Novice97 Posted April 8, 2016 Share Posted April 8, 2016 Where I live, Paris, Tennessee, you can always find various size ores of pig iron. I have recently found an ore the size, roughly, of a basketball. I was wondering if it is a good material to work with, since it is in the iron family. If anyone has any input I would really appreciate it. I just really want to work with a material that I can find so easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 8, 2016 Share Posted April 8, 2016 Nope. First "pig iron" isn't ore, it's an ingot that's gated off the Sow under an iron melter. Ore isn't any good for forging but once you have some experience, maybe (if you're LUCKY) get hooked up with the right folk you could produce some bloom iron and turn it into wrought. Making bloom iron is a popular practice among a bunch of the gang here it's just NOT a beginner undertaking. Getting hooked up with guys who do and you'll get to learn from the ground up. Literally GROUND up. You know dig, pack and carry, learn the jargon as Gofer, be bellows thrall etc. Producing one bloom is several days hard labor from mining the ore, crushing it, making the charcoal or coking the coal, building the bloomery, drying and curing it. Heating and then charging it. Staying up all night keeping a close watch on the bloom process, scraping the slag and watching the (ball?). There's a reason it took a couple thousand years after humans discovered metal works better than sticks and rocks before we started messing with then producing iron and steel. I'm not just being picky or poking fun at you, using the terminology correctly is IMPORTANT or we aren't going to have any idea what you're asking and you will have a lower chance of understanding if we can answer. There are thousands of posts archived here on Iforge organized by subject. While reading won't teach you a manual craft like blacksmithing it sure WILL give you a handle on the jargon, practices, methods, materials, etc. etc. Once you have a decent handle on what's what you can ask good questions based on some knowledge and understand our answers. Even if you don't understand what one of us said you'll know enough of the words to ask for clarification or look things up yourself. Blacksmithing is an endless learning curve and one that keeps getting longer and steeper every second. It IS however an everLovin BLAST! Enjoy the ride. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted April 8, 2016 Share Posted April 8, 2016 May I commend to your attention "The Mastery and Uses of Fire in Antiquity" Rehder; which includes plans for a "foolproof" bloomery in the appendices using modern materials. One aspect of smelting is you generally will need to feed the ore in in a very fine state and so big chunks will need to be almost powdered. Collecting magnetite sand from creeks or scale from around the anvil works quite well and is sort of a freebee as it's a discard material. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SReynolds Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 I didn't know what he was talking about. Sorta threw me there till I read the reply. Thought it was just me. I have folks visiting the shop at the village who refer to the forge as the "blast furnace" and the anvil as the "forge" and assume that I either; make swards or shoe horses. The zoreites mined ore near the village when they lived there. I "think" it was known as "kidney ore" and it was junk. They tried it but wasn't working well to manufacture cast iron wood stoves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gote Posted April 9, 2016 Share Posted April 9, 2016 On 2016-04-08 at 4:24 AM, Frosty said: using the terminology correctly is IMPORTANT It sure is. I assume that is why you test anvils using a ball bearing instead of a bearing ball???? "First rectify the names" Konfucius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 SR you should have attended the IronMasters Conference when it was held in Athens OH; it included an interesting tour of the remnants of furnaces from back in the "hanging Rock" days Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SReynolds Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 I would enjoy that. I do travel about to look at the remains of the original furnaces in the area. One is currently restored,but I don't believe it is operating. It is open to the public however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 Get a good state map of Ohio and look for the large blocks of state forest in the South East of the state. They used to be the "coal forests" that provided charcoal for the iron smelters, (last charcoal fueled blast furnace in that area went out of blast around WWI) . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SReynolds Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 Two things; One. For them who are interested. Look up Buckeye Furnace. I cant do a link on phone. Reconstruction of charcoal blast furnace. Wellston OH see lots of cool pictures. pig iron was produced. South east Ohio's hanging rock iron region. 1852-1894 sixteen build by the 1840's Two. Iron was not new in early 1800's so......if someone could verify this, a blast furnace took place of a bloom furnace. Yes? Made iron ingots which were actually cast iron and not wrought. Yes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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