking prills out instead of refining a homogeneous ball of iron. I might be wrong tho 🤔
I always watch your videos twice in a row, with and then without closed captions. I watch them the first time to allow myself to get fully immersed in the beautiful scenery and soothing noises. I then rewatch them with captions to better understand what you are doing and the science behind it. You are genius, keep it up.
i was concerned when you took a break that those other huge primitive channels took over. so happy youre back happy to help out where i can with the algorithm !
To do so he must first create a Time Machine and replace Elon. What if he does make a Time Machine and that is actually where all the technology came from 😟 but hey that’s just a theory, a primitive technology theory.
i have followed you for atleast 6-7 years for now, and just now i saw that you have subtitles to tell everything that you do.. so now im watching every video again, but with subtitles. thank you for your work!
I really like the look of that method of making charcoal. Some of the other methods I’ve seen you do seem very labor intensive. But this method looks like something I could do myself relatively easily. Super cool
For my blacksmithing and bbq I go around and ask everyone if I can clean their fireplaces for them for free everyone looks at me weird until I say my payment is the charcoal inside it I get heaps this way because everyone tends to burn hardwood in it I have about 20 people I clean out for once a week and I have 44gallon drums full of it
I make charcoal on my homestead using a similar method, except generally I do it in a 55g metal drum. Fill the whole drum up with wood, light it from the top and douse it when it burns down to coals. It goes to make biochar for the garden and hardwood charcoal for the grill. If I had more time I'd probably play with some smithing but never gotten into it.
Fantastic work as always! Glad to see you trying new things suggested by viewers. Having studied metallurgy for Welding, I would recommend making the furnace taller to increase the time the iron spends in the reducing atmosphere. It might also be detrimental to cool the furnace with water. Allowing the molten iron droplets more time to coalesce and ensuring your prills aren't made brittle/more likely to shatter from the shock in temperature. Another thing that might be worth trying is piling the left over slag in the bottom of the furnace, preferably in an inverted cone acting as a makeshift crucible. After enough firings, you could recover quite a bit more out of the slag alone. My last advice would be to research any sort of naturally occurring fluxes you could add to either your ore powder or the finished prills when smelting together. I can't wait to see what you end up accomplishing with your growing iron stash!
I remember asking you years ago why you never tried to make metal before and you responded with a big list of reasons why it would be incredibly difficult, I'm glad to see you have taken on the challenge now! It's incredibly interesting to see how you use the environment to smash through your limitations 💪👑
Your videos bring me such joy and peace. I had a pretty rough day, I work insurance in South FL and it's been hard this last week with Hurricane Ian. This was a small moment of joy. The sounds of nature, the rushing stirs of a fire... It brought me back down to earth. Thank you brother
Alex, you certainly would have your work cut out for you at the moment following the Hurricane. You are entitled to ask for help from the rest of your organisation as you are right in the eye of the damage zone, so don't take it all on yourself. Mark from Melbourne Australia
Cannot over exaggerate how real this channel feels. Actual techniques applied to a real environment. Having a semblance of an idea how to make stuff like this can be useful.
I can't express the sheer excitement and joy I get when a notification for your uploads pops up. I need to always sit down and make time to sit and enjoy your video and not just listen to it in passing. :)
Question, have you considered using a round furnace with an offset tuyere to create a spiral flame? When I did industry to build furnaces, this was one of the things that was stressed in order to get an even and efficient flame.
Interesting idea - presumably though that would only work if you were using a crucible type setup.. I have thought though about this - would it be more efficient to have a crucible/pot in the center with just the iron ore in it, then the fire around it. That way you keep the iro ore seperate from the fire. Granted I expect there could be thermal reasons why this wouldn't work and I'm a lay man so know nothing but still, I wonder if it would be worth a shot...
@@andyjackson3663 Your take on the circular draft being for use with a crucible is correct. It would normally be fired by gas or oil. It is what you see most home foundries use. A cupola is usually fired with charcoal, coal or coke, and the metal or ore layered directly in with the fuel. The tuyeres are then normally arranged around the bottom pointed straight inwards. 2-3 tuyeres and usually a sight port. This goes for small hand fed cupolas as well as giant blast furnaces. I did a casting class at the Metal Arts school at the Sloss furnace in Birminghan, AL. It was a small coke-fired cupola with maybe 1 ton capacity? It was standing about 30' from the 3 story high blast furnace that was used at Sloss many years ago.
Really really cool seeing you getting more and more advanced with the iron, but at the same time the trebuchet video was amazing too. Keep it up, I hope you're having as much fun doing this as we all do watching.
There's no question, these are the videos I look forward to the most. The moment I saw a new video was posted, everything else stopped and it was time to watch.
There's a ton more work in his videos compared to people that are just doing "try on hauls" or item "reviews" or anything else basic like that. Quite literally weeks of work for each video. There's all the literature that he combs through in books and on the web, then the trial and error of working out how to replicate in a way the how it might have been done in more primitive times before the industrial era began, recording, editing etc. There is so much work that goes into making just one of his videos. Not surprising that he has well over 10m subscribers.
the OG of primitive bush craft! I recently watched a video from another channel describing how primitive technology type channels fake their videos, but, this channel was deemed legitimate by so many people. this was the first channel of its category I ever watched & I was instantly hooked. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK MY MAN!
Seeing as you now have lots of access to charcoal, I think it would be really cool to see an offshoot episode from the quest towards the iron age (like the trebuchet) to try and make some art supplies like paints and paper. It would give you a good way to pass the time while waiting for things to finish drying or burning, and could add a lot of livelihood to the shelters.
