Secrets of Bloomery Smelting

Video from a bloomery smelting class taught by Lee Sauder at the New England School of Metalworking in September 2019.
Lee Sauder (www.leesauder.com) taught a week-long class in which we learned how to smelt limonite ore into iron and steel using the traditional bloomery process. This is how iron was made for thousands of years in many parts of the world, including Europe before the Industrial Revolution. I recorded this video during the class, capturing highlights from the week-long experience. We made lots of iron!
To learn more about smelting, check out the following resources:
www.leesauder.... - smelting research and tutorials by Lee Sauder.
warehamforgeblo... - Darrell Markewitz’s blog, detailing years of smelting experiments.
/ 361798240526981 - Iron Smelters of the World, and active community of smelting research
/ andrew-j-welton-268780... - my Facebook page, where I share my smelts and the historical artifacts I reproduce

[@donaldhill854]

Can this be done with taconite pellets crushed for ore.

[@andrewwelton7847]

I've done it with crushed taconite pellets, yup! Made some very nice blooms that way.

[@esben181]

Can wrought iron be used for flint and steel?

[@mountainwolf1]

How long did this whole process take? I have read and heard in japan it can take days to make tamahagane.

[@andrewwelton7847]

This was a five-day class, and we built our furnace and smelted twice during the first two days. The smelt itself takes half a day. These bloomery furnaces are much smaller than the tataras Japanese smiths use to make tamahagane (and produce much smaller lumps of iron or steel).

[@mountainwolf1]

@andrewwelton7847 brutal Thanks for sharing your wisdom and for your reply. I would love to try this method myself sometime, maybe. I am sure it is much more difficult for one individual I already have the ability to craft my own charcoal.

[@andrewwelton7847]

@@mountainwolf1 Definitely give it a try! A great place to start for knowledge is Lee Sauder’s website (the person who led the class where I filmed this video). I’ve done dozens of smelts since myself, and am happy to connect you with more resources too.