Final thoughts and recap of the bloomery iron smelt
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- I really planned to move on following the smelt, but there have been numerous similar questions regarding some of the details that I thought i should try to answer plus I have discovered that we actually ended up making steel.
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What's most fascinating about all these high skilled makers sharing their information and experiments publicly like they're doing is that back in the olden days, this was all trade secrets guarded jealously.
What a time to be alive.
That cultural shift to freely exchange more of our information is a huge part of what has allowed modern society to become so technologically advanced.
I just watched a video about how they’re building a small castle in England the way they did it back in the 13th century. Part of it was about blacksmithing. Making bloom iron was shown. When they took the bloom out, they quickly placed it on a big stone anvil and two guys pounded heavily on it with big iron hammers. Then, after it cooled, they ran a file all around it to see whether they had the extremely valuable hard steel, or the lower, but still high value iron. I don’t know where the idea of a wood stump and wood hammers came from, but apparently in the 13th century, that’s not how they did it. It also takes a full day for the furnace to finish. This may not have been enough time at temperature, so the iron is less pure.
Now you have a reason to come out to Hawaii. So you can do a second smelt at sea level instead of a mile+ up in the air.
I never would have guessed it could spark that aggressively.
Will be very interesting to see that axe you plan on making.
You're always welcome to come to my forge in Damascus,Arkansas to run a smelt...I plan on having yearly hammer ins with guests invited to put on workshops and demos.
Beowulf, I will be contacting you when I get ready to visit Arkansas. Thank you.
Awesome...
I love how you referenced the Ulfbehrt video...that was Ric Furrer of Door County Forgeworks - i invited him to demonstrate for our winter conference of the Upper Midwest Blacksmith Association - he made two absolutely gorgeous wootz crucibles. I've had the pleasure of visiting him a few times. Fantastic blacksmith and quite comical as well!
Cheers!
Nice to get some beautiful pieces out of all that work. Fascinating! I would love to try this myself at some point.
The Japanese Sword makers makes bunches of little pieces and pick out 2 different grades. then forge welds all the small flats pieces into one big piece super interesting to watch
This Bloomery playlist was so fascinating! I really enjoyed it. I hope you will revisit it at a later time. please don't forget to follow-up with the refining of the large bloom. As usual, your videos are terrific and very informative. I'm becoming a true fan.
Thank you.
Making steel in the bloomery is pretty much how tamahagene is made, they have to select the parts of the bloom that have the right structure and hardenability in order to get a consistent result, but the start out with a steel bloom.
That spark test was very impressive. Well done sir.
I wasn't surprised that you got high carbon. That's why I was asking you to spark test it. I've done a number of smelts with friends in Virginia and when ever I used fine sand type ore I've gotten steel. My assumption on this( and I have no proof) is that the fine particles become liquid so early on their way down the stack that they become carborized as they pass thru the charcoal.
By the way as far as cast iron goes, there is a form of cast iron that can only be created in a bloomery furnace that can be forged.
I also think that the making of steel in a bloomery was known by the ancients and that they could make it if they chose to. My feeling is they didn't choose to because the higher the carbon content the more friable the bloom and the more labor intensive the refinement. Also add to this that once refined the steel is less malleable and needs to be worked at a lower temperature and you have two other more labor intensive steps compared to wrought iron. We have to remember that that all labor at this time in history was hand forging, this was long before water driven hammers came into use.
Dick I am near Roanoke. Where are you at in Va?
Those are some interesting observations
That is a very interesting hypothesis. I am looking into the particle size of the ore. Thank you.
I'm right outside of Charleston west virginia, nice to see some people semi close by
.I'm not in Va. I'm in VT. but have gone done and smelted with my friends Lee Sauder and Skip Williams along with Jesus Hernandez and there group. Check out Lee's web site by googling him.
Ahhh the journey im taking with you on this video makes life great.
If some day the world goes sideways all these processes will be necessary. I am glad there are folks like you who take the time to teach and share this knowledge to those willing and eager to learn the old ways as well as the modern methods. Thank you John.
lol there is so much iron in the world that it would be impossible to run out. refining and processing old mild steel is much easier and cheaper than making new stuff from dirt.
John I enjoyed this project very much, I had never seen this before now. Thank you guys!! Can't wait to see what you make with it.
More knowledge, just keep those experiments, successes and failures coming!
We who are following are very appreciative and learning all the time!
Thanks John!
Thank you very much...and a HUGE RESPECT...SIR.🙏
Watching this bloom iron/steel process has been incredibly interesting and has left me wanting to try something like this one day.
