For converting ore to metal, the standard way is to crush the ore and roast it in a fire like what you did with the torch to make it magnetic. Combining the crushed ore with charcoal or coke and heated in a bloomery yields a rough iron bloom, which needs to be purified by hammering and folding to smack out the slag and impurities.
don't try to melt it in your forge if i recall correctly your pot is made of cast iron therefore its more likely to melt before your ore your second option is much more viable don't forget to layer your charcoal or coke if you can get any good luck wish i had the time to do this :p
i don't really recommend using a bloomery, sure it's probably cheaper, but it's much more ideal at a small scale to use a crucible in a furnace, there are plenty of designs for how to make a crucible furnace on the internet. the major issue with a bloomery is that it's not easy it's not simple. it's a huge effort. yes you can get iron ore and melt it into iron bloom, it's not gonna be good quality. you should probably understand that iron ore need a lot of heat to melt. and it also needs a lot of time to form a single chunk of iron bloom. Running a bloomery is more than an all day activity. i've seen a couple videos of youtube where people do this. and what comes out, is a quite spongy soft lump of slag embedded with chunks of iron, it's usually no where near the quality required to immediately use without a large processing step.
Some of it looked like markasit. This stuff can be used to strike sparks with flint. As far as i know, this is only possible with markasit and pyrite. So for fans of prehistory, it is quiet valuable
Since it is hard, metallic grey, and non-magnetic, that ore is most likely hematite, Fe2O3. Limonite is FeO(OH).xH2O, and it is brown to ocher. Limonie would probably crumble under the torch, as it loses water. Just melting the hematite will not remove the oxygen; at most it will turn it into magnetite, Fe3O4, which is also metallic grey but magnetic. To remove the oxygen you must heat it in a reducing atmosphere. Usually that is carbon monoxide, obtained by burying the ore in coal or charcoal which is burned with the right amount of oxygen. For fast and efficient reaction, the ore must be crushed so that has lots of area exposed to the CO.
From what I know and have researched over the times. Ore such as what you found and other types of ore were baked for a period of time, this weakens the ore samples and then are broken and ground up to a powder form and then added to a smelting tower full of charcoal. layers of ore and charcoal are placed in and air applied to form a bloom. This has to be done in layers from what I understand. The hotter or more air flow one give it the better the bloom does, This also works provided the tower is very tall as well, From my understanding a very tall tower filled with layers of ore and charcoal will produce a very fast updraft and make the ore melt and turn in to a nice bloom.
I recommend a high temperature high tower (Esse) bloomery and as much raw ore as you can fit in the bloomery. More material melted leads to less loss in the form of carbon dust on top.
There's a group of Viking history enthusiasts in I think Sweden (or Norway I can't remember) who smelt iron ore into pure iron by the old Viking method. I saw a clip of the methods they used on RU-vid a few months ago. I would also suggest to get in touch with chemists and people who have worked in smelters/ironworks. There must be associations, clubs and interest groups in Germany.
Westphalia . . . Such a beautiful place. Thank you for sharing it with the wotld. I would never have seen it otherwise. I would love to see more of the process that man has used for centuries to smelt ore. This is like living history!
thanks for sharing, watching from Fountain hills, Arizona. i was a Army soldier who lived in Schweinfurt, Beyern for 10 years. i really love Germany and the people, plan on visiting in a few years, thanks for the videos.
What an incredible area to live in . The trees along the stream bed , with their twisted trunks have an amazing beauty all their own . Thank you for sharing this glimpse of your world .
You are blessed to have grown up in such a beautiful part of this world. If I had such material I would be looking at smelting that ore. Thanks for teaching this old dog something I didn't know before watching this video.
I watched a recent video of an Asian man that harvested several kilos of iron ore rocks. Through many weeks and a laborious process he ended up with crude but serviceable utensils. Mainly a knife and a very crude ax. Expressive, to be sure, but highly labor intensive. Nevertheless it was a demonstration of how ancient civilizations reaped from the land around them to improve them life. Admirable.
I spent nearly a year in East Westphalia as an exchange student, and I visited the Externstein with one of my host families. This video brought back memories and a longing to be back in Germany.
The cylindrical ore you gathered looks like Marcasite or pyrite to my eyes (iron sulfide). They were used to start a fire with flint. Maybe keep a few around for your future camping trips ^^
Thank you very much! As a scout, nature always played a big part in my life, but recently I didn't have the opportunity to go hiking, so you showing me all these footage was very helpful!
I would love to see you melt the iron ore and make something. Thanks for the shots of your country. I was in the Army and stationed in Kirch-Goens for 3.5 years, loved it! The houses reminded me of Marburg. I attended many Buddhist teachings there. Keep up the great work!
I've never seen anything like that, but i just wanna comment. Roast those into wood fire and then break them apart, then put them in a crucible with charcoal and some flux, like sand or something else, then seal the container with clay or like that and melt then. I think that will change them into high carbon crucible steel.. Good day Sir...
