Smelting extravaganza!

[DiamondG Knives]

It is my limited understanding that the Japanes made a "tutora" which was basicly a large clay "Box" which had a funnel shaped bottom similar to a grain silo, . Is the general idea to melt iron thru a carbon media(charcoal) to gain carbon and have it pool in the bottom of the furnace? ? Will the resulting "bloom" really be more of a sponge like mass of slag that is then reduced by forging to a solid piece of steel?

Man, it seems the more I "Think" I know about this, the more I find I dont know!! LOL

Any suggestions on what size "furnce" would be needed to yield a billet / Ingot/ Bloom say in the 5 -8 lb range? And what amount of useable steel could be refined from a piece this size?

Thanks for all the Info!!

God Bless
Mike

[Jesse Frank]

Skip the pipe. Just saran wrap it so the clay wont stick to it and use that as a form. Thats what I did. Then pull it out so the clay can dry and vwalla! Stack furnace!

I've been getting 6 lb (roughly) blooms out of mine running it for an hour. A good part of that is slag though.


A dung furnace! Whew!!!!!! Light it and run!

[ferrognome]

Hey Jesse,
We have developed a very inexpensive bloomery furnace that we hope will enable more folks to get into smelting. This little furnace costs less than $100, can be built in a few hours, and makes 20+ pound blooms. Complete construction and operation details are available on this website.

http://iron.wlu.edu/Bloomery_Iron.htm

Certainly there will be improvements to the design and operation. We hope to keep this site up to date with info and contributions from those who try it.


Skip Williams
Lee Sauder
The Rockbridge Bloomery

[J.Arthur Loose]

Lee/Skip,

Glad to see you in here. I've certainly benefitted from the information on your website and I recommend that everyone go look at it... amazing bloomery sculptures!

http://iron.wlu.edu/

I might try your economy smelter since I can't really build my clay/dung one until Spring.

And I don't know if I ever thanked you for the link, btw. Stick around!

[Alan L]

Hmmmm.... I have a 12" square 2' section of chimney tile and some chickenwire... Now to find enough ore!

Glad you guys showed up too! You ought to come down to Harley's hammer-in, since he's planning on building some furnaces and part of the admission price is a bag of real charcoal.

[Jesse Frank]

That's awesome, Skip!

Ive learned a whole heck of alot from you as well You guys are tanfastic!!

Although I must say that Ive been building mine for 20 bucks a pop


Not including the blower, though.

Here is an update on the furnaces weve been messing with:

3' tall

12" int dai

The refractory is a cob mix with a 70/30 mix of sand or sandy soil/portland cement. The portland is less than 10 bucks for a 94lb bag. The sand is free for me since I live in fl, but it's only like 2 or 3 bucks for a 50 lb bag. I discovered the kitty litter doesn't work as well as this. With the portland mix, you can fire it off the next day if you want and not worry about excess moisture, but it would probably be a good idea to let is set for a few days. The kitty litter just takes way too long to dry.

The rest of it is just 3/4" black iron pipe and the blower. You don't need a big one. My little 49cfm is WAY too powerfull.

We have been building them in 1' sections and stacking them.