August 21, 201213 yr Didn't know where to put this so if it's in the wrong place please move. I found this on the weekend. It's iron or something that the n'guni used to make there spears from. A friend showed me where they used to smelt along the lake and when you hit it it rings like iron yet is very crumbly. When heated in the forge it crumbles yet when it cools it rings like iron again. Left is out of the forge - right is raw. Does this need to be melted in a furnace before it can be used?
August 21, 201213 yr NO but it does need to be *SMELTED* before using. In a bloomery iron doesn't melt; it gets reduced from iron oxide to iron and sort of slops down to the bloom area as a pasty almost custardly like mess of iron, slag, perhaps unburnt charcoal, ash, etc. You then remove the bloom and at forge welding temps work it to drive out the crud and get the iron to stick together forming a muck bar. Draw out the muck bar, cut stack and weld it into a merchant bar. Draw out the merchant bar, cut stack and weld it into singly refined wrought iron. repeat for doubly and triply refined wrought iron. Or review how the japanese take tamahagane, (a bloomery produced material), and make it into a sword.
August 21, 201213 yr Author Thanks Thomas - will do some research now that I have a starting point. This will be a long term en devour and will have to collect more of the stuff. Will post a thread when I start.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.