I am no expert but Imo with this ammount of ore you might have a hard time getting the metal to... gather together or concentrate, maybe a bit smaller bloom may be needed and really extending the time frame to a few hours adding materials at the right time... also research adding other metals Ni or even your own steel as a catch/collection base??... Al, Mg will add xtra heat to reach critical temp if in cruciable (proven method) in the right measurements will burn away and leave minimal impurities ...Good Luck
@@-flutterby7026 that's an excellent video.... if that termite process works it would be loads easier than some of the bloomeries I've seen "Good and Basic" build.
your home town is beautiful and I love your videos. they are very inspiring and its amazing to see what is essentially junk, given new purpose. Cheers from Philly.
Colgone is beautiful, and your people sure know how to celebrate Christmas. We took the Rhine river down and enjoyed The Christmas Market tour and drank gluhwein everyday. Went to the Technik Museum in Speyer.
Dang I watched this on my 70" screen.. those buffalos were just fantastic! And the walk through the woods so beautiful..this is what I grew up with and still crave the most.. and at 68 I am getting to crippled up to go far but Enjoy to see it on screen if I can not go myself. this was wonderful my friend.. thank you so much.. Make a forged iron out of this as they did back in the "day". That would be interesting to see done.. thanks for your share. carry on!
1:12 - "East Westphalia" ... sounds a bit indecisive, doesn't it ? Beautiful landscape ! I could live a good life there with a kind wife and a small furniture workshop :-) Best regards from Norway
How are you going to make it in the furniture capitol of Europe? Go a bit out of these parks and you are in heavy industrialized area with a broad mix. Furniture, metal, food, computers etc. Greetings from east westfalia OWL.
If you have access to coke you should be able to crush the ore, mix it with the coke, add some powdered limestone (widely available for agricultural uses such as gardening) as a fluxing agent. Smelting the mixture should produce pig iron.
There are a couple of good videos here on RU-vid on making a furnace and smelting iron ore down. I think a flux of some sort is needed, sand, borax, and something else to create a forgeable iron bloom. Then you have to hammer the heck out of it to remove the impurities. I do have the entire process in one of my blacksmithing books somewhere. IIRC, my book is from the 1800's and was the sort of book an apprentice blacksmith would learn from.
Mike M has it right. You could also try making crucible steel, in which you would crush and roast it as Mike M suggested, but then you would charge your crucible with the ore and some soda, glass, and a carbon source. You would need to seal the crucible.
I found some nodules the same as this in the rock pools at Folkestone, UK about 20 years ago, When I researched what they were I found that several minerals can look like this, Limonite, Marcasite and Siderite, I think they are all related to Pyrite Marcasite is found across Poland, Romania and Germany especially the Teutonia Mine in Misburg, Hanover, Germany. Marcasite is also found in the chalk cliffs on the shore of France and England, specifically at Cap Blanc-Nez, Pas-de-Calais, France and at Kent, England (at Dover and Folkestone). It is also found across the U. S. A. It would be great to see you build a Bloomery and see if you can forge something from the 'sponge iron' Love the channel, cheers
Here in Utah Moqui is pronounced mow-kee, accent on the first syllable. Moqui marbles are formed when lightening strikes the sand that exists in southern Utah. I’ve picked them up from where they were formed. They leave a little trail in the sand where the molten glob rolled to a stop.
You indeed can't just melt the ore. It needs to be heated at high temperature in presence of a reducing agent, typically carbon, coal. To convert it to iron metal. You can either use the coal's (usually coke, in order to get to high enough temperatures) combustion to provide the heat, which will require a lot more coal. Or you could make an induction smelter, which would be "cleaner" Adding some sand or other flux would also facilitate the process.
That is beautiful country, I could imagine that it was a nice place to play at with your buddies when you were young. I'd be interested in seeing work with the iron that you found.
If it had a home cooked German dinner, it would have scored as a perfect video. I enjoyed seeing the ease with which you were able to find the fossils and the pellets. The scenery and the old houses in the village were beautiful. Bob
As a 22 year old from the United States, I can truly say that TPAI is someone that we should all know or know someone like. I love this video and all of your others. Your videos are a literal get away from reality. Every time I watch your videos I'm completely immersed in your work process and intelligence. I have grown up tinkering quite a bit, but never as in-depth, or I guess knowing exactly what I can use old parts for. Keep up the amazing videos and I expect to learn a lot from you. Thanks man
Love the checking-it-out spirit. On Moqui Marbles. They are concretions that form in Navajo Sandstone. The concretions form in many bizarre shapes and weather out of the softer sandstone. Only the spherical ones are usually called moqui marbles. It's pronounced mokee. I suppose as you would pronounce moqui in french or spanish.
you should try scientifical testingmothods to define the composition. is it multicoloured or singlecloured.? fells it hard or more soft? Is the material warm to the touch or cold? Is the smell familiar , or not.. but becarefull could be agressive or toxic to a degreee...let someone you dont like smell first.
You, my friend, may have missed your calling as a film maker, (though you are young enough, you still have time). What beautiful shots, of a beautiful country, and the score is evokes the emotions we are presently enduring, in our world: mourning the losses, and loneliness from the isolation. I've wanted for many years to see Europe. Did get a chance to go to Italy in the late '80's, but I doubt I will ever see more of Europe. Well done, and what funny looking chunk of ore!
