Making steel

steelshaper

steelshaper

Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
835
Well I got some iron ore, about 400 pounds, and have been working on making a reinforced chimney liner furnace and some charcoal. So I haven’t ever seen it done and I have not tried it yet but I was wondering if any of you fine folks had any tips for me.

Del has gone over the process with me some and I have read a bunch but I sure could use all the help I can get.

The pic is of a few pieces of the ore I have. The little shiny pieces are after it was melted with a torch just to see what would happen.

Thanks
 
Preheat the smelter with a propane burner and then start using some hardwood charcoal to bring it up to temp. Once your smelting softwood charcoal is a good idea because it burns hotter but you will need to use more because it burns fast. When you tap the slag arch you will see sparks shooting out but this is not a bad thing, when smelting it is common for it to look like steel burning.

I'm not sure about the steel other people make but with my tamahagane it needs to be at welding heat for forging at first or it will crumble like a cookie, after a fold or two its ok to work at a lower temperature. If you use straw ash as flux when welding you will need more heat but it will produce darker lines.

-Dan
 
Steel shaper, I would be happy to share any information I can from my experience, as well as extend an invite for you to come down to my place the next time I decide to make some steel... in exchange for you whispering in my ear your source for iron ore - the stuff looks pretty good.
 
Looks like great ore, I'm jealous

Take Kevin up on his offer,
there are good posts on Don Fogg's forums in the "Bloomers and Buttons" section, also there is an early iron discussion group with good info (go to warehamforge.com and follow links) but the best way to learn is do your first one with someone who knows what they're doing, I've done a couple of blooms now but I can't really give you the kind of instruction you will get working with Kevin

-Page
 
Kevin R. Cashen said:
Steel shaper, I would be happy to share any information I can from my experience, as well as extend an invite for you to come down to my place the next time I decide to make some steel... in exchange for you whispering in my ear your source for iron ore - the stuff looks pretty good.
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I am in no way at a point in my knifemaking carreer where I'm thinking about making my own steel. However, living where I do, in Michigans Upper Peninsula, I have access to what I'm told is pretty darn good iron ore. There are several large iron mines up here and I know a few guys that work them.

Do you guys prefer to use the ore as shown Wills pic or would you be interested in some of the iron ore pellets that the local mines produce ? I would be happy to get some for you guys to try if you're interested.

Like I said, it might not even be applicable to what you're doing, I know very little about tamahagane. If it is something you would be interested in though, give me a holler.

If for nothing else, the little iron ore pellets (~3/8" diameter) make for some super duper, really great wrist rocket ammo ;) :D
 
David yours was a reply I am always looking for, you see I know as Michiganders we sit on one of the richest metal ore deposits on earth, I know it is in the U.P. I am just not familiar enough with the area to know were to get it without trespassing issues. The taconite pellets are good if they have been refined and fortified with the extra iron that I have seen before, taconite istelf is a fairly low grade ore. However if one is making their own steel in a smelter, they have already shown an interests in experiencing the primal basics of it all, thus actually digging raw ore from the ground with your own hands and making steel from it is as cool as it gets!

When my schedule permits I would love to come up for a visit and work our some sort of ore gathering mission with you:thumbup:
 
My uncle works for a company who owns a mine in the U.P. They had been hauling this stuff down and selling it to a brick / block making company and a company that makes paint. They have a pile of about 60 tons of it that the no longer have a need for that is sitting near one of their gravel pits. I told them what i wanted to do and they told me I could have as much as I want as long as I show them what I do with it. The one catch is I have to have my uncle open the gate to get into it. The gravel pit is about 12 miles north of Petoskey. I am sure you know Petoskey, Kevin, its the town just north of Tim.

Delbert Ealy suggested to me that we try to invite a few people up to do a smelt. We could do it at my place or maybe his. David If you want to come down when we smelt you are more than welcome. I am still working on ammassing charcoal so I am not ready yet but if you guys are down with it maybe we could make a weekend of it sometime this summer. With at least four guys it should be much easier to come up with a nice bloom.
 
Kevin R. Cashen said:
When my schedule permits I would love to come up for a visit and work our some sort of ore gathering mission with you:thumbup:
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Kevin, consider this an open invitation to visit . Anytime ! :thumbup:


steelshaper said:
David If you want to come down when we smelt you are more than welcome.
Click to expand...

I'm there Will ;) You say the time & place, and I'm there :thumbup:


:cool:
 
I've participated in a few smelts down here but we've never had any luck with the local iron ore, limonite which is pretty poor quality stuff let me tell you. I'm sure we could make it work but a smelt is not cheap in both smelter construction material, charcoal and time involved. So we've run mostly smelts using a quality hematite sand blasting media and have gotten great blooms with it. Other than some vague knowledge about pre-roasting the ore and crushing it I don't know what steps are needed to prepare the raw ore like you have. If you produce your own charcoal as well you'll be ahaed of the game.

Pre-heating is important as has been pointed out. We frequently use plain wood for this stage. When you go to the charcoal stage the size of the charcal is important and you want fairly small pieces. The idea is to impede the speed at which the ore travels down the stack so that the carbon monoxide has a chance to break the oxygen off the iron oxide. You know things are going good when the gases ignite at the top opening of the stack which makes charging the smelter even more exciting.