@@poorlydigitallydrawngigachad I have a similar interest in primitive tech and have looked into it, but never tried it. You have to find a fibrous plant and process it into shreds, then wet it to flatten it into a sheet to shape it and dry it in the sun. It's not hard, just might be difficult to make a lot of if the local ecosystem isn't meant for it. hard tablets are another option if that's the case. In terms of the art tools themselves, charcoal could easily be split into thinner shards to be used as pencils, and could even be wrapped with something to prevent staining the hands. Paints are harder to be specific about, but are weirdly easy to produce despite that, since a lot of things (especially fruits and earthy materials) stain really easily. I think it would be cool if he could find a way to produce orange out of that iron-based bacteria from the streams, or mash down super green leaves to use their chlorophyll. The possibilities are endless. The other interesting things that could come from this other than 2D art are things like pottery or painted sculptures, which would liven up the environment a lot. He could also use the materials to liven up the designs of parts of his shelter, if water didn't reach those parts easily. Considering his recent iron knife development, carving would could even be an option. I hope he sees these ideas and considers them, because art was a major part of the period of history this technology was prevalent in.
There's some pretty neat ways you can make some primitive art. Red ochre was very commonly used across the world for face paint, rock art, etc. Unfortunately, making paper is kind of a waste of time because rocks are literally everywhere and paper takes time and labor to make. It would definitely be a good one off video though
@@psychopiper8224 That's occurred to me too. It would not be hard to sculpt decorative patterns into the outside of his pots; this might even make holding them easier. (Most primitively, by just scratching them on with a stick; later, any number of pattern transfer tools.) What kind of paints would be practical I can't guess, as a lot of that is very specific to the local plants.
2:57 I like how he covers his foot with hand. He deals with extremely hot fire very often without advanced clothing and probably got burned many times.
It's great to see you do this in a way that doesn't take an unrealistic amount of time and effort. Our ancestors wouldn't have done things that took weeks of work (like 'properly' making charcoal, and building huge one-use furnaces) to produce a thing that wasn't a life-or-death commodity. Your work shows how a motivated and intelligent person could smelt usable amounts of iron in the hours after he'd finished hunting/farming for the day.
I feel like primitive technology you can see how proof of concept is easy, but you have to discover and reinvent all of the processes. Like he is learning how different kinds of furnaces are, how to make the smelting better, how to make the iron higher quality, changes in bacteria/environment. If you wanted to smith iron today, someone already made the perfect iron bar, with good tools, smelted in a good furnace with a formula they already know works and they know every part of the process. He has to reinvent every part of the process by himself, and every part is basically the same as today except perfected over hundreds/thousands of years.
don't know how much more can you possibly refine this process when the source of iron has so little of it. Extracting from a creek yields way less than a clump of iron ore dug out from a mine
Would love to have a counter on the side which shows how many real-time hours are the equivalent to the amount of footage we've seen so far, to see just how much work goes into the videos! I imagine it's a ton.
He is the most primitive and true survivor, starting completely unpaid and without equipment! He can survive and live in any environment. That is worthy of respect.
One of my favorite channels ever. You should be proud. You are so good that others have tied to replicate what you do but they will never surpass the original. Love you.
I love this channel! It’s one of the very few channels that I have notifications turned on for. Whenever primitive technology post a new video, I drop whatever I’m doing and watch it.
love the trial of differing designs! you never know what might work a little better, but even seeing the same/similar results across the board is beneficial to the process in the long run imo!
This dude has the the crafting skills of minecraft steve, he can smelt iron in a stone furnace without any major problems and make a whole house out of everything around him
Steve is more like a god teaching a mortal here. Steve can use his bare hands to reshape and sharpen diamonds, punch trees down in less than a minute, and carry more than an entire train. This man can do the things steve does, but must take the longer route.
Thank you so much for what you do. I've been watching your videos for years and have never been disappointed. Caught this one on my lunch break at work. Made my day. Thank you
Brilliant, as usual. You must be some combination of chemist and geologist, either credentialed with degrees, or self taught. Truly great work, thanks.
you can learn to do any of this stuff in 15 mins on the internet. what's impressive is the fact that he actually goes out and does it irl and doesn't do what everyone else does, "thats cool back to watching tv"
you are the original guy that made videos like this. the others that came up after you just make buildings without really understanding what primitive life is. or what it must have been like before advances in technology became available. they all just want to make pretty stuff.
I'm excited for the next step where you refine all the raw pellets you've collected into a ingot. Also I wonder if playing around with charcoal production techniques, taller furnaces, and different blowers would give you higher temperatures. Maybe you could try a type of skin over pot (drum) blower?
Wow, I get like a whole new type of appreciation for iron and how difficult it actually is to make. The temperatures involved are just nothing to sneeze at. For someone like me who is working steel every day this is so cool to see. Keep up the work.
Have you tried collecting the wrought iron prills and smelting them in a crucible to get more pure iron? It would probably be a ton of work, but I'm curious to see if that's possible with just the stuff you can find at your site.
Opposite question: seeing how much slag is produced for each piece of iron, I wonder what that might be good for. Possible to extract any other metals? Or since a lot of it should be various silicates, maybe it could be ground up and used to glaze the pottery?
He took the iron prills from a similar process before and made a mold and made a knife from the iron prills. Not really a crucible but kinda in the same line. Here is link to it if you haven't seen it yet ua-cam.com/video/dhW4XFGQB4o/v-deo.html
@@xcreeseseater38 Yeah, I did see that one. Granted, it was after I made this comment lol. But that was more of a casting, what I mean is using things like lime to remove phosphorus and flux to promote a more liquid product so it is mixed uniformly. Honestly though, it would be a tremendous amount of work for probably not that much payoff? Maybe he could make that axe he talked about in the casting video or something though.
@@Nannars My guess is, the issue there would be whether he can get his furnace hot enough to melt the iron in a crucible. It seems this technique of having it all mixed in with the coals and having to pick the prills out later is because direct contact is getting it just *barely* hot enough for that, and the furnace is just a little short of being able to get the inside of a crucible to reach the same temperature. This would be why his knife is a little lumpy -- the melting was incomplete. On the other hand, if he's that close already, maybe it's not out of reach. (I'm totally guessing all of this, but it makes sense to me.)
@@voidstarq The issue is in fact, getting temperatures hot enough to melt iron. A bloomery furnace (which is what he's using here, just at a small scale) doesn't actually melt the iron. It melts the rocky ore the iron is trapped in because stone actually has a lower melting point than iron, and the iron coalesces into those beads. With more pure ore you'd get larger chunks of iron known as a bloom. This is where the term bloomery furnace comes from. You'd need a coal, or better yet a coke furnace, to actually melt iron.