Thank you for all your work in bringing us this channel John!
I can't wait to see a follow up video on that big iron bloom !
John I am intrigued. You and Jake have done extremely well with this project. Great stuff and thank you both very much.......🤠
Clearly there is a lot of interest in producing iron in a home bloomery furnace. I have thoroughly enjoyed these videos about producing iron. I look forward to more.
It's been a really fascinating process, thoroughly enjoyed it so far ;)
Thanks
thank you for doing this
Reguarding the blower motor and use of a rheostat. It really depends on what type of motor the blower has. If it's an induction motor (very likely), the speed is pretty much fixed at a bit below its synchronous speed. A rheostat will just underpower it so it stalls and burns out. If it's a brush type motor, a rheostat would probably work.
Thanks John. That is a great example of the spark test. You answered a lot of my questions
I can see how during the time when everything was made out of stone and wood that this process the men who did it and the product it made would have been very valuable. Imagine going from stone tipped arrows to steel or wrought iron tipped arrows and knives made of even wrought iron. What this amounts to is a simple cupola. Magnetite mines, dot the landscape in the western US and there you'll find a plethora of iron sources, many very pure. The black sand would be difficult to work with being a powder. Perhaps mix a tiny amount of cement with it and form small briquettes of black sand would make it more useful after the cement sets and it dries. Finally, the blower - look around and find an old-timey large variable resistor and you might find a speed control for the blower if it's motor is the right type. That's what I've got and it works well - I can speed to blower essentially from zero up to about half what yours was running at.
What an amazing video. I've thought about this process using malachite and charcoal in a pit to create crude copper, then mixing with zinc (sphalerite, which is common) in that pit to make bronze. Add a tiny bit of tin (cassiterite - which is relatively common) and you get brass. You also get the base material for roman arrow/spear heads.
I've done plenty of research on this topic (i am not at all calling myself an expert, i was doing research for my college degree) and lots of guys will take the magnetite sand and mix it with water, a portion of cornmeal and pool sand (or use previous slag for ceremonial purposes) and then bake until dry in either an oven or bbq so its bigger chunks. I also use a makita corded leafblower with a hose clamp on the trigger for my air supply. Another thing is don't forget the sacrifice to the fire lord! Eat half a jalepeno and feed the other half to the bloomery. Good work guys!!!
I am in Central Alberta Canada btw
Wow also didn't know you could get it out of the bloomery. Love to see something on your charcoal making and retort. Something I want to try soon.
The side path seems to be a place some of us want to go. I will follow you down this rabbit hole.
John this was a very nice series. I enjoyed them very much.
Sparks just like drill rod (suport rods) same steel found in old trash can beds/box spring/matresses ect ect. Lots of tool steel in that old stuff.
Very interesting
I really enjoyed this series very interesting. Thanks for sharing John
If you do decide to do it again and use the press for consolidation, you may wish to make a set of angled top and bottom dies. This would allow for the force to come from all sides and only swish out of the ends. I have often seen such dies used when square damascus is transformed into a diamond. This may keep the raw billet from falling apart and save enormous amounts of time, resources, and angst.
While watching a fellow in an eastern bloc country making damascus from screws, he used a cannister and, at 3:48, you can see the dies I was alluding to in the previous comment. I think for bloomery consolidation this would be the best. ua-cam.com/video/aM-B7jZwX0s/v-deo.html
I can't wait to see you work with the big bloom. I'm one of those who suggested throwing the small bits into a crucible. I sharpen the bandsaws for a sawmill, so I work with 15N20 all day long. Over the years, I've collected plenty of steel dust from my dust collectors. Once I replace the firepot in my forge, I'm going to run some experiments on it to see if I can turn it back into something useable. One of those experiments will be to try to make crucible steel. I have something of a furnace that I can heat the crucible in, I just don't have a decent forge to work on it once I take it out of the crucible.Again, thanks for this series as well as all of your videos. They are very educational. As a knife maker, I've found out the hard way that my forging skills are nowhere near where they should be. Your videos will help change that once the new firepot gets here.
Really loved this series. Thanks for sharing!
Well it's a great experiment and sometimes you get unexpected results, which lead to new insight. Nevertheless this is a rare thing, but it happened right here, so well done! Fascinating. I was amazed by the spark test never seen it that clearly before, thank you Jon!
Given the temps your bloomery was running and that you were using a fairly pure ore I was somewhat surprised when you initially said that all you had was pure iron. Awesome work. Loved the detail you put into bloom processing.
Very interesting topic. That's a rabbit I'd love to chase one day.
