The new blower produces more iron than the previous one. Using the same amount of ore and charcoal, a similar sized furnace and the same bloom processing method it makes 51g as opposed to 31 g of the previous design. The continuous blower is a big improvement over the intermittent spinning design (and this was only the first try). It's the most iron I've made in a single smelt yet. The attempt to form a forgeable bar was disappointing although it was a better than expected casting. In the past I had successfully made forgeable iron by melting the prills in front of a blast rather than making a casting first. I will probably follow this method of decarburization rather than low temperature annealing in future. The waste iron isn't lost however, I should be able to recycle it in future smelts as I've got a small pot of it. The waste iron from experiments could be re-smelted alone or added to future smelts to increase the yield.
🔹 google search: The Blast Furnace: 800 Years of Technology Improvement PULLEY IS AWESOME! Magnet or lodestone can help separate iron. 📍 Consider making a gearing mechanism or flywheel. 3-step gears? 1st gear to 2nd, to 3rd gear to increase fan rotations? Then a gravity drive to the first gear (water wheel or stones). Gears, gear steps, LOG axle flywheel: 🔹 wooden cage gear + a peg gear. RUclips search - Robert Murray-Smith peg gears 🔹 stone: Consider a basalt rotary quern-stone. 📍 log as axle creates greater stability (less wobble) and flywheel. Think of a gym bench press, but the weights at only one side. Two or three big plates with a few smaller/thin plates sandwiched between. These become different gear ratios and a flywheel. Lay across 3 or 4 sawhorses. Be sure to enclose or secure the empty side of the axel where your fan is located. Or integrate with the peg gears for different uses. Basically a waterwheel on land. 📍 Hydropower? Already made the water hammer. Perhaps the water isn’t regularly flowing? Attach the crank handle to a water wheel. You’ll probably want an air diverter to “shut off” the air more easily for blower control. I’ve been looking forward to more use of hydropower (blower, sawing, mixing, milling, drilling, da Vinci hammer, etc.). Eventually you would be able to create an entire workshop based on hydropower. Clear the area near a stream/fall, flagstone or gravel floor, dry stack stone walls, and your brick for buildings. If water flow is inconsistent, perhaps build a reservoir and use the stored gravity potential of the water as your “battery” for when you need both working potential and as a drinking water resource. Extra water function for panning/sluicing, fine clay sediment separation, mashing fiber/pulp, etc.
Massive respect for all the unknown inventors of humanity, that developed many tools and methods before they could be eternized in books, stones or statues.
@@youduntknowmyname In a semi related way I'm a big car fan and I always wonder what the founder of the various car makers we have today (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Peugeot, etc...) would say if they saw the cars their companies make today.
I think the problem with the decarburization is that you are burning the iron in the midst of all that charcoal which is rich on carbon. Maybe try keeping the cast iron pellets on a small clay pot so that it doesn't incorporate so much carbon.
My heart when it shattered 😭For a golden moment, he had the best looking ingot he's made yet. But alas, success is not monumental, it's incremental! Godspeed, mud man.
Jesus, with all this work for not even a single decent Iron tool yet, No wonder why it took so long for us to reach the iron age. Mad respect for all that dedication.
One of the problems is the source of iron, in the iron age the ore could be mined in huge quantities of very high purity iron (compared to picking a bunch of bacteria and trying to burn them away from the iron at least, also the bacteria is not a very efficient source even in terms of quantity) It's also why some areas were heavily held back technologically, because there was no available source of iron ores for them to mine.
If there was copper there they could just bang it into tools, its one of the few naturally forming metals so people could just take chunks of natural copper to make stuff with before iron.
The only truly PURE channel on RUclips. No upload schedule, no asking us to subscribe, no outside goal other than sharing his passion. Also one of these days he should cut a tree down and make him self a chair. That rock he sat on looks very uncomfortable lol
Other thing that speak volumes in that matter is how... Tiny and small everything seems compared to all the villas and other insane stuff that fake channels do. You can really feel all the effort that goes into every miniscule thing he does. Nothing here is fake, It's just tons of hard work
The best part of every video is watching him start a friction fire with just his hands in under 30 sec. I’ve timed it, incredible and under appreciated. 🔥
I will never tire of the unedited one-shot of him making fire by primitive means with such efficiency. Everyone else I see try to do something similar has to use a cut because it takes them so long.
He made all sorts of tools to make it faster and easier, but by the time he had them he was just too good with the basic method, so no point. And here I thought our ancestors (with way MORE practice than him) would be impressed with matches.
@@shanepye7078it is possible, but for the amount of air volume necessary for the fire, you will need more rpm for the fan which makes it impractical anyway. He already remarked that pulleys will make it more efficient though.
I have a fair ammount of blacksmithing experience under my belt and forge welding different steel types together and I can't help but think that when you placed the iron balls into the clay form that using a form of flux to keep the oxygen off of the iron balls could help it keep from braking apart after you puddled it. Sand works as a decent flux because it will melt down I to a crude form of glass and even with extreme heat, won't allow the oxygen to it causing iron oxides that basically make a layer between the iron balls that will make it break apart when heated again. I have used plain old creek sand to forge steel together before and it worked just as good as Borax in my humble opinion.
Its the carbon monoxide from the incomplete combustion that is reactive enough to strip the oxygen from the iron oxides to convert the oxides into carbon dioxide and metallic iron. so I wonder if backing the iron away from the oxygen supply a lil and bathing it in super heated exhaust fumes might keep it cleaner too. I feel like we need a mentality shift away from is this enough are to ideas that ask is this too much air. Same rules apply to buying TVs
I completely agree about using a flux. And perhaps a mold that is more vertical like a finger hole in a ball of clay. This has the advantage of less air exposure and gravity would be working harder to push all balls together.
I would also add that high-carbon steel should be worked when it's yellow-to-white hot. Even modern high-carbon steels will get brittle and break if worked when only red hot. I got told off about that by my mentor when forging my first knife from tool steel. Any kind of system to help automate / stabilise the air flow (water wheel / flywheel) would also give more leeway to move the iron in and out of the forge without the heat dying back too much.
I find it simply unbelievable that you've been delivering all this content in such quality for years. What I find even more incredible is the fact that despite having 11 million subscribers, you don't incorporate any advertising for a sponsor. I believe you are not only a rarity among RUclipsrs but the only one!
Luckily for us advertising is very modern so it's some time until the channel catches up to that 😉....a lot more smelting until we create the printing press
he took like 5 years off not that long ago. Didn't say a word, just noped out for half a decade leaving everyone wondering wtf happened to him. Then he randomly came back and just makes the same 3 things over and over.
@@MakinMoneyISeasyyou took the words right out of my mouth. I watched him when he just posted few videos about making a hut. RUclips was so genuine at that time. This channel is the 1st channel which i followed. I believe this channel is the original idea for all primitive-tech contents. The hiatus was so long and left its followers confusing.
@@MakinMoneyISeasy As I understand that the time away was working on potential TV deal which I am assuming did not pan out and contracts had to conclude for his return. If you really wondered where he went a google search is what it took me to reach that information. NDA's suck but they are a part of doing business. As far as doing the same 3 things over and over progress takes time it is clear there is a goal he is reaching towards which means trying more than one way to achieve that goal to find the one that actually succeeds. I understand in a lot of todays audience failing to achieve you goal probably isnt worth the video but failing is a part of progress just because you see something at the end doesnt mean it was the thing he was to achieve. Personally I have a great respect for creators who put out a failed attempt because very humbling to admit you can not achieve a goal you want to and at the same time to return to the process and show that improvement is encouraging to everyone else in the same position.
It's so strange (from our perspective) to know today that it took hundreds, if not thousands of years to create these iron tools because we have them in abundance nowadays. That's why I love these uploads. They remind you of how much effort it took to get to where we are today. We should never forget that. So thank you for your contribution!
We can see why it took so long to move past bronze tools. Those are relatively easy to make, but working with iron is way more difficult. So in spite of copper and tin being more difficult to source, it was very widely used. Only when the vast trading networks collapsed did they really start looking into using iron.
Yeah. A lot of people use the word "caveman" or other similar concepts, to call people dumb. But I guarantee if you put most people out in the wild without any modern tech, they'd be absolutely helpless. Working with so much less information and still being able to have food, water, shelter, and time to experiment means you have to be pretty smart, crafty, etc. Sure, we've learned how to distribute information in a much better fashion now, and sure we've mastered a number of materials. But all of that is built on hundreds if not thousands of years of humans fighting to survive harsher conditions, while figuring all of it out and slowly bending nature to our wills. Its pretty crazy to think there's a genuine path from what happens on this channel, to what we have today.
