Charcoal making and iron smelting? Well, almost.

[Marveltone]

I'll put this in "Projects" even though it's a different kind of project. If the moderators feel it's better served in another forum, feel free to move it. :thumbsup:

We've had a busy weekend at the farm. My new pastor, an ex-geologist, got a wild hair and wanted to try smelting taconite to get his own iron... after making his own charcoal. Well, he lives in town, where the volumes of smoke can be a distraction and discomfort to the neighbors, so I invited him to come up to Minnesota Hill to do the project, because it sounded like a whole lot of work and fun. Besides, he'd likely need more space and resources than he could find in town.

Since this is a big project with many pictures, I'll post in several sections to help keep things in line.

The first step is to prep some barrels for the charcoal making process. Dean was prepared to spend $20 a piece for steel drums in town, but I told him I had old drums back in the weeds and he could save his money for something else.

The fuel and raw materials for the charcoal comes in the form of hardwood pallets that my wood pellets come on for my winter's supply of heat. All we have to do is disassemble them and cut them up so they fit in the barrels.

We enlisted the help of some of the locals who like learning new things and playing with implements of destruction to help spread out the work load.

Joe

 

[Marveltone]

Next, we need to fill the barrels with the wood. This will be transformed into charcoal with the right controlled burn followed by suffocation of the fire. We sent the kids out into the woods to collect pine needles to start the fire. (Okay, they also had fun playing with a pile of deer bones.) They really had a blast! The pine needles are piled on top and burns downward into the barrel. After about six hours, we have charcoal. We had four barrels smoking away. This was the major reason we wanted to move the whole operation out of town. Charcoal making makes a lot of smoke!

 

[Marveltone]

Viola! Home made charcoal! Now to start with the ore.

We were able to score some taconite pellets from Duluth. The shipyard where they were loading the ore ships had piles of spillage all over the place. When the guy in charge was asked about the pellets and informed about our project, he said, "Take what you want. We just count it as normal loss." Score!

We poured the taconite onto some scrap corrugated steel and piled wood on top of it to roast the ore. This removes all moisture from it and helps the smelting process later.

 

[Marveltone]

Forge construction! We used a piece of chimney liner for the core of the forge. After drilling and cutting the required holes and openings in the liner, we surrounded it with chicken wire and mixed up a cob from sand, grass, water and a little Portland cement I found in the barn. I found out that we have excellent beach quality sand on the property which made for a perfect ingredient for our cob. The kids had a blast getting their hands (and most of their bodies) messy mixing the cob.

We then have to work fast to apply the messy mixture to the chimney liner to construct the rest of the forge. We slathered the cob all over and then wrapped more chicken wire around the whole works for more strength. These things have a way of self destructing during firing.

Once everything is covered and reinforced, we'll let it set overnight to cure.

 

[Marveltone]

Next day, we finish our air intake/combustion control system and fire up the forge. The internal temperatures can reach as high as 2200F! The charcoal is added in thin layers alternated with the taconite and sand. We added the sand to help make more slag so it will all flow out the bottom when the burn is complete. We used a leaf blower to force more air into the forge to help bring the temperature up where we needed it. The pipe, besides providing a link with the leaf blower, also provided us with a sight hole to help see what's going on inside the belly of the beast.

We figured on about a six hour burn to get a 20 lbs bloom of iron, while using between 60-80 lbs of charcoal.

 

[Baby Grand]

Thanks for posting this fascinationg project!
Remains of old lime kilns and other furnaces can be found in the woods around our state and I've always wanted to try some smelting, myself.

Iron Ore | Early Iron Mining & Production in Connecticut

CCT: Sloane Stanley Museum

Good luck & I look forward to reading about your progress.

 

[Marveltone]

Time to open the belly of the beast and see what we've accomplished.

First thing we noticed was the slag didn't pour out like the liquid magma it was supposed to. After much pounding and prying, we finally demolished the forge and pulled the glowing slag out of the charcoal bed. The theory is, we should be able to reduce the iron bloom from the rest of the slag by beating it with a big hammer on an anvil. All we succeeded in doing was breaking it up into little pieces. Also, the iron bloom was supposed to be more distinguishable from the rest of the slag. We couldn't really tell what was what.

What we ended up with are little pieces of volcanic looking lumps. We lined them all up on the deck rail to take close up pictures. Dean will send a few samples to an old colleague for x-ray analysis, as well as photos to people who have done this before in hopes of learning what we did wrong.

Is it a failure? Not really. We figure we've come within 90% or more of achieving what we were hoping for. We've learned a lot in the process, while gaining a deep appreciation for all the metal we use in our daily lives. The kids had a blast and got some fresh air, my pastor got to get out of the office, I got to keep 20 lbs of charcoal for supplying the farm and assorted junk as lab space.

Plus, I'm now set up to make charcoal at will!

Joe

 

[DAY]

Way cool project! When you finally get some iron, do you plan on turning it into steel?

A tip: If you need to get that bloom back up to temperature without going thru building another furnace, ask a friendly potter to 'fire' it with his next cone 10 load. ( a crucible made out of high fired clay will keep the liquid iron from exploring the inside of his kiln.)

 

[Marveltone]

Way cool project! When you finally get some iron, do you plan on turning it into steel?

No steel. We want real wrought iron to beat on. Old time blacksmithing.

A tip: If you need to get that bloom back up to temperature without going thru building another furnace, ask a friendly potter to 'fire' it with his next cone 10 load. ( a crucible made out of high fired clay will keep the liquid iron from exploring the inside of his kiln.)

Thanks for the tip. I was actually wondering about using a kiln for such a purpose. Now... Who in my area has a kiln?

Joe

 

[zzvyb6]

I worked at Bethlehem Steel (Lackawanna plant) in the blast furnace department, furnaces A thru H. Check your chemistry. Add limestone to flux out the oxide and impurities in the molten iron. You add charcoal (coke) to the liquid to make steel from the grey iron.

If you can get some natural gas fed into that furnace along with air from the leaf blower, you will have all the makings of a modern process. You can tap into the gas from your charcoal making process to feed the iron furnace also (if there's not too much water in the wood). Find some firebrick to form a hearth and blow from the bottom. Slag (liquid form) will float on top like whipped cream in a cup of hot chocolate. Make sure you wear eye protection because the infrared rays are very intense and can burn your retinas. Gas welding goggles work just like they are intended.