Been wanting to fuss around with this for awhile now. I got a crew willing to give it a go, understand the principles and fundamentals of the task, the only hangup is what ores are suitable for bloomery smelting? I've done alot of reading around but most of the stuff I have found was being done in Europe with native ores there. Any ideas what might be available in the Ohio region? I know some folks mention mill scale but I have no clue where to obtain it in quantity. Are Taconite pellets usable? We have no end of piles of that stuff laying around the old railroads...

I know some folks have used taconite. Paging Ric Furrer . . . .

I've been bloomery smelting for about 20 years now and taconite pellets were probably the worst ore we tried. For a short stack Scandinavian bloomery we had to crush the pellets and they come prefluxed so what we got was iron soup---we had to do the first consolidation runs with tongs in the forge r5ather than a hammer on an anvil.

Ohio: what I would suggest is to drag a magnet through creek beds or lake shores and collect magnetite sand and collect scale from friendly blacksmiths (same stuff) You can also buy 100 mesh magnetite as a pollution control material---cost of shipping was greater than the cost of the magnetite when we did this.

Or you do know that Southeast Ohio "Hanging Rock Region" was a big iron smelting region in the 1800's with the last furnace going out of blast around WWI. We toured it as part of the IronMasters Conference held in Athens... You might ask a local geology department the locations of ore bodies.

These guys are in Cinncinatti
http://www.minelco.com/en/Contact/Minelco-Inc-USA/

If you're going to research natural ore sources, I have found a wealth of information in Google Books. Some (many? all?) states publish or used to publish regular surveys of mineral resources in the state, which describe major mining activity. Sometimes that includes detailed locations of individual mines. Sometimes it's just a question of running down the history, then getting out on the ground and looking. (Don't forget to get permission from the appropriate people!) mindat.org can also be useful. Since I don't know squat about geology, I'm kind of stuck with the historical approach.

Hello I wasnt sure by your post if you are willing to buy your ore there is a pottery supply that has magnetite for sale and they have distributors in ohio and they sell from there web site to. I checked out there prices and it looked very good they have realy good discounts. I will add the web links I found.

http://www.axner.com/magnetite-granular.aspx

http://www.lagunaclay.com/distributors/


P.S. I hope this helps someone out there

Jason,
As Thomas says..taconite is not a good choice. The "green cake" which is the crushed and magnetically sorted purer ore that is mixed with the bentonite clay..well..that is prime stuff, but hard to get.
Unless you enjoy collecting rocks, heating them and crushing them I'd say buy the ore.

Ric

Jason,
As Thomas says..taconite is not a good choice. The "green cake" which is the crushed and magnetically sorted purer ore that is mixed with the bentonite clay..well..that is prime stuff, but hard to get.
Unless you enjoy collecting rocks, heating them and crushing them I'd say buy the ore.

Ric

I collected about 70 pounds of ore a couple years ago and still haven't done anything with it, precisely because the roasting and crushing process seems like it's going to be a pain. Anybody got a spare rock crusher or a stout, largish ball mill? :)

maginitite is a good choice. I have a friend bring it back from iron Mt Michigan I read a great book on the subject how I am starting to make charcoal.

I collected about 70 pounds of ore a couple years ago and still haven't done anything with it, precisely because the roasting and crushing process seems like it's going to be a pain. Anybody got a spare rock crusher or a stout, largish ball mill?

I have a mill ball about 12 inch Diameter you can borrow.. Glenn has about 10 more I bet you could work out a deal on.

Matt
I don't know what type of ore you have, but if it is local to you and it is like the ore we get down in Lexington,Va.then there should be no problem crushing it.The ore we get there is a red stone ore that we simply roast by heating in a wood fire.We then separate it into a bucket and crush it with a sledge hammer used like a tamper.In this way you get various sized pieces which works a little better and you work it until the largest pieces are no bigger than a quarter. Takes a couple guys about two hours of time to crush 80lbs. of ore.

Doc, mine's probably from the same basic deposit, but a lot further north. Mine comes from a deposit along the Potomac near the WV/VA border.

Hello everyone, just a new member who is new to smithing who has a simular question to Jason.

I am also looking for a source of iron ore but I need one that is located close to Washington State.


~Andrew

Magnetite is found in most igneous rocks and so should be collectable in Washington state. Especially if you can locate a place where water has concentrated it for you. It's the black sand mentioned in gold prospecting; so anyplace they would advise you to hunt for gold is a good place to hunt for magnetite.

However the scale from a blacksmith's forging is probably better and easier to accumulate if you make friends with other smiths!

I will look into both options thank you.

While northern Europe often made use of bog ores, (limonite, goethite, etc) in bloomery smelting the Japanese used black sand ores in their version of a bloomery smelter, the tatara. (Due to the fact that Japan is overwhelmingly volcanic and so black sand ores are much more prevalent)

(I have a personal fondness for Magnetite as it was a "safe" mineral for Igneous rocks when I was in Mineralogy class and we had to go around the room naming minerals in a rock the professor handed round---I still remember him telling me "Yes, it has Magnetite in it---but you can't see it!" some 32 years ago...)

One of te places I go mushroom hunting in the pine barrens in NJ has big hunks of bog ore lying all about, as well as a crumbling old furnace and lots of slag. I don't really have much interest in messing around with it, but I always find it amusing that metal even finds its way into my nature outings.

One of the interesting things about bog ore is that it often re-generates and you can "mine" the same bog every 30 years or so. Around the time you can re-coal the trees to make charcoal to smelt the ore. So early iron furnaces often had large areas of bog and forest associated with them in a "sustainable" set up.

Thanks Thomas, that's pretty cool. I picked up a book from a thrift store last year called Iron in the Pines, it's a narrative history the the old iron industry there. Still havent got around to reading it yet, but I'll move it up on my endless list.

hmmm... I don't think that there are any bogs near where I live.

Nor out here in New Mexico---we had about 4" of precipitation *TOTAL* last year.

I live on the edge of a swamp, but have never found any bog iron. Am I not looking under the right rock, no wait, we don't have any rocks here either. Just muck.

Would this not work?

http://www.alphachemicals.com/red_iron_oxide

Yes but it's quite expensive. We once bought 100 mesh magnetite in 40# sacks that was sold as pollution control material and the shipping was more expensive than the "ore". You don't need chemically pure stuff to smelt.

This part of Wisconsin has a lot of low grade iron ore and a lot of bogs. As soon as I start getting around a bit better I am going out for ssome serious bog ore hunting. Just poking around a local pond I have come up with a few pounds.