I'm not a metallurgy or mechanics of materials engineer by any means but i have studied it in classes associated with those subjects while getting a degree in mechanical engineering. These videos are a blast to watch and he's on the right track to making a forgeable iron if that's his goal. He's basically made pig iron which has a pretty high carbon content of typically around 4%. Carbon serves two purposes in this application. It allows the metal to reach a higher temperature for refining (which is how he was even able to get a solid bar of iron in a freaking charcoal furnace to begin with) but it doesn't allow the pig iron to be ductile and malleable for forging. The other issue with pig iron is it has a crap ton of impurities in it which are also messing with the composition of the iron being forgeable. Now if he is trying to forge this iron, he doesn't want a high carbon content and he wants the least amount of impurities as possible because what will happen is when he goes to hit it (to shape and form the iron bar), it will just crack and break. Which is exactly what happens in the video. He needs to essentially lower the carbon content of his iron that he has created and remove as many impurities as possible. This is where things get a little tricky. There are some pretty extensive and time consuming processes for lowering the carbon content so that might not be his next step. I think he needs to go through a purifying process. Without going too crazy into the material science and mechanics of materials aspect of things, i would say his best bet is to use a flux to help remove impurities. The impurities form slag that can then be removed from the iron that will become somewhat more "pure" then before. Getting the iron to a higher temperature (melting point is ideal) the flux will more easily remove impurities versus a white hot bar. shells are honestly not a very good flux material because of their chemical composition which is consistent in what he has seen in previous videos. But limestone (aka nature's "chalk") is actually kind of a perfect flux in this application for pig iron if he's trying to stay consistent with only what's in nature. The specific chemical composition of calcium carbonate (limestone) can be used in refining pig iron and extracting the impurities from the iron itself. I think if he is capable of getting his hands on limestone (which i don't see why not, its a pretty common sedimentary rock) and somehow getting his furnace hot enough to actually melt the iron (rerouting hot air possibly?) and maintain the heat, I think he can refine the iron to become more forgeable. Ideally if he had a larger crucible and more iron, with the flux, physically scooping out the slag (or impurities) that float to the top would be his best bet. But i don't know how feasible it would be to skim the top with the setup he has. I think coating the iron bar with crushed up limestone(as fine as he could possibly get it) and then letting it cool down to extract the slag and repeating the process maybe a couple of times could get the results he's looking for? The problem is, if the iron isn't molten the limestone could produce poor results. The idea is to get that limestone as incorporated as possible into the iron itself so it can react with and separate those impurities in the iron. Maybe instead of covering a bar with limestone, make a crucible that can increase the surface area so the limestone can be incorporated as homogenously as possible? I'm thinking a really thin iron plate? Maybe the bar is totally fine? Even agitating limestone into a semi-molten iron with a ceramic rod could be enough to get the results of processing the pig iron? Just a thought. Let me know what you all think?
@@BigBaddaBoom From memory there wasn't any limestone available in that area - which is why he used snail shells to make a cement in the building videos.
The best video I've seen for the next step would be from FZ - making knives. ruclips.net/video/wTKtth2oVlw/видео.html the principle of creating a container which you do the chemistry in is surely the next step. If everything fully liquidises in the vessel then the metal and slag will separate into two parts and the flux will draw out the carbon and other impurities. Once cooled it can be broken off the top of the iron pellet formed.
As a metallurgy student this is really impressive. The blower has come a long way since your initial attempts. 2 improvements I could think of would be adding a flywheel to the axle and using the rope for a pulley drive with a crank handle. As an alternative you could also try Japanese style box bellows. Basically just a big square piston pump. For the smelt itself: the single biggest leap was hot blast. Basically just preheat the fresh air before putting it in the furnace. Ideally the preheat would be done by burning the exhaust gasses in a regenerative heat exchanger. For your stone age setup, you could simply run a clay pipe through a second fire between the blower and furnace. In ferrous metallurgy there is relatively little headroom temperature wise so even a few 100 °C of preheat should give you a significant improvement both in ore reduction and remelting. For your blast furnace you could also try adding a little limestone (snail houses/ egg shells) as flux. In principle all these processes benefit from upscaling but I doubt you want to do that.
Since the double-hand rope pull experiment proved successful, pulleys are the logical next step for blower design. Wood or clay wheels would allow differential, probably with a double hand pull to start. After that, a driving rod connected to a pedal would free up the hands to add charcoal/ore while keeping the fire hot.
Eight years on, and still one of the very best things on RUclips. The whole thing of you continually improving the process and refining the iron is fascinating. Thanks.
The thing I love about this guy is the way he takes a scientific approach to primitive technologies. He uses modern experimental methods to test ancient engineering techniques; always interesting to watch.
I love it as well. Especially because it really shows off the fact that this is exactly how our ancient ancestors found out about things. Just drawing conclusions and testing stuff. Seeing what worked.
Makes me kinda misty eyed thinking about it sometimes when I watch his videos. It's like looking through a portal at our neolithic ancestors. They ran so we could relax.
Two ideas for a hotter fire--- 1) Insulate the firebox by adding a second wall 10cm away from the existing furnace wall. Fill the gap with loosely dropped in ash (not packed). 2) Preheat the air before it goes into the furnace (or into the blower). Maybe have a longer pipe going from the blower to the furnace and have a secondary fire under it to preheat it. Best of luck, each video is super exciting!
@@BryantWalker-m6e We're talking about a fire, not an internal combustion engine where the volume of air is limited by the size of the cylinder. Cold air is denser, so it holds more oxygen, but I don't know if that would be a factor in this case. My thinking is that the cold air rushing in is cooling off the fire, and if you were to preheat the air you could get overall higher temps in the furnace. It would need to be tested though.
Loved the “trying viewer suggestions” segment of the video! We appreciate your interaction with your audience in the form of subtitles and comments. You’re an awesome person!
@@zachh5812 he has addressed suggestions like these in the past. You saw the "running water" he has access to in this video where he obtained the iron bacteria. It's simply not enough volume and flow to effectively harness.
I first watch it with captions off, so after recognizing the first two suggestions from the comments I thought holy crap, who came up with that loop thing? It's amazing... Of course he did 😅
@rns6846I thought that was his whole cache. Every bloom, most of 'em anyway, seems to only produce a few pearl-sized chunks of real iron. Could be wrong.
Some notes: more "modern" (meaning medieval) bloomeries were built a lot higher and torn down, while still hot. The bloom was then taken out of the bloomery while still hot and immediately compacted, so that the slag was driven out and an ingot was formed. Also during the smelting (although you don't really reach high enough temperatures to turn the iron liquid) the slag was allowed to flow out through holes on the base. That is why in German this type of furnace is called Rennofen (rennen/rinnen - Ofen = flowing - kiln/furnace). I would try to purify the ore a bit more (so no ash) and to seperate the slag from the iron during the smelting. Good luck experimenting further. Also one more thing: during a visit in Spain I was able to see a iberic smeltery where they also siffed through sand and water to seperate small ironore particles out, which they then smelted down in bloomeries.
Don't take the final result as a failure. This process taught a lot of things, and identified an issue. That's the point to all of this -- running experiments, seeing what the issue is, and then finding ways to eliminate those issues. It takes time, and that's fine. This is just so wonderful to see.
@@wck I personally am not, I love this iron age, and inbetween he still does other projects. The iron crumbs being turned into his first real tool will be an amazing moment.
@@TheAmishTurtle he did actually make a crude cast iron knife a while back. he has been using it to drill holes in wood; the new blower design has the posts with the holes that were made with that knife.
I am a blacksmith/farrier, and the best advice I can give is to close the casting mould. So no charcoal, slag and excess oxigen can get trough to the iron. I don't know about most of the other stuff, but I know that iron and steel hate open atmospheres when melting. Maybe a good place for research would be old crucible steel, I'm sure that could be recreated in a smaller scale.
He's using a primitive blast furnace which should give him some form of pig iron. Excess oxygen is actually good in this case, I think, because it would decarburize the pig iron into wrought iron.
I'm not a blacksmith or anything to do with ironworking, but that was my first thought seeing it too, that piling the charcoal atop the mould just means the iron is going to absord way too much carbon.
I'm definitely no blacksmith, but shouldn't he be able to make some sort of ceramic or stone, etc crucible capable of withstanding higher temperatures and then melt the iron inside the crucible to do what you said?
And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:13 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. - John 3:16 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. -Acts 3:19 If you’re in North America, please go check out any of the churches available to you: PCA, OPC, Rpcna/Rpc, Urcna, or a canrc church. (These are conservative and actual Presbyterian churches) If you can’t find one of the conservative presby churches then, maybe a Lcms Lutheran church. If you are Scottish, I recommend the Free Church of Scotland and the APC. (Different from the Church of Scotland) If you’re English I recommend the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England & Wales and the Free Church of England (Different from the Church of England) Also online you can look up church finders for each of the groups, it will show you locations
I appreciate that nothing he makes is so precious to him that he's not willing to break it and try again. After taking so much time to get that much iron, trying to forge it seems like a big next step. I think if something took that much work I wouldn't want to break it. But he builds and rebuilds forged trying to make them better.
