danpat

It seems unlikely. I only grabbed a few nice looking pieces, but there was lots of it lying around over a large area (at least half a mile square). It was exposed mostly in washouts, most of the pieces looked just like the photo. Brown, strangely heavy rocks.

Hey all, I was recently visiting my girlfriends grandparents ranch outside Silver City in NM where I picked up what appear to be some fairly good iron ore chunks out in the forest. I'd like to make a ring or two out of it if possible. I don't have a lot (probably about 15lbs). It breaks apart if I whack it hard with a regular carpentry hammer. It's strongly magnetic and significantly heavier than similar sized "normal" rocks nearby. Cutting it with a metal blade works and an angle grinder reveals a fairly shiny, brown-coloured surface. Is it going to be possible to smelt this small amount of material? If so, can anyone recommend a simple process to follow? From what I've been reading, an outdoor bloomery is too large. I was thinking that roasting, breaking it down and putting it in a smaller crucible along with a CO producer to do a "mini bloom", but I've not been able to find much literature for really small scale production like this. Is it even possible, or is the mass/surface area ratio of such a small amount going to prevent the process from working at all? The key idea is the sentimental value of the materials and as I'm now about 3000 miles from NM, it's hard to get access to any more.