It's intimidating to me to think about how hot it is in there, and mind-blowing to think it's all just mud and sticks! Amazing work, as usual. I always end up with a far more nuanced conceptual understanding of these processes when I watch them on grade A channels like this one :)
It's nuts watching this for the first time. Seeing the iron ore balls at the start and thinking, "Oh yeah, that's a lot of iron" only to see the absolutely miniscule amount at the end. Goes to show the importance of more advanced mining and refining that gets l developed later down the line. It had to start somewhere.
Remember to turn on captions to see a description of what's happening. Experimenting with brick furnaces this time because they're quicker and easier to build than the in situ clay piled ones. They're also more portable, the height is easily adjusted (adding/subtracting bricks) and the bricks can be stored elsewhere when the furnace is not in use if space is an issue.
im curious now about the possibility of making a brick charcoal kiln! i know youve made the classic mud mound type before but that was before you had solidified (ha!) your brickmaking technique; you mention the open pit charcoal technique as good for producing non-dusty charcoal, but how much of that is due to the dousing with water at the end, and could a similar technique be applied to alternative methods of charcoal generation?
Thanks for posting this video! I love the captions, such a good idea. I know you get this a lot, but you're my favorite youtuber and it always makes my week when you post a new video. I love your metalworking exploring and use of things that are very common in otherwise relatively boring landscapes with the Iron bacteria!
I remember watching your videos a couple years ago without knowing this and I was so confused until I accidentally turned them on and got a whole new world
I remember watching your videos a couple years ago without knowing this and I was so confused until I accidentally turned them on and got a whole new world
Nice to see you active again on UA-cam, enjoy watching your shows. What iron tool could you make that would improve everything else you've done to date? Axe? Knife? Other?
You are one of the most patient men I have ever seen. The amount of work and patience that goes into your videos is astounding. Great job!
While us 'normal' people have a hard time waiting for a microwave 🙃
@@zecora4241 stop arguing, and put the popcorn back waiting for almost an hour for you to do something !!! DUDE
To think, this was the norm, before most modern conveniences.
Self-discipline buddy, laziness is our enemy.
@@sun1goldn Amen
This really puts into perspective how _precious_ the earliest metal tools must have been.
Quite so. Smiths in ancient times were elevated to an almost mystical status in their community. They took seemingly useless rocks, and with the power of fire, transformed them into useful tools. Iron tools (and weapons) were *extremely* valuable. Iron was once thought to only be found in meteorites. Tools made from meteoric Iron became relics, as they were extremely strong and came "from the stars."
That's because aliens taught us metallurgy
And it'd get recycled to hell due to that difficulty too. If some tool breaks, you feed its metal into the next batch being smelted.
Bronze even more so. People actually started using iron because it was cheaper and more widely available, albeit of lower quality for tools and weapons.
@@pauljs75 There's a limit to recycling metals, like gross iron. There's always a loss, and primitive techniques were just not efficient. Nothing was discarded, but you still needed an influx over time.
I'm so happy that he takes his time with these videos. The amount of work is insane, but he can totally make a living from his pattern an a few million views per video. The fact that this get's us one of these absolute gems a video every other month is just beautiful
I think he has said he has a day job. This is a hobby and he only started making videos to demonstrate what he describes in his blog. He did recently turn it into a book, though. So that cool.
I mean he’s been doing this for years so he has already made a living from it lol
Stop being so nosy, it's kind of creepy
And he hasn't succumb to the fad content churning trend either. It's just a nice honest hobby he enjoys and gets good side money from.
I just realized this channel has been going for 7 years. This guy is so OG that he outlived everybody that tried to copy him and is still going strong.
Please keep it going man, these videos are great and always make me want to go out to the bush and mess around!
And he keeps it real. Some of the copycats do absolutely stupid projects that are nothing more than destructive to the environment for temporary enjoyment and video content.
I've seen videos of people making in-ground "water park" slides and pools, and structures that are certainly going to flood and/or fall apart in short time. Primitive technology is much more akin to surviving and being in harmony with nature.
Is also because he's one of the few that actually sticks to the principle and does it out of his own curiosity how things might've worked when we had nothing to do things with
Yep - this is what it is to be an original. Whether an artist, a builder, an athlete - the best ones only care about exploring their talent to please themselves. He's an inspiration.
7 years holy guacamol. That long, feeling old now.
legit, he’s even that good man’s skipped the bronze age
from my research into iron smelting, i believe that you need to scale up your process into a larger furnace with a larger smelt over all. you have the prills, but if you had enough they would congeal into one(ish) piece. also: try adding some limestone dust ir ash to your ore powder, it makes the slag melt faster letting the iron fuze together more
Hope John sees this advice!
I seem to remember him saying he didn't have any limestone on his property, but it has been over a year since i saw his comments
@@chadasmr8304 Just because he doesn't have limestone doesn't mean he can't make his own lime.
@@TheZarric yeah just burn some bone or shell.
Wait, didn't he already make a lime if I'm not wrong
@@chadasmr8304 he did make lime powder before, which is the same thing, from a different source
Can I just say again how happy I am that you're back and with such regularity too! This channel is what inspired me as a teenager to start bushcrafting and boy am I glad of it
bushcrafting 🤔
@@Rosielx That’s what the hobby is called, it’s like camping but if you add creating things from materials in the wilderness.
Hence, bushcraft
That's awesome. I started it because of him, too, you could say. Watched a lot of Fritz Meinecke, a German bushcrafter, after i developed this interest, but the beginning was with these videos from primitive technology 😊
Man, this comment made me do a double take. What do you mean "as a teenager"? These videos haven't been around that long, surely.
...It's been 7 years.
7 years.
Man, time flies.
I'm looking forward to this guy steadily advancing his tech, using the tech he has already created. Eventually he will have to rename his channel to "Modern Technology", and then things get real interesting when he needs to rename to "Future Technology"
" Building a nuclear fission reactor "
He should call it Back to the Future technology.
