Tonight's hearth refining/orishigane of wrought scrap.

[DanielC]

Twas fun. A hundred more pounds of wrought and bloom scrap awaits the furnace!

 

 

 

[j.w.s.]

What's the ratio of loss during the process? Also, were you removing each puddle between pieces of wrought? Looks like a fun process. How's the end result?

J

[DanielC]

Steel usually yields less than iron in hearth refining. If I start with 2 pounds of material I end up with 1.2-1.4 pounds of steel.

Also the puddle was left alone with each piece. The slag seem to find their way to the bottom without trouble. I have also checked the pcb's (slags) for magnetism, and they have been devoid of iron material.

The steel literally sits on top of the slag and all I have to do is lift up on the steel and it dislodges from the slag.

So far I have received what I wanted. Clean steel with a carbon content above 1%, and still very forgeable. I'm thinking anywhere between 1-1.2% C

[Momatt]

Daniel,  How is carbon migrating into the melted wrought?  I've watched Ric Furrier's videos about making canister steel, and I thought you needed that closed sealed environment with a set amount of carbon added to make the iron into steel.    Thank you for sharing, fascinating stuff. 

[ThomasPowers]

I was the bellows thrall for Ric when he did the "3 ways of making steel" at Quad-State, In one way he was cycling little bits of wrought iron scrap though the fire letting it heat up and carburize as it sunk towards the bottom and he would shovel it out and through again.  After a number of times He welded it up into a billet that sparked much like the test piece of 1% C.

[DanielC]

This iron is literally melting. Depending on the height of the floor to the tuyure, I can control the carbon content and separate a majority of the slag from the metal, along with lowering phosphorous and Sulfur to a high degree. I can either make really clean iron with no carbon at all, or introduce enough carbon to make it cast.

[DanielC]

Well honestly I know it lowers phosphorous, and I only suspect it lowers sulfur. Good chance that it does as well.

 

It comes out in the slag during the melt.

I can consistently make and have been making fairly clean steel in the 1.2-1.5% C range, and fairly identical to the same orishigane made in Japan, which is widely used as a tamahagane substitute, which in itself is indistinguishable from tamahagane.