DanielC

I mean the coil can be taken out and straightened from the belly it has formed from the weight of blades. And it's ok, I tend to be forgetful often! A @ Thomas I have heard people mention sag, but with proper support, a sword shouldnt sag. This issue was brought up to Jesvs Hernendez, a very accomplished bladesmith who inspired me to make this, and over many years he has no issues with sagging of his blades. His support holds his blades every inch or so, which mine doesn't, so it can be an issue I am sure. I am going to throw a different rack in there for that though. The coil I have is easily removable. And the heat gradiant of a verticle tank is enough of a pita IMO to even consider a vertical tank.

My shop is a mess and in need of completion. Just built and installed a HT furnace, with a tempering furnace to go. Been wanting to install a flue for solid fuel to be used inside, instead of outside. Also building a ribbon burner for my first gas forge. Still have room for a press in the future, and another work bench built out of all the building materials in the back. On a clean day the shop isn't so bad, but I was challenged to impromptu post a shop vid, lol. The wood stove was given to me this year, and hope to install it by this coming winter. Will sure help for an uninsulated shop! The winters aren't too, too bad. This year we got down to 0, but we never go below 0. With my shop open every time I forge (2 car garage 20'x20'), I am never not in the elements. A flue and a gas forge is a must. @ Cochran Yep. Enjoy the learning. I gravitated to smelting after watching the Tatara run in Japan online. I couldn't have been luckier to live less than an hour away from one of the most seasoned smelters in the world, and a great friend.

It's coming in at the bottom, straight in just above the floor by about an inch. The coil is 3/16" 304ss but is proving to be no match for the heat and has sagged some. It can be straightened out, buy I like things more permanent. A redesign is in the works for that in the near future. I made the hooks that are holding it up out of 3/8" 304ss, and the hinge and locking mechanism is the same since I had a small abundance of it. I use the same regular tongs I use for holding onto tangs for forging.

I am sure you could build on this and come up with a working furnace that made beautiful iron or steel. Once I build my stack I have a few slight modifications myself, while retaining the basic design, it should be fine. If and when you build your stack and run a smelt, be sure to get another cohort to tag along and take lots of pics and vids! Smelting has a steep learning curve because the information seems to be both trapped in time and scarcity. You may even stumble on a re-discovery that changes the viewpoints of all. The smelting community is very open to learning something new.

This was a design I first seen being used by Jesvs Hernendez. Using the inside tank of a water heater, some kaowool and a lot of 304SS! This is just pre-heating to my desired temp for W2 ht, with a W2 kitchen knife just inserted. With a needle valve I am able to pretty much hold any temp between 1100 to 1700F and leave it there indefinately. The large volume allows for very even heating, zero heatspots, and being horizontal, no heat gradiants.

There can be a number of different factors that make or break a smelt. I have never tried any media other than ore and we have done re-melts with bloom fluff, and partially reduced ore. The re-melts usually produce higher carbon steels than our brown limonite ores. Regarding other furnace designs, the inside and outs can be entirely different, so what you need to do to get it right with one furnace design will be different with another. Generally however, after you have been around a smelter you start to get a hang for the mechance involved. Right now Mark's process is dialed in with a round style furnace. If we are to change anything at all, we tend to alter only one characteristic of the smelter rather than several. Since our smelts are quite abundant, changing one each time allows one to figure out how to dial it in. We have had great success leaving the air alone and controlling burn rate by the ore-fuel ratio. As far as reading goes, there are several very rare books on smelting that I do not own, though Mark and several others do. They are quite cost prohibitive if you can even find one available. My hunt is ongoing. If my videos and his Picasa haven't cleared it up, I would suggest trying the video that is available to buy at Lee Sauder's website. Frosty- Yea the door makes it easier to pry out, and allows us to use the stack another time. With the clay mixture always available, any resulting cracks from prying are easily sealed shut, the door as well is easily re-built. Also another good thing about this mixture is it can be crushed up and re-animated or recycled. Some of the castable refractories to my knowledge get so hard, the crushing is quite difficult. The interior is glazed by vetrification. A quick source to my videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/TAGMushy/videos