If he lands on the moon next week he will still be doing old technology. His channel is about "ancient technology" don't be a retard.
looking forward to his semiconductors from sand video
@@mattkim5077 perfect sarcasm. I love it 🤣
After watching this new series on iron smelting, I’ve been looking at iron utensils and objects around my house with a lot more respect
It's funny how people don't appreciate where things come from....city people think milk comes from bottles and water comes from taps and have zero appreciation for the effort and energy required to produce things...thus the city people are the "greenies" who just want to turn stuff off having absolutely no idea of how things actually are produced and what affect it will have.
This is probably the most important comment in the whole video. So much technology and human ingenuity goes by people who never stop to think where it all started and how we got here. Most would probably go from "There were cavemen who invented fire" to "I can make TikToks" with nothing in between, except maybe a medieval movie. I find myself constantly in awe with how far we've come as a species and where we might go in the future. Sends chills down my spine it does!
We take most technology for granted. Now iron is made in vast quantities because of how efficient weve gotten and the amount of ore we can extract from the earth. It always starts out slow but as we gain technology, we gain the ability to do what we did before better/faster. farming, killing, housing, calculating, and so much more has come so far with technolgy. And when I say technology, I dont mean electronics, I mean nearly anything as at some point, it was revolutionary. The fork? the spade? everything.
On a related note, people often fail to realize that complex things like ships or cellphone networks are NOT the product of one brain.
I've heard SO many people say "how could anyone do that?", totally missing the fact that almost everything we have is a small improvement on something else.
The explanation of "how to build a moon rocket" really starts with "break a rock with another rock, then your buddy decides he can do it better".
Mate, I just have to say it again, it is SO SO SO VERY GOOD to have you back on YT. Keep up the excellent work.
Very excited to see what you'll use that hard-earned iron for. Love your videos
AN AXE!
@@tuanoful i hope so or something useful like that at least
@Not gonna lie time to play bot or not
Are you a bot, or not?
May allah grant him wisdom and patience in these endevors, for the rediscovery of such ancient technologies is a truly noble thing. For it may be benefial in understanding the way of life during the lifetimeof the great Prophet Muhammad saw.
@@alexanderjames3538 very bot, dont click that link, I've seen these bots start to reply to each other nowadays
10:47 - Fun fact, the water is what's actually "burning" here. Charcoal is a reducing agent, and can reduce hot steam into hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which then ignites due to the high temperatures inside the furnace. That's why the flames went crazy when the water was thrown into the furnace. This reaction only happens at temperatures above 1000°C, so the furnace was at least that hot. This mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide is called "water gas".
5:00 - The centrifugal blower never gets old for me. The underlying mechanism is surprising, its role is important, the design is simple, and the resulting pulsating "roar" in use is almost anachronistically industrial, like the sound of a coal-powered train warming up, but in the Bronze Age. A bridge between the primitive and the modern.
This channel is incredible. It’s like being given a portal to the past.
If you use the old meaning of "industrial", it really _is_ one of the sounds of industry.
Cavepunk
It would be amazing to me to see him utilize flywheels for some of these tools, to avoid directional changes being needed. Though he'd also have to make "belts" out of leather or cordage then. Just that having a "bike" to let him spin up a flywheel, an act as a power system for some of his tasks sounds like it could be beneficial. Leg muscles are significantly stronger than arms, and tire less easily.
I feel like pulleys acting as gears could accomplish quite a lot for advancing how automatic some of this stuff is going like for the ore crushing, or for the slag crushing, both steps could benefit from a bike-powered grinder or crusher.
Nerd
I LOVE how refined your processes are!
The new simple charcoal method, the smaller furnace, the leeched ore.
Fantastic.
in a few years he's gonna build a combustion engine from sticks and mud
@@alf3071 nah he's gonna have enough pig iron for that
I love that he keeps building new furnaces every time instead of just reusing the old ones. You really don't miss anything with these videos!
I remember the first time he showed how to make charcoal with all that enclosed mud container and stuffs. Look at him now, he just need a hole and piece of woods!
I love how he avoids saying iron balls at every opportunity. I would find it quite rude otherwise.
6:02 that was so cool. Floating, violet tinged flames suddenly appearing
Lmao
He's got an iron farm now boys & girls!
Call him Iron Man.
@@yoellopez82 and *CERTAINLY* not Fe Male.
😛
@@lairdcummings9092 lol
Very very few UA-cam channels I literally drop everything to watch a new video but this channel has had my undivided attention for the better part of six years. It’s a pleasure watching him work
I love seeing your previous developments like pots, bricks and the blower used to accelerate new projects. Insane how much ingenuity, knowledge and sheer effort goes into every inch of technological progress. But at least with every new tool, it gets a bit easier. Excited to see what this iron will be used for.
probably won't be very much of it, it might be used for a blade or an arrowhead or something like that
@@Eralen00 In one of his older videos I think I remember him taking the prills & trying to melt them down into a knife mold. I can't remember how well the blade came out though.
@@TheLonelyBrit , John used it in this video I believe. It kinda looks more like an arrow head in it's shape.
Actually cant wait for glass blowing, then from there into chemistry
@someone LMFAO! Maybe start smaller? An iPod Shuffle?
Two things to consider, the first is a taller bloomery furnace, the second is you should reuse your slag to get a bigger puddle going sooner so the prills have more time to fuse together. You could also consider adding limestone to make the slag more fluid.
@@Galanchris Does the high surface area of using powdered ore not mean that there is a risk of the resultant metallic iron burning? I know the opposite is happening and the iron oxide is being reduced, and oxygen is limited, but there is air being pumped in and some of it might be reaching the metal as well as the charcoal. Or is the iron forming as the prills, rather than forming prills after becoming iron (if you see what I mean). Ironworks don't use powdered ore I don't think.
Awesome information, I was wondering if there would be any use for the slag that's left over from this process
@@demetrimanasses6240 in a bloomery furnace the iron ore is crushed and powdered too, so i guess it kinda reacts the same way
also finding a way to actually consolidate the iron into a usable billet
Also, making a crucible to keep it from mixing with charcoal, and getting less slag.
oh yes... time to make a coffee and watch a new upload from Primitive Technology. My favourite channel on UA-cam
Sine hello
I've watched ALOT of UA-cam videos over the years and yet nothing compares to this man and his skills.
