Ben Beazley

I uavent started. Yes it needs a ton of charcoal that will take a long time to make it all. And if it helps i live in nova scotia

3 minutes ago, the iron dwarf said:

have you got lots of volunteers to help operate the bellows, also make several spare sets because you will be going for many hours and if your bellows fail you want to replace them quick, also people to feed the fire

No but that would be a good idea

If i used trial and error it would take me thousands of years too! Im sure i think of a way, get lucky and find something or give in and buy something. Thanks for the help

I looked at box or piston bellows, they looked like an interesting method

I would kill an animal to eat but i dont need to. It would be bery messy and i dont have a hunting license. Besides then id have to find a way to kill an animal with primitive things like make my own bow and thats not even considering the effort of making bellows. Thanks though.

9 minutes ago, the iron dwarf said:

how many cubic feet of air can you blow per minute?

can you keep that up for 8 hours solid?

you cant make bag bellows?

box bellows?

any other type?

if you had a howling gale and a large funnel use the wind

Bag bellows would require killing an animal which im not going to do unless it was like after some apocalypse or somehting. What box bellows? I would like to do everything from scratch so no fancy metal tools. And i know blowing would be hard, i just want to know if its posisble

12 minutes ago, littleblacksmith said:

put a piece of quarter inch mild steel bar in a charcoal fire and tell me if it melts. is it difficult to smelt without an air source? no, its almost impossible.

                                                                                         Littleblacksmith

Although from what îve read a bloomery doesnt actually melt the metal and also it's supposed to make wrought iron. when you say almost impossible does that mean it can be done? Or maybe if i found a hollow reed or something i could blow throught that into the fire. It would get burned on the end so i would need to replace it after a bit

I am interested in doing some primitive blacksmithing by getting iron ore and making a bloomery to get my iron. I have all the necessary primitive skills except i don't have a way of making bellows. I know that bellows greatly improve a fires heat but would it be absolutely necessary to have them for a bloomery, even if its difficult without them?