Reminds me of when I learned to make nails from my smithing teacher. He made a batch for some restoration folks. While they chatted, I used the forge to make a couple nails and gave them the only good one I managed. They asked me, "Don't you want to keep your first nail?" I replied, "Nah. I'd prefer it get used as a nail."
Well what else is he gonna do with it? The whole purpose of that hunk of metal is to make a tool out of it, and if it breaks, he can try again as the material is not lost.
Beautiful undertaking! Can I offer two ideas? For your crucible attempt, next time place a layer of sand and a piece of charcoal over your iron, then put a top on it. Mud the sides and leave the smallest of holes on the side. The sand will melt and act as a flux to protect the iron from oxygen, the charcoal will burn up the available oxygen in your crucible, and the top will help keep any more from coming in. It'll keep the iron cleaner. This crucible method is very old and once you figure out your layout, you can get good results. Second, the blower is awesome, but you're trying to lessen your effort correct? Fire a large round clay disk with a groove around the outside and a hole in the middle. On your uprights, bore a hole through the tops, insert a stick through the holes with the disk stuck on it. Make a simple crank on one end. Loop a rope around the disk and around your blower axle. Then just turn the crank. This flywheel will build up a lot of inertia and help keep the blower moving with less effort. And the larger the disk, the faster your blower will run. Keep up the great work.
I came in comment section to write same ideas, but - voila - the are already there. Thank you, sir, for sparing my time. I'll add a little - iron pills didn't smelt into proper ingot because of lack of temperature, smelting in high furnace should help.
My dad and I have been watching your videos for years and have been excited for you to attempt forging the iron you have been collecting. This channel has been a highlight of RUclips for years. Thank you for continuing on and sharing your journey with us! It’s been amazing to watch unfold. ❤
Our man is closing in on a decade of sequence-breaking the tech tree of humanity, with distinctly mute eloquence and terrifying patience the whole while through. May we never actually require his *wealth* of knowledge.
@@hobomofofosho Correct. I might rephrase it as "may we never actually require his abundance of knowledge," but then again it's good to know how these things are done anyhow.
"Rich resources exist in even poor countries, where it isn't the number of resources that make the country poor, but the fact that those countries don't employ skillful labor to take advantage of those resources. In the same way, nations such as Japan or Switzerland have great economies, despite the resource-starved nature of their country. In all of this, because economics is about scarce resources with various use-cases, we don't actually have to involve money very much to study economics. The example given in the book is in the military-when soldiers are wounded, various medical services must decide between who to care for and who must wait for their care. While we may not like having to make choices like this, they exist. Thus, economics is a way for us to understand these choices and make the most of them." ~ Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics.
It never ceases to amaze me how fast he does the hand drill fires. Like normal men could try for hours and still not get it, yet he does it in 30 seconds in real time for us. Every single video.
Fantastic Simplicity! And... the Carbon Monoxide gas is what yanks the last Oxygen off of your iron... but those Oxygens need a strongly reducing atmosphere, and TIME - so... if you make a TALLER chimney, then you should have a longer residence-time, and thus, higher yields. I would love to see the labor and input -> output rates for each of your techniques!
I’ve been keeping up with this journey as far back as when I was in school so many years ago. Seeing the progress and making it further towards iron technology is nothing short of incredible. Well done!
I hope this channel continues through the ages. I hope to eventually see him create his own electrical system. It would be really cool for follow it that long.
I've done some blacksmithing work. It's actually not as hard as it seems even for a beginner; until the fire has a lot of fuel and a lot of oxygen, of an amount sufficient to get steel bright-hot for forging, you can get rather close to it without burning yourself as long as you don't linger there for long.
a suggestion. in the end when you tried to smelt a bar of Iron in an open mold. i would advise to close the mold and then put it in the fire. this way you get less oxidation and by putting small amounts of charcoal you can controll the carbonization of the Iron. more over this way if you heat the bar to a highrt temprature it will most likly come out smoother and more solid. if you have accees to a flux like tree resin which is crude but works to this day you can create a lower melting point and cleaner product. on a side note ive been watching this chanel since I was a little kid. i am now in college and Im happy my studies my be of assistance. hope this helps and good luck!
The prills will already have a high carbon content, you don't want to add more in the crucible. If anything he wants to reduce the carbon to make forgeable steel.
the value of a container should never be underestimated. most of our technology is based on how we can contain it. think about anything in your house that needs to “hold” something.
I think it's amazing that you post the good and the bad together. In your earlier videos I thought you were showing or telling me a story, now I feel like we're on a discovery quest together. Please keep it up!
I started watching this channel when I was a young teen, to this day, I still find this content extremely interesting. I'm extremely happy to have seen all of your progress throughout the years, and I can say you've honestly come a long way! Thank you for providing this very educational content! It is very interesting to watch and learn about more primitive methods. I can't wait to see your next video, and I hope you have a great journey going forward!
Probably an under rated thing about this channel is the details of what he is doing in the description. its a way of telling how something is done in detail without talking, honestly pretty cool
That's crazy. I've been watching these videos for years and didn't realize there were captions available. I just learned to work out what was happening (or learned to accept that I didn't know). THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!! 😂🤣😂
I enjoy watching it twice. The first time I watch for the viewing and try to figure out what he is doing. The second time I watch with the captions and understanding what is going on.
I really liked the pulley idea. It looked very efficient. Something I have seen some guys do on another channel to power a pedal operated wood lathe was to have a long(ish) board as a pedal to power the rotation and a rope attached to a sapling to provide the return stroke and raise the board.
There is something very instinctively pleasing in your videos. Something about the act of working materials with your own hands, of experiencing the natural world. It's hard to fully articulate, but it feels like it scratches an itch. Like, playing around in the dirt and with sticks, is how things are supposed to be. Some primitive part of my brain is saying, "Yes, that's how it's done."
If you check the water hammer video, mans doesn't have a lot to work with there (water flow, precision of craft, etc), and water wheels are surprisingly difficult to build. It's definitely orders of magnitude better to use hand power at this scale, but it is a good thought.
@@splinterz5744 A gear reduction isn't impossible as a longer term thought, but he can't even whittle anything that precise with his tools, let alone cast it.
Hello, Mr. Plant. He became interested after seeing the video, and due to the coronavirus pandemic, he started a hobby of going out into nature, building bonfires, and pitching tents for camping. There were many factors, but your influence was huge. I'm thinking of starting a fire with a hand drill. This is a very precious and luxurious time for me. Your videos have brought richness to my life. thank you primitive technology channel.
I don't have the plans but a nice idea would be a water powered fan design. You have already made one prototype in a water stream. Would be fun to see if you could develop it further. Always a "yesss" feeling when your videos come out. Keep up the good work 🎉
These are the kind of videos I've been looking forward to, entering the iron age and metallurgy are huge steps I've been watching for years to get too this point I can't wait to see what you'll make of it
A rope connected to a big wheel and wrapped around the stick could make for impressive crank wheel blower setup, but it may be more work than it is worth. Amazing tech development. You are becoming a metallurgist, inventor, primitive tech guru, and soon to be a blacksmith too!
Spinning the rotor too fast is likely to have it come apart, in it's current design anyway. Maybe a more stick based blade versus leaves, but I concur, spin it 2-3:1 to increase heat and yield further, hope nothing breaks. :)
Excellent and inspiring video showcasing significant advancements in iron smelting techniques! The use of the new blower has clearly increased the efficiency of the process, and the results are truly amazing, especially with the increase in both quantity and quality of the iron prills. The forging experiment was a great addition, showing how the iron can be utilized directly after extraction. Thank you for this informative and inspiring presentation!
Im 26, and yet im still get excited in this. Thank you Primitive tech! For hearing my request. Though if i may suggest i want to learn more also how to make a crucible out of nothing.
seeing you try and fail in consolidating is much more satisfying than watching fake forging and swimming pool primitive videos combined. Good work keep it up
Why is it that RUclips will turn on closed captioning for videos randomly, but NEVER remembers to have CC on for Primitive Technology?... It's the best part!
After watching this I had to see how iron blooms are successfully created in draft furnaces and it seems (from most of the instances I've observed in other videos) that the 2 differing elements are 1. a continuous stream of air (I know, difficult with only one person, but achievable) and 2. an ore recipe that leads to liquid slag running off either at proscribed intervals (in "poke a hole" runoff design) or continuously in furnaces w/ slag drains. I don't want to speculate on flux as I know you've tried eggshell/limestone style flux w/o success.
