Iron Smelt - Wareham, ON - June 11, 2011

Date:June 11, 2011

Location:Wareham, ON

See also: Darrell Markewitz's ironsmelting site

Team: Neil Peterson, Richard Schwietzer, Sam Falzone, Darrell Markewitz

Premise: Practice for CanIron8 presentation.

Furnace Design

Burn Details

Results

Reports of all of our iron smelting efforts along with more articles and information are available on the "Iron Smelting in the Viking Age" CD from the Wareham Forge.  Copies of the CD can be purchased here.

Discussion:

Conclusions:

The bloom produced was compacted considerably farther than our average (important in terms of yield comparisons). At time of extraction, the mass was considerably more spongy than for past smelts. Due to good hammer work by two visiting professional farriers, the bloom was compacted down to roughly the size of a pound of butter, then cleanly sliced into two rectangular slabs. On spark testing, the interior metal was found to be almost completely carbon free. This agrees with the striker's impression that this was soft forgeable iron.

The furnace itself was a well proven design, and although the working team was a bit lacking in self directed experience, the method followed was one developed through considerable past (successful) experience. Taken together, this certainly suggests the low yield was the result of the quality of the untested ore used for the smelt.

Photos:

Early construction	Mid Smelt	Slag Tap	Breaking down furnace
Extracting the bloom	finished bloom

Raw Data:

CLOCK	ELAPSED	EVENT	AIR	CHARCOAL			ORE
				UNIT	COUNT	TOTAL	UNIT		COUNT	TOTAL
			LpM *	bucket		kg	scoop	added		kg
						1.8 *				0.35 *
(8:30)		team arrives on site
(9:00)		start furnace build
(10:40)	1:40	start pre-heat
(11:00)	:40	first charcoal addition
		re-set event clock
12:00		ungraded charcoal to fill	400	3 E	3	5.55
12:40	:40	ungraded charcoal	800	1	4	7.40
12:48	:08	graded charcoal		1	5	9.25
12:59		added top collar
13:02	:14	double charcoal addition (fill collar)		2	7	12.95
		ore additions started
13:12	:10	charcoal & ore		1	8	14.80	1	0.21	1	0.21
13:20	:08	charcoal & ore		1	9	16.65	2	0.7	3	0.91
13:30	:10	charcoal & ore		1	10	18.50	3	1.05	6	1.96
13:40	0:10	charcoal & ore		1	11	20.35	3	1.05	9	3.01
13:52	0:12	charcoal & ore		1	12	22.20	3	1.05	12	4.06
14:03	0:11	charcoal & ore		1	13	24.05	4	1.4	16	5.46
14:15	0:12	charcoal & ore		1	14	25.90	4	1.4	20	6.86
14:26	0:11	charcoal & ore		1	15	27.75	5	1.75	25	8.61
14:28		adjust air	900
14:35	:09	charcoal & ore		1	16	29.60	6	2.1	31	10.71
14:46	0:11	charcoal & ore		1	17	31.45	6	2.1	37	12.81
14:56	0:10	charcoal & ore		1	18	33.30	6	2.1	43	14.91
15:03	0:07	charcoal & ore		1	19	35.15	5	1.75	48	16.66
15:08	0:05	charcoal & ore		1	20	37.00	5	1.75	53	18.41
15:14	0:06	charcoal & ore		1	21	38.85	5	1.75	58	20.16
15:24	0:10	charcoal & ore		1	22	40.70	6	2.1	64	22.26
15:35		slag tap
15:38	0:14	charcoal & ore		1	23	42.55	7	2.45	71	24.71
15:49	0:11	charcoal & ore		1	24	44.40	6	2.1	77	26.81
15:55	0:06	charcoal & ore		1	25	46.25	6.5	2.275	83.5	29.09
		start burn down phase
16:20	:25	last cover layer of charcoal		1	26	48.10
16:41	0:21	extraction begins	700
		remove top layer of bricks
	AIR	all approximate (guide marks only)
	CHARCOAL	based on past average weight
	ORE	based on average scoop weight
	TOTALS	Charocal	48 kg
		Ore - as scoops / bucket weight	29 kg	24 kg
		Time	4:45 +
		Bloom	2.65 kg
		Yield (estimate only)	9%	11%

Reports of all of our iron smelting efforts along with more articles and information are available on the "Iron Smelting in the Viking Age" CD from the Wareham Forge.  Copies of the CD can be purchased here.

Text © Darrell Markewitz
Photographs © Darrell Markewitz
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