Nice to see you trying different techniques. The brick furnace is definitely an improvement over the previous one you’d built.
Next he's going to make a water wheel to automate the blowing
@@Stonecargo21 Thats what i was thinking, he could have some serious wind goin with a water wheel, but thats a pretty large undertaking
This is probably the best fire footage I've ever seen in your videos, John. That purple flame is beautiful. And that furnace in the last sequence of dousing at 10:47 looks like a rocket and a volcano had a baby! Definitely worth watching that bit at half speed. Also interesting that you didn't pack mud around the sticks when making charcoal like you have previously. Did you determine that step wasn't necessary to get the charcoal quality and quantity you need?
I think it's just mich quicker and easier to do for these small amounts. The historic charcoal mounds were sometimes multiple meters wide / tall. There it makes sense to cover.
Adding the mud takes more time, building and removing. everything about efficiency and time, semi-same results. I think he "talked" about that in one of the previous videos
The purple isn't visible in real life sadly
only a few more episodes until john has reusable space rockets
@@coro8933 lol wym, yes it is
This guy is one of if not the only one that really does things step by step, without tools or a big team behind...
This is educational and if he gather people to make a documentary about this, i am sure lots of people will like it
One of the few times I catch a new PT video in the first 10 minutes. Was a tough day at work; what a great way to come home and relax!! :)
Word
what happened at work that made it tough?
@@Miguel_Molina my boss
@@xxheavenbotxx5263 I’m sorry. You know how the saying goes…people don’t quit bad jobs, they quit bad leaders! Hope you find a leader worth following soon!!
@@Miguel_Molina I work as a mechanic in a steel pipe mill; Had multiple breakdowns throughout the day I had to fix, and barely got my breaks in. Some days we're really busy, some days our workload is light. It's always a gamble c: Thanks for asking!
Cool! With my limited experience I would still like to propose two things. 1. I think you have a too short furnace. You need at least 50 cm of height (from tuyere to top), so the ore has a chance to reduce on the way down. If I remember right the ore grains needs about 1h per mm thickness in a reducing zone 2. You should roast the ore before smelting to drive off moisture (which cools the furnace) and also make it more porous so it can accept the CO gass. It's also very important to have dry charcoal so extinguishing with water may not be the best thing to do. Just some thoughts.
Very astute observations! I hope he sees this
Indeed he says the charcoal is not as dusty as other methods, maybe that's becasue it's not dry?
Roasting is also a good idea bc you can burn all the organics in iron bacteria so it would also purify the ore
Torbjörn Åhman is an amazing blacksmith and builder. If you haven't seen his channel I'd highly recommend. This video had me looking for iron algae in/near the streams in my area. Haven't found any yet.
I also have limited experience with smelting ore, but everyone I’ve ever seen do it (Japanese tomahagane, African tribal smelting, etc) makes a hole at the bottom to drain the slag, causing the iron to congeal together into a “bloom”. Quenching it at all seems like a mistake and is the reason you’re picking prills out instead of refining a homogeneous ball of iron. I might be wrong tho 🤔
I always watch your videos twice in a row, with and then without closed captions. I watch them the first time to allow myself to get fully immersed in the beautiful scenery and soothing noises. I then rewatch them with captions to better understand what you are doing and the science behind it. You are genius, keep it up.
wow I had no idea there were CCs on these videos, never occurred to me. I've been missing out. might do the same is you, watch it twice.
I typically do this too! Just did this, and then went through the comments to see yours.
@@Lasacii I'm envious of the fact that you can now go back and rewatch every one of his videos with the captions on
same
Same
i was concerned when you took a break that those other huge primitive channels took over. so happy youre back happy to help out where i can with the algorithm !
almost all other primitive channels are fake, using tools and machinery behind the sceenes
he only takes so long cause its legit
You forgot to put a dot (.) so its hard for a 4 year old to understand.
🤓
@@bilalicro no one cares about grammar natzis
Just how interconnected most of the videos are is fantastic, almost makes one wonder how far you’ve planned ahead.
He doesn't, he just follows the natural development of man.
One lesson begets the next
He said he's going to stop at nuclear submarines.
[spoiler] SpaceX & colonizing Mars.
To do so he must first create a Time Machine and replace Elon. What if he does make a Time Machine and that is actually where all the technology came from 😟 but hey that’s just a theory, a primitive technology theory.
i have followed you for atleast 6-7 years for now, and just now i saw that you have subtitles to tell everything that you do.. so now im watching every video again, but with subtitles. thank you for your work!
Same!!! 🤣😅
Give him another 7 years he'll be building a hydro power plant 😅
DID HE SHAVE WITH PRIMITIVE RAZOR AND CREAM ?
I really like the look of that method of making charcoal. Some of the other methods I’ve seen you do seem very labor intensive. But this method looks like something I could do myself relatively easily. Super cool
For my blacksmithing and bbq I go around and ask everyone if I can clean their fireplaces for them for free everyone looks at me weird until I say my payment is the charcoal inside it I get heaps this way because everyone tends to burn hardwood in it I have about 20 people I clean out for once a week and I have 44gallon drums full of it
I make charcoal on my homestead using a similar method, except generally I do it in a 55g metal drum. Fill the whole drum up with wood, light it from the top and douse it when it burns down to coals. It goes to make biochar for the garden and hardwood charcoal for the grill. If I had more time I'd probably play with some smithing but never gotten into it.
If you are in Europe, you are a visionaire
Fantastic work as always! Glad to see you trying new things suggested by viewers.
Having studied metallurgy for Welding, I would recommend making the furnace taller to increase the time the iron spends in the reducing atmosphere. It might also be detrimental to cool the furnace with water. Allowing the molten iron droplets more time to coalesce and ensuring your prills aren't made brittle/more likely to shatter from the shock in temperature.
