Hi everyone,

I have about 25lbs of coarse magnetite I was hoping to smelt in a bloomery furnace. 
Do you suggest crushing the material to a more consisten powder or can I run it through the furnace like this? 
I appreciate any the suggestions

Hard to tell the particle size from that photo. Can you retake it with something added to give a sense of scale, like a quarter?

4 hours ago, JHCC said:

Can you retake it with something added to give a sense of scale, like a quarter?

Hey JHCC,

Thanks for the reply.

couldn't find a quarter but I found a ruler.

All 25lbs are pretty consistent like this:

You should be good to go at that size. Take pix of the smelt! We love pix.

Steve

Thank you Stash. Will do! I plan on documenting the entire process. 
 

one more question.

should I mix in some clay and wood ash as is done to make tamahagane? 
 

Edited May 19, 20233 yr by Mod30
Remove excessive quote.

NO different processes just use clean charcoal

Steve: Do you roast magnetite first or just start with the bloomery?

Welcome aboard Scwootz, glad to have you. I sure wish you'd used a 5mm RPG game character piece for scale, maybe buried up to the waist. Hmmm?

Frosty The Lucky.

Roasting usually helps to clean it up

Is there an optimum particle size, say thumb, fist, sand?

Frosty The Lucky.

Frosty- I'm not sure what 'should ' be done, but I would probably go ahead and roast it. I did 2 smelts with Lee Sauder, we used limonite (sp?), roasted it and smashed it into roughly 3/8" minus bits.

Steve

I would think the smaller the faster it liquefies, thus, less fuel used.