Watching you improving the designs and making them better in order to progress is really satisfying and my favourite thing about your journey. I wish there will come a time where you can make actually useful iron tools and go even further
Modern Blacksmith here, who has an interest in historical techniques. Have you considered consolidating all your iron in a crucible smelt? All the prills/broken pieces go into a fired clay cylindrical vessel, with a little charcoal powder to help maintain a bit of carbon in the steel, and the remaining space filled with a flux. Borax would be ideal, but if you don't have access to that naturally, straw ash can be used. I imagine wood ash would work as well. The crucible should then be sealed completely with a fired lid to prevent oxygen ingress. Your one-way blower ought to be able to get it hot enough. Haven't tried it myself, but I magine you might want to orient it with the iron on top, such that when everything melts, it falls down through the molten flux? I'm hypothesizing here, but it seems that you're not having much luck with these open-topped bar molds, so it's worth a shot at least.
If he's consolidating iron prills into a bar, that's a MELT, not a smelt. His prills are already high-carbon, they don't need any more carbon, they need to be decarburized with oxygen. Of course, the real problem is that he's getting high-carbon prills in the first place, when he should be getting a low-carbon bloom that he can forge. Trying to make high-carbon cast iron and then decarburizing it is harder than just managing the furnace chemistry/timing to get low-carbon iron in the first place.
The flux will take a lot of the carbon out of the iron as it all melts. The charcoal is there to help maintain some of it, which you do want. As for what ratio of flux to charcoal to use, that would require experimentation as I totally admit that I don't know. Also I called it a smelt because the crucible step is part of the smelting process, like a second stage to the initial bloom step. So basically the cast iron prills are treated as processed ore rather than as a final product in and of themselves, but that's all pretty semantic anyway.@@bhartley1024
@@ferric6796 Hmm, I can't say if you are right or not, I've never heard of flux decarburizing iron-carbon alloys, but I suppose it would depend on the chemicals used for the flux. If the flux contained iron oxide, I suppose that oxygen could react with the dissolved carbon to decarburize the melt. I think semantics are pretty important, especially when talking about technical processes. Smelting is the name for the process of going from ore to metal. Iron ore is iron oxides and hydroxides typically. They have to be chemically reduced to separate out the elemental iron. I would not classify the iron prills as ore because they are a solution of elemental iron and impurities. The prills could be used as-is to make cast iron items, or they could be used a feedstock in a refining process to make forgeable bar iron.
If he's getting the slip-belt idea down well enough, he's only a few steps away from either a spring-pole or counterweight treadle. That may make operating such devices a little bit easier. Some other videos also seem to suggest that adding a source of dissolved starch to the water used for mixing clay can improve ductility of the resulting mix. That may reduce some of the cracking when forming complex pieces with the soft clay. Seems some traditional recipes use rice-water, but perhaps something from the yams grown previously could work in this instance?
May i suggest a dedicated thing to make clay? If you put the entry divot(where you put the unprocessed clay) up high enough you could potentially have it pout straight into the pot, allowing for less wasted time in moving the clay into the pot,
That's a lot of work, respect. I get the impression this charcoal isn't as good as stuff he made in the past but I could be totally wrong, just doesn't seem quite right.
![What's in the box?! 1890s Safe [Restoration]](/img/1.gif)
The new blower produces more iron than the previous one. Using the same amount of ore and charcoal, a similar sized furnace and the same bloom processing method it makes 51g as opposed to 31 g of the previous design. The continuous blower is a big improvement over the intermittent spinning design (and this was only the first try). It's the most iron I've made in a single smelt yet.
The attempt to form a forgeable bar was disappointing although it was a better than expected casting. In the past I had successfully made forgeable iron by melting the prills in front of a blast rather than making a casting first. I will probably follow this method of decarburization rather than low temperature annealing in future.
The waste iron isn't lost however, I should be able to recycle it in future smelts as I've got a small pot of it. The waste iron from experiments could be re-smelted alone or added to future smelts to increase the yield.
İm waiting for
Why no lid on the mold when smelting?
🔹 google search: The Blast Furnace: 800 Years of Technology Improvement
PULLEY IS AWESOME!
Magnet or lodestone can help separate iron.
📍 Consider making a gearing mechanism or flywheel. 3-step gears? 1st gear to 2nd, to 3rd gear to increase fan rotations? Then a gravity drive to the first gear (water wheel or stones).
Gears, gear steps, LOG axle flywheel:
🔹 wooden cage gear + a peg gear. RUclips search - Robert Murray-Smith peg gears
🔹 stone: Consider a basalt rotary quern-stone.
📍 log as axle creates greater stability (less wobble) and flywheel. Think of a gym bench press, but the weights at only one side. Two or three big plates with a few smaller/thin plates sandwiched between. These become different gear ratios and a flywheel. Lay across 3 or 4 sawhorses. Be sure to enclose or secure the empty side of the axel where your fan is located. Or integrate with the peg gears for different uses. Basically a waterwheel on land.
📍 Hydropower? Already made the water hammer. Perhaps the water isn’t regularly flowing? Attach the crank handle to a water wheel. You’ll probably want an air diverter to “shut off” the air more easily for blower control. I’ve been looking forward to more use of hydropower (blower, sawing, mixing, milling, drilling, da Vinci hammer, etc.).
Eventually you would be able to create an entire workshop based on hydropower. Clear the area near a stream/fall, flagstone or gravel floor, dry stack stone walls, and your brick for buildings. If water flow is inconsistent, perhaps build a reservoir and use the stored gravity potential of the water as your “battery” for when you need both working potential and as a drinking water resource. Extra water function for panning/sluicing, fine clay sediment separation, mashing fiber/pulp, etc.
How does the charcoal making method at the start of the video work? Do you not cover the top? I thought that you need to greatly reduce oxygen access.
Nice, Ive been wondering what would the first iron tool be, when made, would make forging all the other tools easier?
Massive respect for all the unknown inventors of humanity, that developed many tools and methods before they could be eternized in books, stones or statues.
I always dream of traveling in time to meet these crafters of old and see how they developed all those basic things that today we take for granted.
@SRNVIogsHow about no Scott!
@SRNVIogs Go away, bot.
THIS IS UKRAINE🐷
@@youduntknowmyname In a semi related way I'm a big car fan and I always wonder what the founder of the various car makers we have today (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Peugeot, etc...) would say if they saw the cars their companies make today.
Oh man, that first "clink" of the iron when it came out of the mold made it all worth it, it's been amazing watching this journey!
@atari: I know, right??!!??!!
Brilliant sound of success!!!!!
👍👌👏 I instantly felt and thought exactly the same! Best regards, luck and health in particular.
I think the problem with the decarburization is that you are burning the iron in the midst of all that charcoal which is rich on carbon. Maybe try keeping the cast iron pellets on a small clay pot so that it doesn't incorporate so much carbon.
My heart when it shattered 😭For a golden moment, he had the best looking ingot he's made yet. But alas, success is not monumental, it's incremental! Godspeed, mud man.
Guna start saying "godspeed, mud man" to the homies
@@mushyfooproductions me too gang
It crumbles :(
there is always progress to be made and he will keep going
it's not incremental. it'll be good if it is.
it's cyclical, with few steps forward and few steps back. it's a real struggle
You know you’re watching quality content when you don’t want it to end. Best channel on RUclips, hands down.
Jesus, with all this work for not even a single decent Iron tool yet, No wonder why it took so long for us to reach the iron age. Mad respect for all that dedication.
One of the problems is the source of iron, in the iron age the ore could be mined in huge quantities of very high purity iron (compared to picking a bunch of bacteria and trying to burn them away from the iron at least, also the bacteria is not a very efficient source even in terms of quantity)
It's also why some areas were heavily held back technologically, because there was no available source of iron ores for them to mine.
If there was copper there they could just bang it into tools, its one of the few naturally forming metals so people could just take chunks of natural copper to make stuff with before iron.
At this point I want to see him give up on iron and start making bronze.
He has a decently sharp cutting tool
I mean he is skipping a few ages and metals, they would bring their challenges but also some other tools useful for iron
The only truly PURE channel on RUclips. No upload schedule, no asking us to subscribe, no outside goal other than sharing his passion.
Also one of these days he should cut a tree down and make him self a chair. That rock he sat on looks very uncomfortable lol
Other thing that speak volumes in that matter is how... Tiny and small everything seems compared to all the villas and other insane stuff that fake channels do.
You can really feel all the effort that goes into every miniscule thing he does. Nothing here is fake, It's just tons of hard work
but he does have an update schedule, around the first of each month ;)
SteveMRE is pretty pure as well. I’m sure theres others.
He's desperately trying to make nails for a chair
@@thelasttaarakianThis comment had a nice hiss...
