Nobody Special

Is it seasoned well? Some get a lot easier with seaoning, some get harder. Pecan and hickory are nightmarishly hard before they've sat a year or two. I use the semi-direct currently. Got really good charcoal with the indirect when it worked, but I kept messing with the system trying to get it right, and never quite got it. Inconsistent. I take a 55 gallon barrel, set it on blocks. Barrel has about 7 holes in the bottom, say two inches each. Start a fire in the bottom, toss in wood until full. Wood should be cut down to small pieces. Ideally no more than 5 or 6 inches square, but tell the truth, I often toss in cordwood I've busted down to kindling size with a maul, and accept that I'll end up with some leftovers that didn't char fully. Hardwood's denser/better by far than softwood, and you definitely want to use seasoned wood. Burn for about an hour after full with the lid propped open a couple of inches, smoke will go from white or brown and white to bluish black, often little to no smoke by time to cover. Then close lid, take off of blocks. Put blocks on lid, and tamp down around the edges with wet sand to make sure no oxygen gets in. (will shoot flames out bottom from overpressure of burning wood gas). Whack a few times with a piece of cordwood, wet down, and wait at least 8 hours. If, when you open it, it flames up, soak it down with the hose. Usually get around 30-40 percent yield. Very smoky at first, and not as efficient as the indirect method, but easy, and consistent. Especially easy if you burn several barrels at a time.

I was looking a lot at the rockbridge bloomery site, they seem to say around 150 lbs and up for said amount of ore. I may actually be a little light on ore, not sure if the weight of their ore is before or after roasting. Planning on preheat with wood, Got a bunch of pine scraps, and some pecan cordwood I can bust up smaller. Bout an hour, then load with charcoal, turn on air around 20 minutes or so, start charging. They seem to have a lot of experience, so I was going to follow their guidelines, albeit modified some to fit the materials at hand. For example, I'm not set up to do a water cooled tuyere. Going with black pipe, but probably gonna try to set it up where the last couple of inches is ceramic to prevent melting. If it's not working well, then iron all the way. Their hollow air preheater's probably out for me too.

A lot of hardwood in mine, oak and pecan. 20 gallons was 45 lbs, final tally's around 85-90 gallons, so........got 180-200 lbs? Even if I'm wrong on the high end and have about 150, figured that would be enough. Most of the sites I've seen said to run til the bloom starts to block airflow from the tuyere, figured if I use all the ore great, if not, I'll take what I can get, ditto if I start to run out of fuel. Would have built the stack yesterday, but ran into a series of minor emergencies at the chicken farm. How much would you use for this?

In order-ish, I didn't know of Jack Frost, just making a christmas song reference, I had about 75 lbs of ore before roasting, not sure now, feels lighter. Thinking about 3 ft tall and maybe around 16 inches i.d. for the furnace. My kids do more dangerous things before breakfast than I do in a year, but I made sure to give them pieces that were maybe almost as tough as coke. Very crumbly. And then 15 minutes later, caught them 20 ft up a very much not load bearing tree when I turned my back. Finally finished the charcoal today. Around 80 gallsons. Start building the furnace tommorow I think. Pics to follow.

My first tries were indirect. Yes it used a stovepipe chimney, but it went through the middle of the barrel top to bottom, and the fire was underneath the barrel, so none of the wood in the barrel was on fire. The pipe had a few, very small vent holes near the bottom to vent wood gas back into the fire, but not enough oxygen was getting in for it to do more than smoulder, especially after it heated up enough for the pressure from wood gas to push everything out. When it worked, it worked very well, but I couldn't get it to run consistently. So I tried the retort inside a larger barrel, and finally switched to the semi-direct.

http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/37315-etowah-furnace/ More charcoal for the bloom today, fishing, fed chickens and rabbits, libations for the fallen. Fishing area was at old Etowah blast furnace. Inspiring. Around 70 ft. tall. This one could put out about 9 tons of pig iron in its heyday. All that's left of the biggest iron working area in the south around civil war era. Rest is buried under a lake now. On leave til Friday. Hopefully, bloom this week.