We currently have been using Royal Oak in mass quantities. Usually have a pallet on hand at a time, as it takes a lot. We usually in a normal round furnace consume 150lb of charcoal. That's 150lb, after it has been sized and sifted of fines. I have noticed that the charcoal I make in my retort which is based off of Ian's, to burn hotter than store bought. Seemed to work good with magnetite, but if you aren't careful with your temps getting too hot, you may end up with cast iron in the end. Which is still use able. The white cast iron (I think it would be considered white. Its usually well above 1.5C) can be decarburized (if a person can manage it) and used as is, or folded into a billet.

Check out these: and

That one was being a bugger because it was a new stack. New stacks are still rough on the inside, so the bloom like to adhere somewhat to the walls. The cylindrical design allows the bloom to suspend itself from the shaft once the bottom door is removed and the ash and charcoal fines are removed. A furnace after several runs starts to glassify on the inside, creating a smooth wall. If you watch some of the others you can tell the ease. Honestly though that's about as easy as it gets. Prior to that door design by Lee Sauder, people were knocking their stacks down every single time and extracting the bloom. With the plinth and door set-up, we are able to keep using the same stack over and over. 10 runs is the record I think at Marks.

Yea, the round style furnace as seen in my vids are really good furnaces to use for success. Plus the style has been used and proven a lot in the present.

Reading a little further, I would use this mixture because Lee Sauder says too, lol. Though I am sure there are more ways to skin a cat. If it adfordable, I don't see why not. I saw that tatara smelt with Ric Furrer using mostly fire brick.

Yea I just looked it up to make sure and it's alumina content is high. Which throws that statement out of the door. Makes one wonder why regular fire clay wouldn't work in substitution. It's what I was told! Lol. Even 10 smelts in and am still learning. It's a long process to reach the level of those guys

Perhaps I read it wrong or there is a different type? I would have to consult some of the other guys about that, because that is part of the whole process. Keeping impurities out =) We have castable refractories like that, but you actually want the walls to melt somewhat towards the bottom. The actual composition of the furnace is a little muddy in my mind as I haven't yet had to keep up with my own. I've helped build a furnace with him from the ground up, but to my understanding these mixtures are widely used by Lee Sauder and a slew of other big smelters. Wish a few of them were members here to chime in!

We use a ratio of EPK Kaolin to Ball Clay, then mix with a ratio of peat and sand. EDITED for correctness. I've also seen dung and straw on one of our Facebook groups. Smelting IS enjoyable.

Weird, I will try to fix it when I get home in front of my comp. If you plan on smelting, you don't want to miss his Picasa pages. Also, I have helped with around 10-12 smelts now, and still consider myself wet behind the ears. I finally got my clays from a pottery place to start making my stack at my house though, so it won't be long before I conduct weekly smelts at my place. I have a quarter ton of ore at my house as it is. It won't be long before we go mining again though.

Now that I thibk about it, some of our smelting buddies in Europe use wooden mallet exclusively. Also here is Mark's Picasa pages on smelting. All written info can be found there for a successful smelt, coupled with my YouTube. https://picasaweb.google.com/m/viewer#albumlist/106800196895572422821

Yea it can get complicated quickly. Though we find it more art than science. Always open for suggestions though. Spreading the information freely and pinging ideas off one another is how smelters have got this far. A lost art, rediscovered and exploited with present day equipment. Much the same as blacksmithing in general, just much much more niche and harder to acquire material. My YouTube coupled with Mark's Picasa pages should get you going easily enough. I can link his Picasa page when I find it after this post. Also a wooden mallet would be fun, but it can be compacted without loss in chunks or cracking with controlled taps with a light sledge. Mark has conducted and experimented with well over 100 smelts using a sledge for compaction. It all in how you tap it. Plus it's only a 6# sledge, very light, and heavy enough to knock the outer cooled layer of slag and wall. Though sometimes it really does take a wooden mallet to keep it from disentigrating due to the area you are hitting with. At the last Fire and Brimstone at the Baltimore Knife and Sword Co., we conducted a smelt, and the bloom had what we suspect as either copper inclusion or an introduction of phosphorous from the recycled wall we used and the bloom wanted to crack at compaction no matter how gently we squished it. 3 of us, myself included were softly striking on that compaction, and considering the film crew was there, we will probably be on a Man at Arms episode.