The best part of every video is watching him start a friction fire with just his hands in under 30 sec. I’ve timed it, incredible and under appreciated. 🔥
I will never tire of the unedited one-shot of him making fire by primitive means with such efficiency. Everyone else I see try to do something similar has to use a cut because it takes them so long.
He made all sorts of tools to make it faster and easier, but by the time he had them he was just too good with the basic method, so no point.
And here I thought our ancestors (with way MORE practice than him) would be impressed with matches.
Either that or the cut hides a cheat like them using a lighter.
How about using running water to keep the blower spinning?
Could channel the water like the water hammer video.
@@shanepye7078it is possible, but for the amount of air volume necessary for the fire, you will need more rpm for the fan which makes it impractical anyway. He already remarked that pulleys will make it more efficient though.
It's a work of art
The dramatic arc from "It crumbles" to "The iron can be recycled by adding it to future smelts" is phenomenal.
It's not like it can go bad
Just like all lifes failures, its necessary for building future success 🥹
"its so over" >> "we're so back"
What arc bro they were like 30 seconds apart lmao
It's not Owen......
19:40 hearing that ingot touch the stone gave me chills well done
Agree. That was.
New era unlocked.
Honestly, my jaw hit the floor. I can only imagine a future episode in which he manages to forge something.
Advancement made! *"Acquire hardware"*
DING
I have a fair ammount of blacksmithing experience under my belt and forge welding different steel types together and I can't help but think that when you placed the iron balls into the clay form that using a form of flux to keep the oxygen off of the iron balls could help it keep from braking apart after you puddled it. Sand works as a decent flux because it will melt down I to a crude form of glass and even with extreme heat, won't allow the oxygen to it causing iron oxides that basically make a layer between the iron balls that will make it break apart when heated again. I have used plain old creek sand to forge steel together before and it worked just as good as Borax in my humble opinion.
Its the carbon monoxide from the incomplete combustion that is reactive enough to strip the oxygen from the iron oxides to convert the oxides into carbon dioxide and metallic iron. so I wonder if backing the iron away from the oxygen supply a lil and bathing it in super heated exhaust fumes might keep it cleaner too. I feel like we need a mentality shift away from is this enough are to ideas that ask is this too much air. Same rules apply to buying TVs
I completely agree about using a flux. And perhaps a mold that is more vertical like a finger hole in a ball of clay. This has the advantage of less air exposure and gravity would be working harder to push all balls together.
I would also add that high-carbon steel should be worked when it's yellow-to-white hot. Even modern high-carbon steels will get brittle and break if worked when only red hot. I got told off about that by my mentor when forging my first knife from tool steel.
Any kind of system to help automate / stabilise the air flow (water wheel / flywheel) would also give more leeway to move the iron in and out of the forge without the heat dying back too much.
I find it simply unbelievable that you've been delivering all this content in such quality for years. What I find even more incredible is the fact that despite having 11 million subscribers, you don't incorporate any advertising for a sponsor. I believe you are not only a rarity among RUclipsrs but the only one!
Luckily for us advertising is very modern so it's some time until the channel catches up to that 😉....a lot more smelting until we create the printing press
he took like 5 years off not that long ago. Didn't say a word, just noped out for half a decade leaving everyone wondering wtf happened to him. Then he randomly came back and just makes the same 3 things over and over.
Which brand should partner with him 😂
@@MakinMoneyISeasyyou took the words right out of my mouth.
I watched him when he just posted few videos about making a hut. RUclips was so genuine at that time. This channel is the 1st channel which i followed. I believe this channel is the original idea for all primitive-tech contents.
The hiatus was so long and left its followers confusing.
@@MakinMoneyISeasy As I understand that the time away was working on potential TV deal which I am assuming did not pan out and contracts had to conclude for his return. If you really wondered where he went a google search is what it took me to reach that information. NDA's suck but they are a part of doing business. As far as doing the same 3 things over and over progress takes time it is clear there is a goal he is reaching towards which means trying more than one way to achieve that goal to find the one that actually succeeds. I understand in a lot of todays audience failing to achieve you goal probably isnt worth the video but failing is a part of progress just because you see something at the end doesnt mean it was the thing he was to achieve. Personally I have a great respect for creators who put out a failed attempt because very humbling to admit you can not achieve a goal you want to and at the same time to return to the process and show that improvement is encouraging to everyone else in the same position.
It's so strange (from our perspective) to know today that it took hundreds, if not thousands of years to create these iron tools because we have them in abundance nowadays. That's why I love these uploads. They remind you of how much effort it took to get to where we are today. We should never forget that. So thank you for your contribution!
THIS IS UKRAINE🐷
We can see why it took so long to move past bronze tools. Those are relatively easy to make, but working with iron is way more difficult. So in spite of copper and tin being more difficult to source, it was very widely used. Only when the vast trading networks collapsed did they really start looking into using iron.
Yeah. A lot of people use the word "caveman" or other similar concepts, to call people dumb. But I guarantee if you put most people out in the wild without any modern tech, they'd be absolutely helpless. Working with so much less information and still being able to have food, water, shelter, and time to experiment means you have to be pretty smart, crafty, etc. Sure, we've learned how to distribute information in a much better fashion now, and sure we've mastered a number of materials. But all of that is built on hundreds if not thousands of years of humans fighting to survive harsher conditions, while figuring all of it out and slowly bending nature to our wills. Its pretty crazy to think there's a genuine path from what happens on this channel, to what we have today.
It just takes one clever man.
plus he doesn't have iron ore mine near him
I'm not a metallurgy or mechanics of materials engineer by any means but i have studied it in classes associated with those subjects while getting a degree in mechanical engineering. These videos are a blast to watch and he's on the right track to making a forgeable iron if that's his goal. He's basically made pig iron which has a pretty high carbon content of typically around 4%. Carbon serves two purposes in this application. It allows the metal to reach a higher temperature for refining (which is how he was even able to get a solid bar of iron in a freaking charcoal furnace to begin with) but it doesn't allow the pig iron to be ductile and malleable for forging. The other issue with pig iron is it has a crap ton of impurities in it which are also messing with the composition of the iron being forgeable. Now if he is trying to forge this iron, he doesn't want a high carbon content and he wants the least amount of impurities as possible because what will happen is when he goes to hit it (to shape and form the iron bar), it will just crack and break. Which is exactly what happens in the video. He needs to essentially lower the carbon content of his iron that he has created and remove as many impurities as possible. This is where things get a little tricky. There are some pretty extensive and time consuming processes for lowering the carbon content so that might not be his next step. I think he needs to go through a purifying process. Without going too crazy into the material science and mechanics of materials aspect of things, i would say his best bet is to use a flux to help remove impurities. The impurities form slag that can then be removed from the iron that will become somewhat more "pure" then before. Getting the iron to a higher temperature (melting point is ideal) the flux will more easily remove impurities versus a white hot bar. shells are honestly not a very good flux material because of their chemical composition which is consistent in what he has seen in previous videos. But limestone (aka nature's "chalk") is actually kind of a perfect flux in this application for pig iron if he's trying to stay consistent with only what's in nature. The specific chemical composition of calcium carbonate (limestone) can be used in refining pig iron and extracting the impurities from the iron itself. I think if he is capable of getting his hands on limestone (which i don't see why not, its a pretty common sedimentary rock) and somehow getting his furnace hot enough to actually melt the iron (rerouting hot air possibly?) and maintain the heat, I think he can refine the iron to become more forgeable. Ideally if he had a larger crucible and more iron, with the flux, physically scooping out the slag (or impurities) that float to the top would be his best bet. But i don't know how feasible it would be to skim the top with the setup he has. I think coating the iron bar with crushed up limestone(as fine as he could possibly get it) and then letting it cool down to extract the slag and repeating the process maybe a couple of times could get the results he's looking for? The problem is, if the iron isn't molten the limestone could produce poor results. The idea is to get that limestone as incorporated as possible into the iron itself so it can react with and separate those impurities in the iron. Maybe instead of covering a bar with limestone, make a crucible that can increase the surface area so the limestone can be incorporated as homogenously as possible? I'm thinking a really thin iron plate? Maybe the bar is totally fine? Even agitating limestone into a semi-molten iron with a ceramic rod could be enough to get the results of processing the pig iron? Just a thought. Let me know what you all think?
Limestone is definitely probably the ticket here if the temperature can be increased enough. I hope you have limestone available to crush and add.
@@BigBaddaBoom From memory there wasn't any limestone available in that area - which is why he used snail shells to make a cement in the building videos.