Frosty, your semi-direct is almost exactly what I've gone too. More holes on bottom, and letting burn about 50 minutes before sealing. Anything before that, I end up with lots of uncharred bits, but like I said, my pieces are probably too big. Seems to yield around 30-40 percent. Worst case, burned too long, about 25 percent.

Depends on how much light, bright light only orange and up. At night, or under a hood, all the way down to dark red.

So, I've been trying for the longest time to make charcoal for a bloom. I figure I need about 150 lbs or so to do around 70 lbs of ore. Been trying a lot of different methods, indirect, semi-direct, and of course, the classic - direct. All attempts have been in a 55 gal drum. First go was indirect. Loaded the drum, carved a hole top and bottom to run a 6 inch stovepipe through, let it stick out the bottom, and put the whole thing over a shallow pit. Lit a fire in the pit and fed fuel down the stovepipe. Had holes in the stovepipe to vent gas. Mixed results. When it worked well, around 30-40 percent charcoal. Biggest mistake, as in all of these was having my chunks of wood too big. Lots of unburnt remnants. Got tired of it and tried putting a 30 gal can inside of same drum, upside down, with the outer drum. Sat on the ground, closing bottom hole. Long stovepipe for a chimney out the top, holes in the side for ventilation. Rarely worked, not enough space between the inner retort and the outer drum. When it did, maybe 25-30 percent, Only really charred where the wood sat on top of the retort. Latest attempts, direct method straight out of bushcraft magazine on youtube, and occaisonal semi-direct. New 55 gal drum with 7 - 2 inch holes in the bottom, place on blocks, start a fire, load with wood, prop open, then take off of blocks and seal after about an hour when smoke changes color. Varying from around 20-40 percent yield. The shorter the burn, the more yield so far. The internet reccomendation was around 3 hrs. Found out I don't end up with anything if I don't seal it after about 45 minutes to an hour. Also, retried indirect method, and elevated the the outer drum so the bottom hole was partially exposed. Worked much better, seemed to get more oxygen. Haven't opened it yet to see results, but much better burning in outer drum. Conclusions? Sealed retort is harder to do, but yields much better charcoal. Smells good, denser, lights easier, better texture, and less fines. Direct method more consistent, but lower yield and less density. Pine is lousy by itself, not dense enough, but if you mix it with hard woods, seems to get better results out of both woods. About 100 lbs right now, and maybe 20, 30 gallons to check on in morning. Advice? Comments?

Update - making charcoal. Charcoal, charcoal and more charcoal. 100 lbs ish so far. Maybe enough to do a bloom by tuesday/wednesday?

Smelting mine. NOT giving any away. Good luck!

Welcome from a misplaced Texan. Grew up in Garland, lived in Texarkana, San Angelo, and Copperas Cove. From the name and the location, you stationed at Ft. Hood?

Do what I do with a new hobby. (and I've got a couple, distance running, knitting, made a crossbow, brewing, beekeeping, cross-stitch...) Drop or draw back on a couple of the other hobbies for awhile, keep it cheap at first, and if possible, get him into it too so he has some ownership in the new hobby. Let him move some hot steel under the hammer and shape it a couple of times, it's fun and addictive as all get out.

Busted up the roasted ore after work today with my two youngest. They had fun, and make great strikers. Also a lot of fun to impress them by taking a small boulder size rock and twisting it apart with your bare hands! http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/37302-crushing001/ http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/37303-crushing002/ http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/37304-crushing003/

Very simplified equation, not nearly all the reactions that take place. You can make diamond with explosives too, and gold from lead with the right nuclear reaction, but not nearly cost effective. Also, in my experience, thermite tends to be messy. Easy to make, but you'd probably end up with a lot of small globules all over the place if you got anything at all. And that's all after you consider local, state, and federal laws, which are a lot nastier than they used to be. That aside, I'd love to see it tried, especially with pics. Be careful, that stuff burns through everything....we used to demonstrate on old engine blocks.