Another thing that might be worth trying is piling the left over slag in the bottom of the furnace, preferably in an inverted cone acting as a makeshift crucible. After enough firings, you could recover quite a bit more out of the slag alone. My last advice would be to research any sort of naturally occurring fluxes you could add to either your ore powder or the finished prills when smelting together.
I can't wait to see what you end up accomplishing with your growing iron stash!
This keeps getting more and more efficient. I remember the first time you smelted iron it was so little.
This is the slowest Minecraft playthrough I have ever had the pleasure of watching
Try playing TERRAFIRMACRAFT
I remember asking you years ago why you never tried to make metal before and you responded with a big list of reasons why it would be incredibly difficult, I'm glad to see you have taken on the challenge now! It's incredibly interesting to see how you use the environment to smash through your limitations 💪👑
Can you find that list :)?
This man has completed 100 000 years worth of evolution in the span of 7 years
Hope he makes a magnet next.
You should post a 1h long silent video of this smelting process. So relaxing and calming to watch.
Then you’d see him hock up the electric blower😂
Probably not though. This guy seems the real deal
Calming smelting sounds 1 hour
Yeah i'd put that on, don't remove the audio tho!
I wanna hear the rythmic whooshing of the forge blower!
True. I was already beginning to doze off because of watching this. Not because I was bored, but because it was just really nice seeing him work.
I would really enjoy that
Make a clip like this and loop it ua-cam.com/users/clipUgkx1NZpOha_JVMqhARE4J-pA9_GLkAAaYCG
I never thought a circular furnace could bring me such joy. The effort you put into these videos is insane!
I know, right? It's so pleasant.
He's making millions of dollars so why wouldn't he
Your videos bring me such joy and peace. I had a pretty rough day, I work insurance in South FL and it's been hard this last week with Hurricane Ian.
This was a small moment of joy. The sounds of nature, the rushing stirs of a fire... It brought me back down to earth.
Thank you brother
Alex, you certainly would have your work cut out for you at the moment following the Hurricane. You are entitled to ask for help from the rest of your organisation as you are right in the eye of the damage zone, so don't take it all on yourself.
Mark from Melbourne Australia
Be as merciful in your assessments as you can be. People are hurting bad.
Also, thank you for doing a necessary but thankless job.
@@TheInfinitySystem - People who build their house in a flood zone deserve no sympathy. They knew this was coming.
@@person800 those are the people that insurance doesn’t cover… fema does. Ie the government.
@@person800 you’re obviously trolling. No one is actually that cruel or stupid.
Cannot over exaggerate how real this channel feels. Actual techniques applied to a real environment.
Having a semblance of an idea how to make stuff like this can be useful.
These videos could be 6 hours long and I'd watch every second. Some of the best, most unique content YT has.
I can't express the sheer excitement and joy I get when a notification for your uploads pops up. I need to always sit down and make time to sit and enjoy your video and not just listen to it in passing. :)
The iron age is progressing very nicely.
Soon he will improve upon his siege equipment...
And without going through the bronce age.
Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors Expansion
Won't be long until he's launching rockets to land on the moon.
(Wipes a tear) They grow up so fast!
Wait until he figures out alloys!
Question, have you considered using a round furnace with an offset tuyere to create a spiral flame? When I did industry to build furnaces, this was one of the things that was stressed in order to get an even and efficient flame.
Interesting idea - presumably though that would only work if you were using a crucible type setup.. I have thought though about this - would it be more efficient to have a crucible/pot in the center with just the iron ore in it, then the fire around it. That way you keep the iro ore seperate from the fire. Granted I expect there could be thermal reasons why this wouldn't work and I'm a lay man so know nothing but still, I wonder if it would be worth a shot...
@@andyjackson3663 Your take on the circular draft being for use with a crucible is correct. It would normally be fired by gas or oil. It is what you see most home foundries use.
A cupola is usually fired with charcoal, coal or coke, and the metal or ore layered directly in with the fuel. The tuyeres are then normally arranged around the bottom pointed straight inwards. 2-3 tuyeres and usually a sight port. This goes for small hand fed cupolas as well as giant blast furnaces.
I did a casting class at the Metal Arts school at the Sloss furnace in Birminghan, AL. It was a small coke-fired cupola with maybe 1 ton capacity? It was standing about 30' from the 3 story high blast furnace that was used at Sloss many years ago.
@@andyjackson3663 i think the iron ore needs the charcoal to get the iron out of the iron oxide
Respectfully your a nerd
That works when you use gas as fuel. Coal needs to be blasted directly with air instead, according to my imagination
the only legit primitive technology channel and the first
Once again, awesome stuff mate! You are the pioneer of this genre.
It's good to have you back on UA-cam!
He's also one of the only ones that do it legit XD
@@sabata2 exactly, all the other video on YT were hoax by mostly southeast asian.
@@sabata2 THE only one as far as I know of.
@@sabata2 That makes videos*
I like how he just speeds up trying other furnace shapes to just couple of minutes, while it lasted 10hrs or more propably and took so much effort.
Really really cool seeing you getting more and more advanced with the iron, but at the same time the trebuchet video was amazing too. Keep it up, I hope you're having as much fun doing this as we all do watching.
Yeah I wanna see more videos like the trebuchet. We should provide him with some good ideas.
This is so relaxing and rewarding to watch, I could honestly watch this for hours.
This dude is speedrunning civilization, he's on record pace to achieve industrialization.
I look forward to your videos probably more than anything else I watch here on UA-cam. Thank you for coming back and making fantastic content.
There's no question, these are the videos I look forward to the most. The moment I saw a new video was posted, everything else stopped and it was time to watch.
Same for me. Best content on UA-cam, bar none.
Incredible how much work he puts in to extract a bit of iron. Very impressive!
There's a ton more work in his videos compared to people that are just doing "try on hauls" or item "reviews" or anything else basic like that. Quite literally weeks of work for each video. There's all the literature that he combs through in books and on the web, then the trial and error of working out how to replicate in a way the how it might have been done in more primitive times before the industrial era began, recording, editing etc. There is so much work that goes into making just one of his videos. Not surprising that he has well over 10m subscribers.