Can you summarize
The best video I've seen for the next step would be from FZ - making knives. ruclips.net/video/wTKtth2oVlw/видео.html
the principle of creating a container which you do the chemistry in is surely the next step. If everything fully liquidises in the vessel then the metal and slag will separate into two parts and the flux will draw out the carbon and other impurities. Once cooled it can be broken off the top of the iron pellet formed.
this is not cast iron. This iron is brittle not from carbon but from slag
I subscribed to this channel six years ago when he was in the stone age and now he's in the iron age. He's going pretty fast.
😂❤
Yep. I expect him to manufacture silicium wafers by 2028. 🙂
Don't be surprised if in two years or so he will start operating a computer
As a metallurgy student this is really impressive.
The blower has come a long way since your initial attempts.
2 improvements I could think of would be adding a flywheel to the axle and using the rope for a pulley drive with a crank handle.
As an alternative you could also try Japanese style box bellows. Basically just a big square piston pump.
For the smelt itself:
the single biggest leap was hot blast. Basically just preheat the fresh air before putting it in the furnace. Ideally the preheat would be done by burning the exhaust gasses in a regenerative heat exchanger. For your stone age setup, you could simply run a clay pipe through a second fire between the blower and furnace.
In ferrous metallurgy there is relatively little headroom temperature wise so even a few 100 °C of preheat should give you a significant improvement both in ore reduction and remelting.
For your blast furnace you could also try adding a little limestone (snail houses/ egg shells) as flux.
In principle all these processes benefit from upscaling but I doubt you want to do that.
"How can we improve the smelting process?"
"How about a fire?"
"We've already had one"
"We've had one, yes.. But what about a second fire?"
@@DasSmach "Don't think he knows about second fire, Pip."
Depending on location a trompe could be ideal but would be a fairly large construction project on its own.
Since the double-hand rope pull experiment proved successful, pulleys are the logical next step for blower design. Wood or clay wheels would allow differential, probably with a double hand pull to start. After that, a driving rod connected to a pedal would free up the hands to add charcoal/ore while keeping the fire hot.
Pre heating the air would be huge
Eight years on, and still one of the very best things on RUclips. The whole thing of you continually improving the process and refining the iron is fascinating. Thanks.
The thing I love about this guy is the way he takes a scientific approach to primitive technologies. He uses modern experimental methods to test ancient engineering techniques; always interesting to watch.
I mean, he's using the very definition of experimental archaeology and that's what I love, as an aspiring archaeologist.
I love it as well. Especially because it really shows off the fact that this is exactly how our ancient ancestors found out about things. Just drawing conclusions and testing stuff. Seeing what worked.
@@solofdragons6446Never really thought that this channel could be considered to in a way be about archaeology
Makes me kinda misty eyed thinking about it sometimes when I watch his videos. It's like looking through a portal at our neolithic ancestors. They ran so we could relax.
I liked your water hammer video, I wonder if the same movement could be attached to the blower fan?
Two ideas for a hotter fire--- 1) Insulate the firebox by adding a second wall 10cm away from the existing furnace wall. Fill the gap with loosely dropped in ash (not packed). 2) Preheat the air before it goes into the furnace (or into the blower). Maybe have a longer pipe going from the blower to the furnace and have a secondary fire under it to preheat it.
Best of luck, each video is super exciting!
These are some awesome ideas
Also making the furnace round might be better since the air will flow without slowing down bouncing off the walls.
Commenting to boost your suggestions
They sound quite feasible
JDewittDIY, Cold air burns better.
@@BryantWalker-m6e We're talking about a fire, not an internal combustion engine where the volume of air is limited by the size of the cylinder. Cold air is denser, so it holds more oxygen, but I don't know if that would be a factor in this case. My thinking is that the cold air rushing in is cooling off the fire, and if you were to preheat the air you could get overall higher temps in the furnace. It would need to be tested though.
Loved the “trying viewer suggestions” segment of the video! We appreciate your interaction with your audience in the form of subtitles and comments. You’re an awesome person!
Next step, hook the blower up to a water wheel.
Yes! I also want to see a spinning wheel style approach, perhaps in combination with water power.
@@zachh5812 he has addressed suggestions like these in the past. You saw the "running water" he has access to in this video where he obtained the iron bacteria. It's simply not enough volume and flow to effectively harness.
I first watch it with captions off, so after recognizing the first two suggestions from the comments I thought holy crap, who came up with that loop thing? It's amazing...
Of course he did 😅
@@robertherd9921 a treadle would be an amazing addition, but it needs a good solid flywheel to keep momentum
Seeing that bar of iron, after all the work I've seen go into it over the years, is one of the most satisfying things I've ever seen.
that bar was just from this videos ore produktion no?
@rns6846I thought that was his whole cache. Every bloom, most of 'em anyway, seems to only produce a few pearl-sized chunks of real iron. Could be wrong.
That moment 19:47 when iron hits the rock and you know, you just know, this isn't a sound nature makes, this is the sound of civilization
🥲
I was like "Eeyyyyyyyy 🎉"
Is there a "hell yeah" emoji that I could add?
I thought the exact same thing when I heard it
Realest
Some notes: more "modern" (meaning medieval) bloomeries were built a lot higher and torn down, while still hot. The bloom was then taken out of the bloomery while still hot and immediately compacted, so that the slag was driven out and an ingot was formed. Also during the smelting (although you don't really reach high enough temperatures to turn the iron liquid) the slag was allowed to flow out through holes on the base. That is why in German this type of furnace is called Rennofen (rennen/rinnen - Ofen = flowing - kiln/furnace). I would try to purify the ore a bit more (so no ash) and to seperate the slag from the iron during the smelting.
Good luck experimenting further.
Also one more thing: during a visit in Spain I was able to see a iberic smeltery where they also siffed through sand and water to seperate small ironore particles out, which they then smelted down in bloomeries.
Do you remember the name of the smeltery?
Don't take the final result as a failure. This process taught a lot of things, and identified an issue. That's the point to all of this -- running experiments, seeing what the issue is, and then finding ways to eliminate those issues. It takes time, and that's fine. This is just so wonderful to see.
I'm kind growing tired of watching him make iron crumbs, tho.
@@wck I personally am not, I love this iron age, and inbetween he still does other projects. The iron crumbs being turned into his first real tool will be an amazing moment.
@@TheAmishTurtle he did actually make a crude cast iron knife a while back. he has been using it to drill holes in wood; the new blower design has the posts with the holes that were made with that knife.
@SRNVIogs that is so false
@@wck Don't watch then...
I am a blacksmith/farrier, and the best advice I can give is to close the casting mould. So no charcoal, slag and excess oxigen can get trough to the iron. I don't know about most of the other stuff, but I know that iron and steel hate open atmospheres when melting. Maybe a good place for research would be old crucible steel, I'm sure that could be recreated in a smaller scale.
He's using a primitive blast furnace which should give him some form of pig iron. Excess oxygen is actually good in this case, I think, because it would decarburize the pig iron into wrought iron.
That's what I was thinking - a crucible and I'm anything but a blacksmith,
I'm not a blacksmith or anything to do with ironworking, but that was my first thought seeing it too, that piling the charcoal atop the mould just means the iron is going to absord way too much carbon.
I'm definitely no blacksmith, but shouldn't he be able to make some sort of ceramic or stone, etc crucible capable of withstanding higher temperatures and then melt the iron inside the crucible to do what you said?
i was wondering why he didnt cover it up, he spent time separating iron from slag then added it right back basically in the same step
23 minutes of complete relaxation after work is exactly what I needed. Love the content, glad you’re back to uploading!
And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:13
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. - John 3:16
Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.
-Acts 3:19
If you’re in North America, please go check out any of the churches available to you: PCA, OPC, Rpcna/Rpc, Urcna, or a canrc church.
(These are conservative and actual Presbyterian churches)
If you can’t find one of the conservative presby churches then, maybe a Lcms Lutheran church.
If you are Scottish, I recommend the Free Church of Scotland and the APC.
(Different from the Church of Scotland)
If you’re English I recommend the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England & Wales and the Free Church of England
(Different from the Church of England)
Also online you can look up church finders for each of the groups, it will show you locations
@SRNVIogs🐪
I appreciate that nothing he makes is so precious to him that he's not willing to break it and try again. After taking so much time to get that much iron, trying to forge it seems like a big next step.
I think if something took that much work I wouldn't want to break it. But he builds and rebuilds forged trying to make them better.
Reminds me of when I learned to make nails from my smithing teacher. He made a batch for some restoration folks. While they chatted, I used the forge to make a couple nails and gave them the only good one I managed. They asked me,
"Don't you want to keep your first nail?"
I replied,
"Nah. I'd prefer it get used as a nail."
Well what else is he gonna do with it? The whole purpose of that hunk of metal is to make a tool out of it, and if it breaks, he can try again as the material is not lost.