Maybe you might consider recycling all your bent nails, screws, nipped off bits, and drill and mill waste in a bloom furnace? I also watched that Viking Sword movie. wonderful video. and on the bright side you have HC steel instead of fibrous Iron. though real Iron is really sweet to work, its like butter.
I am sure you could, but I think if I am going to go through that much work, I would rather be producing wrought iron than simply recycling the old stuff. I send all of that to a scrap yard with local that goes in every month or so.
Very cool series!!
Hello John
You go through a Evolution process
In such a small time
Today you look better in your Videos and your Performance is a bit smother
I like both 👍👍😉
Best wishes
Yours Frank
Wow, thank you
Now you can make a small axe. Great series.
thanks for the lesson in metallurgy very facsinating
Watching your bloomery video, I agree that you likely made a fairly high carbon steel, and also that it was because of the strength of your blower.
The higher temperatures reached would have been enough to begin to melt the iron, which allows a much larger amount of carbon to dissolve into it. Fortunately, it looks like what you made is still good and workable, so you didn't made pig iron or anything.
I'm looking forward to the next series on this stuff, and hope that you have as much fun making it as you did with this :)
recently watched a video on traditional metal making for japanese swords, virtually identical process to what you did, charcoal for fuel, similar sort of furnace, sand/powder ore and charcoal feed in alternatively and slowly, and they claim about 0.7% carbon steel is the outcome.
similar methods seem to have been common in many parts of the world
Great conclusion to the series. I look forward to the axe or what ever you make out of it.
me too
Take it! Take the side path! :) would love to see the outcome
I hope I can manage to find the time
Thanks for the recap and I will own up to the press and rheostat suggestions. Not a critique of what happened, but just a perspective after seeing what went on during the processes. I definitely am not an expert and obviously not there when you guys were doing it. Really appreciate you taking the time to produce good video content for our edification and entertainment.
Bryan Robinson, any observations are good. This is a learning experience for everybody.
Another great video. You must be the hardest working youtuber out there. Just want to say " good job and keep up the good work👍🏻"
I have a leaf blower with a throttle, my plan is to use that.
I just found the channel and I love this kind of content. Did you ever do something with the big bloom, because I couldn't find a video for it? If not here's one new fan hoping to see a continuation on that.
I`ll have to gather up some of that black sand. That process begs replication. Iron age furnace yields steel. High blast with no lime flux. I would bet some of those iron age Celtic swords are actually steel.
Very interesting process!
I see a Japanese sword in the making. :-)
Making steel in this manner is why the Japanese swordsmith would sort all the pieces of bloom (Tamahagene) into soft and hardened piles. They then forge welded each pile into it own piece. Upon making the sword, they forge welded a hard high carbon outer around a softer inner core. The result.. very sharp but tough and shock resistant.
Thanks for the video....
shadowcastre this is what I was talking about in the comment I just posted, I called it tamagachi though lol I couldn't remember the exact name
I was not trying to give you any negative feedback my friend. It's something that popped into my head that I thought I would suggest. I'm here to learn from you. I'm actually star stuck as all hell you answer me bad.
Never thought you were. It is part of the way creative people watch others work, always an eye out for a way to add their own particular touch to the process.
That is crazy how high carbon that came out. I know now the desired results but cool nonetheless. Thank you hope to see more
Thanks !!
Very interesting and intriguing experiment with the bloom. I wonder if the fine grain size of the magnetite sand with a much larger surface area than, say, an ore would allow for greater absorbtion of carbon from the charcoal. I do know that low carbon wrought iron blooms, as opposed to the steely nature of your bloom, have been made with magnetite sand. Another question to complicate things!
I think it could be the subject for many years of serious research.
I wondered why the iron sand wouldn't combine with the carbon in the charcoal to make steel in that oven......apparently it did!
Thanks! To me, it appears to be 30 point steel. Do you have some 1018 cold roll or A36 hot roll to compare it with? Well, of course you do! I think you are right when you say you may lose carbon with further beating. The whole idea behind wrought iron was to beat out the impurities, and carbon is one of those impurities. Then, to make steel, carbon was added back at a controlled rate using many different methods. Very interesting! Jerry
Cool video
I too have really enjoyed watching you go through this process and look forward to whatever it is that you decide to make with the little lump of treasure. Several questions have come to mind as I watched. The first one is, have you noticed the fibrous or ropy nature that wrought iron has yet and why does that develope anyway? I thought that iron and steel were both crystalline in nature. It also seemed to me that total and proper control of the air blast is probably as important to the foundry as it is to the smith. I know that it has been painful to me to never forget the fire if I have gotten it really hot. I look forward to the rest of the story.