This channel is the original PrimitiveTechnology and it is the one worth watching...
Sine hello
man i love iron age technology, and its amazing how youre needing to figure out and learn to do jobs that were split between multiple professions
the OG of primitive bush craft! I recently watched a video from another channel describing how primitive technology type channels fake their videos, but, this channel was deemed legitimate by so many people. this was the first channel of its category I ever watched & I was instantly hooked. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK MY MAN!
This channel becoming popular is the reason fakes even existed.
Grrrrr, those fake channels really annoy me. I don't even watch them anymore, they don't deserve the views.
With all the turmoil in the world I am so glad that you do your thing. Your videos are a refuge for the soul.
the only REAL primitive building channel
Seeing as you now have lots of access to charcoal, I think it would be really cool to see an offshoot episode from the quest towards the iron age (like the trebuchet) to try and make some art supplies like paints and paper. It would give you a good way to pass the time while waiting for things to finish drying or burning, and could add a lot of livelihood to the shelters.
Ngl making paper primitively sounds very interesting
@@poorlydigitallydrawngigachad I have a similar interest in primitive tech and have looked into it, but never tried it. You have to find a fibrous plant and process it into shreds, then wet it to flatten it into a sheet to shape it and dry it in the sun. It's not hard, just might be difficult to make a lot of if the local ecosystem isn't meant for it. hard tablets are another option if that's the case.
In terms of the art tools themselves, charcoal could easily be split into thinner shards to be used as pencils, and could even be wrapped with something to prevent staining the hands. Paints are harder to be specific about, but are weirdly easy to produce despite that, since a lot of things (especially fruits and earthy materials) stain really easily. I think it would be cool if he could find a way to produce orange out of that iron-based bacteria from the streams, or mash down super green leaves to use their chlorophyll. The possibilities are endless.
The other interesting things that could come from this other than 2D art are things like pottery or painted sculptures, which would liven up the environment a lot. He could also use the materials to liven up the designs of parts of his shelter, if water didn't reach those parts easily. Considering his recent iron knife development, carving would could even be an option. I hope he sees these ideas and considers them, because art was a major part of the period of history this technology was prevalent in.
There's some pretty neat ways you can make some primitive art. Red ochre was very commonly used across the world for face paint, rock art, etc. Unfortunately, making paper is kind of a waste of time because rocks are literally everywhere and paper takes time and labor to make. It would definitely be a good one off video though
@@psychopiper8224 That's occurred to me too. It would not be hard to sculpt decorative patterns into the outside of his pots; this might even make holding them easier. (Most primitively, by just scratching them on with a stick; later, any number of pattern transfer tools.) What kind of paints would be practical I can't guess, as a lot of that is very specific to the local plants.
he's now evolving into the Golden Egyptian Period.
2:57 I like how he covers his foot with hand. He deals with extremely hot fire very often without advanced clothing and probably got burned many times.
It's great to see you do this in a way that doesn't take an unrealistic amount of time and effort. Our ancestors wouldn't have done things that took weeks of work (like 'properly' making charcoal, and building huge one-use furnaces) to produce a thing that wasn't a life-or-death commodity. Your work shows how a motivated and intelligent person could smelt usable amounts of iron in the hours after he'd finished hunting/farming for the day.
I think you might be underestimating the amount of time he spent on this
I feel like primitive technology you can see how proof of concept is easy, but you have to discover and reinvent all of the processes. Like he is learning how different kinds of furnaces are, how to make the smelting better, how to make the iron higher quality, changes in bacteria/environment. If you wanted to smith iron today, someone already made the perfect iron bar, with good tools, smelted in a good furnace with a formula they already know works and they know every part of the process. He has to reinvent every part of the process by himself, and every part is basically the same as today except perfected over hundreds/thousands of years.
Also get appreciation of ancestors and people who were experts but of a different era.
The only original primitive tech channel....
This extraction method to get the iron is SO fascinating, I love seeing how you refine your process!
don't know how much more can you possibly refine this process when the source of iron has so little of it. Extracting from a creek yields way less than a clump of iron ore dug out from a mine
@@sparking023 He doesn't have a mine.
@@wolffang489 yes. that's why I'm saying there isn't much refinement to do here, at least with that setup...
I wish I could accurately describe just how much I love this channel and it's videos 😍
for real
Would love to have a counter on the side which shows how many real-time hours are the equivalent to the amount of footage we've seen so far, to see just how much work goes into the videos! I imagine it's a ton.
yea absolutely agree. that'd be awesome!
"Ton" is not a metric for time.
@@JackFate76 it's a turn of phrase you doof. Also it wasn't being used as a metric of time but a metric of work done.
@@JackFate76 Lol
@dontkillmejay
For reference, some of his older videos took months to finish.
He is the most primitive and true survivor, starting completely unpaid and without equipment!
He can survive and live in any environment. That is worthy of respect.
Sine hello
One of my favorite channels ever. You should be proud. You are so good that others have tied to replicate what you do but they will never surpass the original. Love you.
DID HE SHAVE WITH PRIMITIVE RAZOR AND CREAM ?
By 2030 he will colonise Mars by constructing his own spaceship out of iron
By 2025 he will have invented the rotfl-copter so you could land it directly on me
I love this channel! It’s one of the very few channels that I have notifications turned on for. Whenever primitive technology post a new video, I drop whatever I’m doing and watch it.
@don't be surprised this one too
ua-cam.com/video/hr8xus6xi_8/v-deo.html
Thanks for you real authentic work, I hate that others are faking their work
Stone Age to Iron Age, with just the sweat of his brow and the labor of his back.
Brilliant.
Wild how I use to watch this channel a LONG time ago. So cool to see him still go at it and hit the Iron Age.
Ikr, my man is doing Minecraft in real life
love the trial of differing designs! you never know what might work a little better, but even seeing the same/similar results across the board is beneficial to the process in the long run imo!
This dude has the the crafting skills of minecraft steve, he can smelt iron in a stone furnace without any major problems and make a whole house out of everything around him
Steve is more like a god teaching a mortal here. Steve can use his bare hands to reshape and sharpen diamonds, punch trees down in less than a minute, and carry more than an entire train.