Friendly reminder to everyone to turn captions on since he takes the time to explain everything he’s doing 🤗
Damn, forgot that again!
At this point I might as well rewatch all his videos with captions.
OH! That's super nice actually!
Oh! Thank you for that! I was super confused!
Proof?
I hear you; but now I know ... I can't unknow. And I want to unknow and just watch the empty silence of his skill and expertise. *sigh*
It's good you show things, that did not quite work as you wanted. The honesty of your work, is one of the things that we all come back for.
THIS IS UKRAINE🐷
Beautiful undertaking! Can I offer two ideas? For your crucible attempt, next time place a layer of sand and a piece of charcoal over your iron, then put a top on it. Mud the sides and leave the smallest of holes on the side. The sand will melt and act as a flux to protect the iron from oxygen, the charcoal will burn up the available oxygen in your crucible, and the top will help keep any more from coming in. It'll keep the iron cleaner. This crucible method is very old and once you figure out your layout, you can get good results.
Second, the blower is awesome, but you're trying to lessen your effort correct? Fire a large round clay disk with a groove around the outside and a hole in the middle. On your uprights, bore a hole through the tops, insert a stick through the holes with the disk stuck on it. Make a simple crank on one end. Loop a rope around the disk and around your blower axle. Then just turn the crank. This flywheel will build up a lot of inertia and help keep the blower moving with less effort. And the larger the disk, the faster your blower will run. Keep up the great work.
A flywheel is a great idea!
The iron is already rich in carbon so blocking off the oxygen would reduce decarbonization.
mirko is right, we're trying to decarbonize the ingot. But flywheel idea is ok
I came in comment section to write same ideas, but - voila - the are already there. Thank you, sir, for sparing my time.
I'll add a little - iron pills didn't smelt into proper ingot because of lack of temperature, smelting in high furnace should help.
the problem is that the thicker clay is, the more likely it will crack. he should probably make an empty clay "wheel" with sand/rocks inside
My dad and I have been watching your videos for years and have been excited for you to attempt forging the iron you have been collecting. This channel has been a highlight of RUclips for years. Thank you for continuing on and sharing your journey with us! It’s been amazing to watch unfold. ❤
Our man is closing in on a decade of sequence-breaking the tech tree of humanity, with distinctly mute eloquence and terrifying patience the whole while through. May we never actually require his *wealth* of knowledge.
Dearth means shortage
@@hobomofofosho Correct. I might rephrase it as "may we never actually require his abundance of knowledge," but then again it's good to know how these things are done anyhow.
@@VidGamer123 you can edit RUclips comments
"terrifying patience" - you got that spot on.
"Rich resources exist in even poor countries, where it isn't the number of resources that make the country poor, but the fact that those countries don't employ skillful labor to take advantage of those resources. In the same way, nations such as Japan or Switzerland have great economies, despite the resource-starved nature of their country.
In all of this, because economics is about scarce resources with various use-cases, we don't actually have to involve money very much to study economics. The example given in the book is in the military-when soldiers are wounded, various medical services must decide between who to care for and who must wait for their care. While we may not like having to make choices like this, they exist. Thus, economics is a way for us to understand these choices and make the most of them." ~ Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics.
Genuinely the only channel I have that notification bell on.
Me too
Me too
@SRNVIogs shut up
THIS IS UKRAINE🐷
That single bar of iron feels so damn good to see. You've come far my dude. Can't wait to see it worked into something usable.
It never ceases to amaze me how fast he does the hand drill fires. Like normal men could try for hours and still not get it, yet he does it in 30 seconds in real time for us. Every single video.
Fantastic Simplicity! And... the Carbon Monoxide gas is what yanks the last Oxygen off of your iron... but those Oxygens need a strongly reducing atmosphere, and TIME - so... if you make a TALLER chimney, then you should have a longer residence-time, and thus, higher yields. I would love to see the labor and input -> output rates for each of your techniques!
THIS IS UKRAINE🐷
This guy smelts.
@@duboshlt8646No, it’s Australia.
I’ve been keeping up with this journey as far back as when I was in school so many years ago. Seeing the progress and making it further towards iron technology is nothing short of incredible. Well done!
Same. I discovered Primitive Technology back in 2017 when I was in high school. Seven years ago, huh…
Insane. Those are the biggest prills we've seen yet. I'm super excited to see the process refined to make more tools.
I hope this channel continues through the ages. I hope to eventually see him create his own electrical system. It would be really cool for follow it that long.
Man, the first time you make a good tool out of wrought iron that you forged yourself, is going to be epic! Keep it up man!
I’m looking at the cutlery in my kitchen in absolute awe. I’d never take metal for granted ever again.
THIS IS UKRAINE🐷
You're not wrong, but he's using a very low-grade ore source. If he actually dug bits out of a hematite vein, he'd get a lot more.
@@GoblinKnightLeohow long would he need to dig though.
@@someartist7278 Before or after hitting the vein? Because even low-grade ore is still going to be leagues better than the iron bacteria.
I NEVER pass on one of your videos. Some of the best content around. The iron journey is always my favorite to watch... Incredible!
I confess I was very happy and surprised to see that you read your followers suggestions and put the best ones into practice.
Jonh's ability to casually put his hands into the fire will never cease to amaze me !
Tolerance, mud and calluses lol
I've done some blacksmithing work. It's actually not as hard as it seems even for a beginner; until the fire has a lot of fuel and a lot of oxygen, of an amount sufficient to get steel bright-hot for forging, you can get rather close to it without burning yourself as long as you don't linger there for long.
a suggestion. in the end when you tried to smelt a bar of Iron in an open mold. i would advise to close the mold and then put it in the fire. this way you get less oxidation and by putting small amounts of charcoal you can controll the carbonization of the Iron. more over this way if you heat the bar to a highrt temprature it will most likly come out smoother and more solid. if you have accees to a flux like tree resin which is crude but works to this day you can create a lower melting point and cleaner product.
on a side note ive been watching this chanel since I was a little kid. i am now in college and Im happy my studies my be of assistance.
hope this helps and good luck!
The prills will already have a high carbon content, you don't want to add more in the crucible. If anything he wants to reduce the carbon to make forgeable steel.
How about flux from lime? He did manage to make some quicklime (I think) from snail shells in one episode.
This channel is only 8 years old so you're being very liberal with either the "little kid" description or the college description.
@@Matt_Alaric lots of ppl go to college at 18-19 years old…
@@Matt_Alaric I feel like 10 definitely counts as a kid. That's 6th grade.
It never ceases to amaze me how much the invention of pottery helped propel human technological invention forward.
the value of a container should never be underestimated.
most of our technology is based on how we can contain it.
think about anything in your house that needs to “hold” something.
I think it's amazing that you post the good and the bad together. In your earlier videos I thought you were showing or telling me a story, now I feel like we're on a discovery quest together. Please keep it up!
I started watching this channel when I was a young teen, to this day, I still find this content extremely interesting. I'm extremely happy to have seen all of your progress throughout the years, and I can say you've honestly come a long way! Thank you for providing this very educational content! It is very interesting to watch and learn about more primitive methods. I can't wait to see your next video, and I hope you have a great journey going forward!
acutely
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immensely
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20:13. That came from orange swamp sludge. How crazy man lmao that's so awesome. you're a legend.
Probably an under rated thing about this channel is the details of what he is doing in the description. its a way of telling how something is done in detail without talking, honestly pretty cool
No other primitive tech channel comes close to the content and effort you put in. Getting so close to forgeable iron!
No captions?! Is this the price of viewing 41s after publishing? Woe is me
edit: hurray!
I have captions available
You just get to watch it twice.
That's crazy. I've been watching these videos for years and didn't realize there were captions available. I just learned to work out what was happening (or learned to accept that I didn't know). THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!! 😂🤣😂
I enjoy watching it twice. The first time I watch for the viewing and try to figure out what he is doing. The second time I watch with the captions and understanding what is going on.
Night hawks here!!!
just brought food and refreshed RUclips.. Uploaded 1 minute ago, what a treat!
ate all my food before i got a notification ring. ahhhhh 😢
Finished eating, cleaned up and sat down to relax. Better than my home made brownie for desert. 😅
I really liked the pulley idea. It looked very efficient. Something I have seen some guys do on another channel to power a pedal operated wood lathe was to have a long(ish) board as a pedal to power the rotation and a rope attached to a sapling to provide the return stroke and raise the board.
It is mind boggling how much the blower design improved the yield! Amazing episode, as always!
There is something very instinctively pleasing in your videos. Something about the act of working materials with your own hands, of experiencing the natural world. It's hard to fully articulate, but it feels like it scratches an itch. Like, playing around in the dirt and with sticks, is how things are supposed to be. Some primitive part of my brain is saying, "Yes, that's how it's done."