The fibrous nature of wrought iron comes from the repeated folding which leaves layers of silica i the iron.
Very similar outcome to the Japanese method of making a tamagachi steel? Like for a katana, I think it's tamagachi, Id have to go do some research again, but I've watched a video or two about it..
Edit: a comment below said the same thing I was referring to, tamahgane(spelling) is the steel Japanese make for the katana, makes for a very strong, yet flexible and extremely sharp blade.
Was wondering about that watching the last video added alot of Flux and the coke. Also besides the heat during the smelting you dumped high carbon charcoal part by part with not homogeneous iron sand maybe bouncing the ratio out a wack. Also then heating it with the coal blower and the coal itself.
I enjoyed all these videos , and I am thinking of trying it myself someday soon . I’d also try to make steel the old way like I saw on clicksprings video, ( he’s more of a machinist but does try to see how our ancestors did things)
Perhaps a mild steel control would have clarified matters?
Hi John. This has been fascinating to see. Did you ever manage to record a series on the big bloom as I can't find it myself?
Still haven’t gotten back to it
Wow that is interesting high temps to get steel. It should make sense You guys did burn charcoal. Did the Katana makers not have two steels also from their bloomeries, one low carbon and some higher. I think they folded those separately and then did a sanmei thing after the folding was complete. Not sure. Do harden a piece John to know for sure and let us know.
I would really love to see you make an axe or hammer or something from it very soon. Am so gona give that a go at some point. This video series helped.
I really can't say what the Japanese sword makers did. It has never been an area that I have researched.
I only watched a UA-cam video. Maybe someone else might know. Thanks for getting back to me on it though!
Work With Nature, from what I understand of the tatara furnace, the iron produced in one, had a higher carbon content around the outer edges and a lower content toward the center of the iron mass. The process is essentially the same as a bloomery furnace. Comparing the differences between the two is like comparing champagne and sparkling wines.
Yes, Japanese sword makers end up with steel with varying levels of carbon which they call 'tamahagane'. Here's an excellent clip: ua-cam.com/video/VE_4zHNcieM/v-deo.html
Saw a anthropologist hammering peat into iron to make a spear. Ireland or Scotland, Wish I had details
A great series. One can imagine an accidental outcome like this happening 2 or 3 thousand years ago. Then how long did it take the ancients to figure out what they had. I think what you actually had there was a crude blast furnace, That's why the smelting process went so fast. Maybe you have pig iron there instead of wrought iron. If you continue down this road maybe you should build a more permanent bloomery. BTW my spell checker does not recognize bloomery. tch tch
Maybe if enough backyard iron smelters start using the term someone will update spell checker.
:) I did add it to my checker
fires were the television back then.
This is very interesting. I am curious, what did you do with the large piece? If there is a video can you include the link? I searched but did not find it.
A thought/theory concerning the bloom. I think what was made, historically, could have started as steel, but during the forging and refining process, the carbon was lost, resulting in wrought iron. Your thoughts? I am no expert, nor a metallurgist, but the theory seems plausible in my mind. Thanks again for sharing this experience!
Very likely. I will test it again after I refine the bars.
Looks like you got steel brother..
Yes we did. Certainly wasn't what we expected
I just got done watching some videos done at Bushfire Forge. They performed two smelts, one using siderite ore and the other using magnetite. Their magnetite bloomery furnace also produced a bloom of high carbon steel. I wonder if it is the ore and not the furnace heat that makes the difference.
yes this is me, Jake
Someone had commented on that thinking the finer grains had more opportunity to pick up carbon from the charcoal in the furnace.
Black Bear Forge, I’ve been looking into a way of pelletizing the ore with a calcium carbonate paste. Maybe that will keep the magnetite in the furnace and not blown out all over the ground.
Could you possibly draw out your bar thin and fold and fold while using carbon as a flux? Charcoal?
I think you could legitimately speculate a little further given the outside facts you have stated. The steel requires more heat to carbonize. In your case there was a confluence of 3 factors that probably created the greater heat: stronger air circulation, resin rich pine charcoal, and lower air pressure from your altitude which also strongly affects the boiling point of H2O and many cooking and baking times. Further, any charcoal, since it burns to ash and doesn't coke, should release more carbon in it's vapors than an equivalent volume of either wood or green coal.