This man can do the things steve does, but must take the longer route.
Wait, so he can carry more than a Train
@@gamemakerloch6964 It's like Steve was trying to be a mortal, but he can't.
@@gamemakerloch6964he takes the human route
@@gamemakerloch6964 can do without the TNT
Glad you're back to having fun and advancing that primitive technology along nicely; this one will bring in millions of views! Good on ya mate! 🇨🇦😎👍
@The wock your recommendation is unwanted and unwatched. Reported as spam😁
Thank you so much for what you do. I've been watching your videos for years and have never been disappointed. Caught this one on my lunch break at work. Made my day. Thank you
This is one of the very few channels where I watch every video start to finish without skipping ahead. Keep up the great work, my friend.
My favorite channel to chillax and learn something interesting. If they made a Bob Ross award you've definitely earned a few.
Sine hello
Brilliant, as usual. You must be some combination of chemist and geologist, either credentialed with degrees, or self taught. Truly great work, thanks.
I’ve heard that he has a BSc in chemistry.
you can learn to do any of this stuff in 15 mins on the internet. what's impressive is the fact that he actually goes out and does it irl and doesn't do what everyone else does, "thats cool back to watching tv"
@@beejusfingus
You might be able to learn the basic theory behind any one of these skills in 15 minutes or less, but mastering them takes practice.
@@ragnkja true I guess that's what I was trying to say
After a hard day's work at the office, this video is all I needed. Keep up the great work.
I always like it when UA-camrs do their best to protect their lungs. People! Please take lung safety seriously!
Breathing in wood dust causes cancer, so even when sanding wood, wear a mask
@Not gonna lie Let me guess, it one of those cooking videos
this guy is my number one draft pick for a zombie apocalypse or any post-apocalyptic scenario, real life Steve.
fantastic. I love that you explore different smelting methods as well as methods to make charcoal
As an Engineer, Physicist, WOW, a REAL actual work and results. No crew behind a few GoPros. Seriously skilled
I mean, he is the original.
This dude is unlocking the secrets of the universe now
you are the original guy that made videos like this. the others that came up after you just make buildings without really understanding what primitive life is. or what it must have been like before advances in technology became available. they all just want to make pretty stuff.
This totally reminds us of what it was like playing outside in the mud as a kid before computers and the internet
Yes I remember making a iron sword and killing about 10 people everyday fun days
Man never fails to make awesome videos
I'm excited for the next step where you refine all the raw pellets you've collected into a ingot. Also I wonder if playing around with charcoal production techniques, taller furnaces, and different blowers would give you higher temperatures. Maybe you could try a type of skin over pot (drum) blower?
I can not put it in words how much I love this Chanel
Dont forget to turn on the closed captions for extra info on what he's doing! :)
Man. This definitely takes some patience. Super cool video as always. Looking forward to see what improvements you make next.
Wow, I get like a whole new type of appreciation for iron and how difficult it actually is to make. The temperatures involved are just nothing to sneeze at. For someone like me who is working steel every day this is so cool to see. Keep up the work.
After watching your process makes me appreciate artifacts from Iron Age. Truly appreciate all your work. Thank You
This is awesome! Can’t wait to see what you make next. I wonder how many people you inspired and tried this in their backyard lol
Me encantan estos vídeos, es increíble la habilidad que tienes.
Have you tried collecting the wrought iron prills and smelting them in a crucible to get more pure iron? It would probably be a ton of work, but I'm curious to see if that's possible with just the stuff you can find at your site.
Opposite question: seeing how much slag is produced for each piece of iron, I wonder what that might be good for. Possible to extract any other metals? Or since a lot of it should be various silicates, maybe it could be ground up and used to glaze the pottery?
He took the iron prills from a similar process before and made a mold and made a knife from the iron prills. Not really a crucible but kinda in the same line. Here is link to it if you haven't seen it yet ua-cam.com/video/dhW4XFGQB4o/v-deo.html
@@xcreeseseater38 Yeah, I did see that one. Granted, it was after I made this comment lol. But that was more of a casting, what I mean is using things like lime to remove phosphorus and flux to promote a more liquid product so it is mixed uniformly.
Honestly though, it would be a tremendous amount of work for probably not that much payoff? Maybe he could make that axe he talked about in the casting video or something though.
@@Nannars My guess is, the issue there would be whether he can get his furnace hot enough to melt the iron in a crucible.
It seems this technique of having it all mixed in with the coals and having to pick the prills out later is because direct contact is getting it just *barely* hot enough for that, and the furnace is just a little short of being able to get the inside of a crucible to reach the same temperature. This would be why his knife is a little lumpy -- the melting was incomplete. On the other hand, if he's that close already, maybe it's not out of reach.
(I'm totally guessing all of this, but it makes sense to me.)
@@voidstarq The issue is in fact, getting temperatures hot enough to melt iron. A bloomery furnace (which is what he's using here, just at a small scale) doesn't actually melt the iron. It melts the rocky ore the iron is trapped in because stone actually has a lower melting point than iron, and the iron coalesces into those beads. With more pure ore you'd get larger chunks of iron known as a bloom. This is where the term bloomery furnace comes from. You'd need a coal, or better yet a coke furnace, to actually melt iron.
This channel is the definition of trust in the process
It's intimidating to me to think about how hot it is in there, and mind-blowing to think it's all just mud and sticks!
Amazing work, as usual. I always end up with a far more nuanced conceptual understanding of these processes when I watch them on grade A channels like this one :)
Yeah, now that you mention it, the heat inside the hut must have been quite impressive.
He’s got a big window just out of frame and he’s probably got the door open to let the heat escape
the way the flames and ambers shot into the air at the end was crazy
Dude always shows a new way to make charcoal
It's nuts watching this for the first time. Seeing the iron ore balls at the start and thinking, "Oh yeah, that's a lot of iron" only to see the absolutely miniscule amount at the end. Goes to show the importance of more advanced mining and refining that gets l developed later down the line. It had to start somewhere.
My man advanced to the iron age. Lets goo