Believe it or not, but the furnace design can play a major role in the end product. The idea was to build it historically accurate to what they used in Catalan. Strive to get it as close as possible to original design before we were to make major changes. This particular design has allowed steel to be formed rather than Iron. It even plays with the CO levels and not allowing the tuyure to blast away all the carbon. Knowing when and how much slag to tap plays a key role in the end result as well, as a surplus in slag will keep the furnace hotter, yet protect the bloom from the air blast and decarb. Plus it is expensive to experiment with drastic changes, keep that in mind. If it doesn't work you have lost that ore and however much charcoal you invested, all of this not including the days and days of prep. If you are going after magnetite, I suggest triple magnet cleaning it, and mixing with water and corn meal, then baked and broken into chunks. This will allow you to control the rate of drop. Will also have to run it slightly hotter to avoid it freezing in the shaft.

Also, it was a fight due to the size of the bloom and for the fact that the furnace design is for a top removal. Being near that much radiant heat and imagining being on top of it, you would agree that we are nowhere near as hardened as the old timers. Mark's hand had blisters on them from the bloom compacting with welding gloves on! Next year we are possibly going to do a full sized catalan. The inside should be 9 times larger than this one, resulting in blooms in the 200lb or more range, and probably 2000lb in charcoal.

yea the removal historically was at the top. The smelters would make a bloom or two a day, and allow another crew to come in and keep going. This style smelter never stopped making bloom. Considering this is scaled down and limited tooling for that kind if removal, the walls are taken down. I would not recommend this style smelter your first go. It was probably successful due to the amount of knowledgable smelters that poured their heart and ideas, not to mention old books in catalan translated by none other than Jesvs Hernendez, into this smelter. It was ran a few weeks prior by 5 guys. This time just the two of us. A round style furnace with a Lee Sauder style door and plinth is much more realistic for a first smelt. Check out my other vids of bloom extraction by following my username from that video to see.

I got it fixed. I am using my phone and the new forums style make it hard to post video. Should work now.

Thought I would share our most recent smelt. This time using a smelter style seldom used in the last 100 years. Our furnace is a sizeable fraction of what they historically were. 130lb. Of locally mined by us, limonite ore was used, with 200lb. Of charcoal and around 40 gallons of water. 5 hours of slaving in the 90F sun, and constantly managing the fire we were left with 40lb of bloom steel. This video was taken at the end of the smelt as we were birthing the bloom. It was in 2 separate chunks, almost as if by design by this furnace. It was too hot to compact like we usually do with our 12-14lb blooms we create in the round style furnace, so not too much hammering. Mark wielded the hammer and shovel, and I with the tongs. Was quite literally the hottest heat source I've worked with to date. Check my YouTube channel for all of our previous smelts of 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYDHFhDlSx0

Nice knives JPH I plumb as a day job, and have collected our broken cables in the past to hold for stuff like this. Havent got around to it yet though. We use them in 5/16" dia and 3/4" dia with hollow core. I have about 60' of the 3/4" that I may try out soon.

Nice knives JPH I plumb as a day job, and have collected our broken cables in the past to hold for stuff like this. Havent got around to it yet though. We use them in 5/16" dia and 3/4" dia with hollow core. I have about 60' of the 3/4" that I may try out soon.

Dawn with borax added. I throw in enough borax to create an abrasive. This works great for hands and arms.