Every hole dug end every clay wall patted down brings this man closer to the iron age. And the local crayfish shall fear the wrath of his gladius!
THIS IS UKRAINE🐷
16:00 Thats brilliant! You could make a water wheel to power the furnace indefinetly
If you check the water hammer video, mans doesn't have a lot to work with there (water flow, precision of craft, etc), and water wheels are surprisingly difficult to build.
It's definitely orders of magnitude better to use hand power at this scale, but it is a good thought.
@@splinterz5744 Not even close to getting to this point. If you wanted to use mechanical gearing at this stage then you'd use a belt and pully wheels.
@@splinterz5744Iron cogs would be completely impractical and would not fit in with the time period
@@splinterz5744 A gear reduction isn't impossible as a longer term thought, but he can't even whittle anything that precise with his tools, let alone cast it.
Hello, Mr. Plant.
He became interested after seeing the video, and due to the coronavirus pandemic, he started a hobby of going out into nature, building bonfires, and pitching tents for camping. There were many factors, but your influence was huge. I'm thinking of starting a fire with a hand drill.
This is a very precious and luxurious time for me.
Your videos have brought richness to my life.
thank you primitive technology channel.
14:24 "weighed with a modern scale for the sake of scientific accuracy", love PT's humor 😂
Filmed with a modern camera. :)
Not too far in the future, "Primitive Technology: High Accuracy Scale"
Congratulations on the new record smelt! Been watching your videos for years. It's so good to have you back!
I'm sorry you have to spend so much of your time proving you're actually doing it. Thank you for all the years you've been doing this.
It is interesting to note the fall off of detractors who make complaints that he has a video camera and therefore he’s not authentic. How’s the irony.
I enjoy seeing the whole fire making process in real time. It's really impressive how fast you've gotten it!
I don't have the plans but a nice idea would be a water powered fan design. You have already made one prototype in a water stream. Would be fun to see if you could develop it further. Always a "yesss" feeling when your videos come out. Keep up the good work 🎉
This next chapter is fixing to be AWESOME
I always forget to turn on closed captions with your videos. But it’s such a treat when I remember! Love the way you lay everything out! Keep it up
I absolutely love seeing metalworking using old techniques like this. Keep up the good work, and thanks for the upload!
These are the kind of videos I've been looking forward to, entering the iron age and metallurgy are huge steps I've been watching for years to get too this point I can't wait to see what you'll make of it
A rope connected to a big wheel and wrapped around the stick could make for impressive crank wheel blower setup, but it may be more work than it is worth. Amazing tech development. You are becoming a metallurgist, inventor, primitive tech guru, and soon to be a blacksmith too!
Spinning the rotor too fast is likely to have it come apart, in it's current design anyway. Maybe a more stick based blade versus leaves, but I concur, spin it 2-3:1 to increase heat and yield further, hope nothing breaks. :)
It makes my day when I see one of these videos
@SRNVIogs thats what i thought :D
Thanks for taking the suggestion about a foot-powered blower, but it would work a lot better with a flywheel and pedal!
7:59
The Ore: Sup!
The Coal: Hello!
The Furnace: Hi!
*The Blower* : Oh~ Hello There~
I like being here in the first few minutes of his posts and just watching the numbers climb
@SRNVIogs agreed, just a fantastic channel of no BS and actual intellectual growth
Here so fast there are no subtitles yet. Wow.
They're here now!
The fact you tested our ideas out is awesome! Thank you
It's comforting to know that if society ever fails, some of us can always go back to manual mode.
Вы лучший блогер ютуба!
Love your content. Been watching since you first started. Original, authentic and hard working. You deserve all your success.
Excellent and inspiring video showcasing significant advancements in iron smelting techniques! The use of the new blower has clearly increased the efficiency of the process, and the results are truly amazing, especially with the increase in both quantity and quality of the iron prills. The forging experiment was a great addition, showing how the iron can be utilized directly after extraction. Thank you for this informative and inspiring presentation!
Im 26, and yet im still get excited in this. Thank you Primitive tech! For hearing my request. Though if i may suggest i want to learn more also how to make a crucible out of nothing.
seeing you try and fail in consolidating is much more satisfying than watching fake forging and swimming pool primitive videos combined. Good work keep it up
Finally ... the first ingot ... many more to come ... 🎉🎉🎉🎉
It's really cool to see how each improvement to the desing of the furnace and the blower results in more and more iron.
Surely one of the best RUclips channels ever made
Thank you for providing such a wonderful experience
Why is it that RUclips will turn on closed captioning for videos randomly, but NEVER remembers to have CC on for Primitive Technology?... It's the best part!
This is what hard work looks like.
Consistency for nine+ years is crazy amazing. ❤
I cannot wait to see you get a proper ingot together, it'll be so satisfying to see you finally achieve iron age tools, I'm so excited
After watching this I had to see how iron blooms are successfully created in draft furnaces and it seems (from most of the instances I've observed in other videos) that the 2 differing elements are 1. a continuous stream of air (I know, difficult with only one person, but achievable) and 2. an ore recipe that leads to liquid slag running off either at proscribed intervals (in "poke a hole" runoff design) or continuously in furnaces w/ slag drains. I don't want to speculate on flux as I know you've tried eggshell/limestone style flux w/o success.
We making it outta the bronze age with this one
Watching you improving the designs and making them better in order to progress is really satisfying and my favourite thing about your journey. I wish there will come a time where you can make actually useful iron tools and go even further
Modern Blacksmith here, who has an interest in historical techniques. Have you considered consolidating all your iron in a crucible smelt? All the prills/broken pieces go into a fired clay cylindrical vessel, with a little charcoal powder to help maintain a bit of carbon in the steel, and the remaining space filled with a flux. Borax would be ideal, but if you don't have access to that naturally, straw ash can be used. I imagine wood ash would work as well. The crucible should then be sealed completely with a fired lid to prevent oxygen ingress. Your one-way blower ought to be able to get it hot enough. Haven't tried it myself, but I magine you might want to orient it with the iron on top, such that when everything melts, it falls down through the molten flux? I'm hypothesizing here, but it seems that you're not having much luck with these open-topped bar molds, so it's worth a shot at least.
If he's consolidating iron prills into a bar, that's a MELT, not a smelt. His prills are already high-carbon, they don't need any more carbon, they need to be decarburized with oxygen.
Of course, the real problem is that he's getting high-carbon prills in the first place, when he should be getting a low-carbon bloom that he can forge. Trying to make high-carbon cast iron and then decarburizing it is harder than just managing the furnace chemistry/timing to get low-carbon iron in the first place.
The flux will take a lot of the carbon out of the iron as it all melts. The charcoal is there to help maintain some of it, which you do want. As for what ratio of flux to charcoal to use, that would require experimentation as I totally admit that I don't know. Also I called it a smelt because the crucible step is part of the smelting process, like a second stage to the initial bloom step. So basically the cast iron prills are treated as processed ore rather than as a final product in and of themselves, but that's all pretty semantic anyway.@@bhartley1024
@@ferric6796 Hmm, I can't say if you are right or not, I've never heard of flux decarburizing iron-carbon alloys, but I suppose it would depend on the chemicals used for the flux. If the flux contained iron oxide, I suppose that oxygen could react with the dissolved carbon to decarburize the melt.
I think semantics are pretty important, especially when talking about technical processes. Smelting is the name for the process of going from ore to metal. Iron ore is iron oxides and hydroxides typically. They have to be chemically reduced to separate out the elemental iron. I would not classify the iron prills as ore because they are a solution of elemental iron and impurities. The prills could be used as-is to make cast iron items, or they could be used a feedstock in a refining process to make forgeable bar iron.
i was honestly worried you'd be losing that iron from your experiments there. huge amount of relief with the last caption!
Rád pozerám tvoje videá. Zakúpil som si od teba aj knihu. Ďakujem prajem ti veľa úspechu a požehnania. Si šikovný.
If he's getting the slip-belt idea down well enough, he's only a few steps away from either a spring-pole or counterweight treadle. That may make operating such devices a little bit easier.
Some other videos also seem to suggest that adding a source of dissolved starch to the water used for mixing clay can improve ductility of the resulting mix. That may reduce some of the cracking when forming complex pieces with the soft clay. Seems some traditional recipes use rice-water, but perhaps something from the yams grown previously could work in this instance?
May i suggest a dedicated thing to make clay? If you put the entry divot(where you put the unprocessed clay) up high enough you could potentially have it pout straight into the pot, allowing for less wasted time in moving the clay into the pot,
Meu canal favorito, isso me faz um bem e tanto, nem imagina!
That's a lot of work, respect. I get the impression this charcoal isn't as good as stuff he made in the past but I could be totally wrong, just doesn't seem quite right.
What i like the most about this videos is that he is not talking