Presumably our Iron Age ancestors relied on human muscle power to provide the air volume. But if they were herding cultures, there is the possibility that they developed the use of draft animals. Or even some form of water power from mountain falls. Coniferous woods increase with altitude so an Iron Age culture in mountainous terrain may have discovered "better iron" in the same way the Japanese discovered "better steel" because their ore source contained moly. And a well developed tradition of high fired clay pottery anywhere could have stimulated the invention of the crucible.
Metallurgy is said to have spread from ancient Turkey in three distinct periods: copper smelting, bronze making, and iron founding all spread from this source. This region is mountainous, developed domestic agriculture and domestic animals quite early, though domesticating larger animals probably spread from Central Asia. So there are very good odds that "better iron" developed there first. One hint of this is the people in the region called the Hittites. We still know very little about them, but we do know that their major art form was sculptural and made out of iron by very skilled artists, probably "blacksmiths" as we now know them.
In a real sense you have repeated such a discovery that probably occurred in that region.
Where is the video of forging this bloom?
Sooooo.... was that bloom turned into something at the end?
Often foraged free-range ores can be high in Phosphorus. Such impurities may give false spark/carbon interpretations. You may since have tested this metal for cold short (cold embrittlement), and if it is, that may point to the Phosphorus being a false flag re the 'carbon' spark. Kind regards.
Id be interested in how taconite vs iron sand would work...
C and K Early Warning Systems, I hope to do a smelt in the Great Lakes area some time soon and use taconite as the ore. It would have to be roasted first as it is a carbonate. The ore needs to be turned into an oxide before it can be used in a bloomery furnace.
Did you ever find time to work that bloom some more?
Would love to see the results!
Not yet, hopefully this spring
@@BlackBearForge Very excited! Would love to see a break test to see what kind of grain size you're getting too. Joey van der Steeg refined a few bloom chunks and was having difficulty with it, possibly due to unintentional alloy issues. Can't wait to see how yours comes out!
Hi John. Did you manage this in the end?
I’m still new to forging. Just started finally this last November...but just out of curiosity, could you do canister Damascus with all the “little bits”?
If you mean melt them down into a wotz style Damascus, yes I am sure you could. If that's not what you mean when you say canister Damascus, then I'm not sure.
Not sure what wotz style is but here is a link to what I’m talking about. Thank you so much for all your videos. I’m self taught by Using UA-cam and your content has helped me tremendously. Just finished my first can ladle inspired by you.
ua-cam.com/video/YMDNyeDmq38/v-deo.html
Wotz is a crucible steel process that was used to make the the real Damascus steel in the middle ages. I think the process you shared a link to would require an already refined steel
So, long story short, the chunk of Iron you might make an ax out of will be a better ax, but harder to forge.
That is true
Did you ever work that last bloom?
Not yet, but I still have it on hand
@@BlackBearForge I look forward to it.
Was just coming here to ask that. 🙂
it reminded me the two documentaries about forging the japanese swords. It's the same stuff only done better. Their furnace is huge and it sits there for 3 days. Their product is cleaner and it looks like it catches more carbon during that time and it also seems more ductile. Almost as it's case-hardened. I'm still lost with the melting points, carbon contents and comparison to how mild steel behaves and how hard this looks but if you make sense out of it these are the links: the furnace - ua-cam.com/video/VE_4zHNcieM/v-deo.html
refining and forging ua-cam.com/video/gxwWf-MfZVk/v-deo.html
There isn't anything more "authentic" about using charcoal over coal. Keep in mind that ancient Wales was one of the great centers of brinze production 3000 years ago because it had supplies of scarce tin and also because it had abundant coal. Having perfected coal-based smelting of bronze it seems only natural to have pivoted to coal-based smelting of iron. Iron mongery, at least as far back as 3000 years, wasn't as primitive as you assume. The transition to iron drew on an earlier tradition of bronze smelting and smithing that was at least 2000 years old, possibly older. The tradition also included the smelting and working of very pure meteoric iron, of which a number of ancient meteoric iron artifacts have been recovered in Egyptian archeology. So you can let go the idea of "frontier" extreme low tech iron smelting as the gold standard of authenticity. For instance, consider smelting using a series of furnaces, including pre-heat (to infuse carbon), main smelt and post-smelt (consolidation) furnaces.
Just incase you never got the link for it ua-cam.com/video/CNuEDtnVdeM/v-deo.html I'm pretty sure this is where most everyone is getting the press idea. The video itself is more entertainment than education but hey there's still things to learn
Thanks
happy accident!
True, I was trying to decide how I was going to make steel for a final project.
you may still need to case harden a portion of the bloom iron. As you noted, decarburization happens when working the wrought iron. The carbon content may dip below a level that hardening is possible.