Also as pointed out earlier, the bloom will be a big ungainly spongy mass that you will have to baby along for a bit. Work it too hard too soon and you loose much of the silica slag content and you'll have a hell of a time consolidating it.

Sounds like you know much of this already from your study, next is the practical knowledge from trying it! You'll learn much more from that in any case. You'll have a great time and helpers will be a great boon (especially if you have commercial charcoal which has to be chopped into smaller bits :D)!
 
The pre roasting of the ore is one of the things I have yet to figure out. I was thinking of building a sort of big pan that I could put over a fire. Or maybe when the retort is done I could use it to roast the ore. I know that when the ore is heated it wants to break apart so hopefully the crushing after roasting wont be to bad.

Thanks for the help thus far everyone.

Kevin, if I cant entice you to come up here I would surely be glad to come down to your place the next time you smelt. Also will there be someone smelting at Ashokan this year?
Tim told me I could ride with him down there so as long as he doesnt change his mind I will be there.

Thanks again
Will
 
Yes there will be smelts at ashokan, I'm planning on bringing a small tatara and smelting iron sand or iron oxide. Also as far as I know Aldo plans on smelting iron ore at ashokan.

Good luck with your smelt Will, be sure to post pictures!
 
Thanks Dan! I will be certainly looking forward to that! Do you collect the iron sand yourself? If you decide to smelt the iron oxide could you bring the sand with you to at least some of it? I would like to know more about finding iron sand and borg ore too.

Thanks
 
Guy Thomas said:
I've participated in a few smelts down here but we've never had any luck with the local iron ore, limonite which is pretty poor quality stuff let me tell you. I'm sure we could make it work but a smelt is not cheap in both smelter construction material, charcoal and time involved. So we've run mostly smelts using a quality hematite sand blasting media and have gotten great blooms with it. Other than some vague knowledge about pre-roasting the ore and crushing it I don't know what steps are needed to prepare the raw ore like you have. If you produce your own charcoal as well you'll be ahaed of the game.

Pre-heating is important as has been pointed out. We frequently use plain wood for this stage. When you go to the charcoal stage the size of the charcal is important and you want fairly small pieces. The idea is to impede the speed at which the ore travels down the stack so that the carbon monoxide has a chance to break the oxygen off the iron oxide. You know things are going good when the gases ignite at the top opening of the stack which makes charging the smelter even more exciting.

Also as pointed out earlier, the bloom will be a big ungainly spongy mass that you will have to baby along for a bit. Work it too hard too soon and you loose much of the silica slag content and you'll have a hell of a time consolidating it.

Sounds like you know much of this already from your study, next is the practical knowledge from trying it! You'll learn much more from that in any case. You'll have a great time and helpers will be a great boon (especially if you have commercial charcoal which has to be chopped into smaller bits :D)!
Click to expand...
I would think that renting a chipper/shredder would be of great help in chopping the commercial charcoal into smaller bits.
 
scottickes said:
I would think that renting a chipper/shredder would be of great help in chopping the commercial charcoal into smaller bits.
Click to expand...

I think if you were to buy a pallet of charcoal from a supplier, hundreds of pounds worth, that might be a good idea. The smelts we've run have all been on the order of 20 to 40 lb blooms though with equal amouts of charcoal to ore. A couple of helpers have time between charges to chop enough for the next charge. Of course if you are organized you'll do this ahead of time!:rolleyes:

I'm curious now how a chipper would treat charcoal chunks, might end up with much of it being powder!
 
I'm going to be collecting my own, the local river has iron sand but the other rivers that are farther in the Adirondacks are better... so I'm trying to find which one I'm gonna use. Do you know of any rivers near an iron deposit that have a very dark water (black), this is a good indication that there is iron sand there. There are companies in china that sell high quality iron sand but I can't afford or use a minimum of 12 tons a month :(.

If you need charcoal I'll try to find the company that sells 1300lb shipped for $380ish. If your not in new england (apparently NY isent :confused:) it costs more to have it shipped but still a MUCH better price that buying bags of it, even bulk bags. Making your own is a good way to go, its time consumeing because it takes a few hours to do, not too much work involved though so you have time to forge while your making the charcoal.

-Dan
 
I have already started making my own charcoal using the bonfire and water method. I want to make a retort to make it a little easier. I have started using some of my own charcoal for some of the forging I do.
I live in a swampy boggy valley with a river just a stones throw from my house. The water here was a very high iron content but when I looked for black sand it looks more like silt than sand so I am not sure but I think what I am seeing is organic and not mineral.

Todd I will let you know when we plan on giving it a try.
 
For a very simple retort you can use a 55gallon barrel with a 1'x2' hole cut in it, cover the hole with insawool or if you don't have extra a piece of sheet metal will work. Personally I prefer the direct method, I'll post some pictures tonight of my set up to give you ideas. If you need a 55gallon drum with the clamping top look for chemical suppliers in your area, they sometimes have extras.
Honestly with the price of propane I'm considering going back to charcoal for almost everything other than welding and casting.

Take some of the sand and let it dry, break up any clumps then test it with a magnet. You could try looking farther up the river, the sand by my house isn't great cause I'm not in the Adirondacks. Even normal looking sand contains some iron, if I was to build a sifter with different screens I could process junk sand and get a decent amount of iron oxide because the iron oxide is EXTREAMLY fine compared to the other pieces.

-Dan
 
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