I can only think of one thing. In the same spot you found iron, there might be gold! Not nuggets, but surely some flakes. Try digging material from behind big rocks, the water flow tends to get them stuck there
Really good one! I know it would be too easy to look everything up so I am with you on the discovery journey. I'm a bronze caster. Hammer heads, crosses and plaques. Easy stuff. Thank you! Press on my friend.
The first thing you have to do to extract iron from those is to roast them (yes, just like what you did to one with the torch, but on a bigger scale. Then, they will be brittle enough after roasting for you to be able to turn the ore into powder. You can then use a traditional method of extracting iron from ore by using charcoal in a traditional clay furnace.
You will have to run it through a bloomery before trying to forge it. If you heat that ore up in a forge or a foundry, it will just oxidize and the the impurities will not separate from it. The bloom that you form from the bloomery will have to be worked in a forge to work out the remaining impurities by folding and then forge welding it multiple times. This will yield you wrought iron and it can be worked like mild steel while having similar properties to mild steel. It can be purified further by more folding and mixing carbon into your welding flux to create primitive steel. I would suggest having a few helpers to strike for you when doing this or use a power hammer and/or a hydraulic press. You will also loose material to the folding process from forge scale and grinding the welding surfaces to ensure a good forge weld. You can also purify the bloom or the wrought iron in the crucible in your foundry with flux to pull out impurities and some added carbon and/or other alloying elements to get small batches of crucible steel. You will loose material to oxidation when you do this and it will take a lot of heat and time to do. Another option is to use a Japanese style bloomery and process (the name escapes me at the moment). It will create a bloom that is a contaminated steel and can be worked in a forge to fold it to force out impurities. This will take a lot of folding to achieve. You will also loose material to the folding process from forge scale and grinding the welding surfaces to ensure a good forge weld. You could also make a miniture blast furnace and just use the modern steel making process, but that would be a large and complicated build involving high temperatures and a lot of dangers to operate.
I really loved the little village of Triberg when I was there in 2014. Also liked the surrounding areas. Try to build the bloomery type of furnace to smelt the ore into a forge-able iron metal.
Man Germany is just unbelievably beautiful. It looks like a place from a fairy tale. I'm dying to visit one day. For me, it would be a dream come true. Greetings from Chile!
If you come to germany, stay away from Lower Saxony lol. I live there and barely anything looks like in this video. Check out North-Rhein Westphalia tho
"It looks like a place from a fairy tale." Most of the fairy tales in my part of the world have settings based on parts of Germany. that is to say, if I look at the history of these fairy tales, most of them have roots in central Europe. So, it very easily could be "a place a fairy tale came from", which is pretty similar to "a place from a fairy tale".
I have a question. I would love to visit Germany someday. I'm American, but my ancestry is from Germany and Ireland. I would love to visit Germany and most of Europe, but I am paraplegic. I need a wheelchair to get around. Here in America we have a law called the ADA (American's with Disabilities Act) which require businesses to make their places wheelchair accessible. Do they have anything like that in Germany (or Europe)? It would be sad to visit beautiful places like this only to find out I could not get anywhere or go anywhere!
Have always been interested in such things. Would like to see how you do it and your results. Thank you for passing on the power to us. Information is power!
If you don't want to use the traditional smelting methods, you can take a shortcut not available to the ancients... use aluminum as a reducing agent. Grind the ore to a fine powder, add aluminum powder, and light with a strip of magnesium metal. Thermite will generate enough heat to liquify the iron, and you can either let it harden and break it out of the container it's in or arrange to have it pour out of the container it burns inside into a mold. Wear goggles and protective gear, thermite produces UV light and can damage your eyes.
The easiest way to convert the iron ore into metal would probably be to first bake the ore at around 600C and then to crush it up, mix it with aluminium powder (basically make thermite) and light it off with a sparkler. The heat should convert the ore to magnetite (hence why it's magnetic). This magnetite can then be reduced by aluminium powder yielding metallic iron which is still alloyed with a bit of al but shouldn't have any carbon.
"Bomb crater." That was a curve ball. I was wondering what kind of processes could have made such a thing until that graphic popped up. Sheltered as my life is, I was not thinking about war or its effects.
Brave Westphalian rancher...looks like he/she is raising american bison. These beasts can be easily irritated and don't let things like fences, tourists or trailer panels impede them, especially during the rut.
ooo! THE POST APOCALYPTIC INVENTOR! Bavo! I love your content sir. What we keep doing to the earth boggles the mind and hurts the spirit. Referring to the bomb crater.
Beautiful landscape! If you get too close to those Bison, though, you won't be having a peaceful time. They are huge, powerful, and *grouchy* (which tourists in Yellowstone National Park find out the hard way every year). Fun to admire at a distance, though! :)
You go for a walk in Westpgalia and meet bison..... I go for a walk in Wiltshire and all I meet are sheep. But I do also have fossiliferous limestone. I'd like to study the geologic origins of these. ..... thumbs up to everybody else who said "bloomery"
Looking forward to see what you do with it. I do a little metal casting too, but I focus on bronze/ brass & aluminum. I just got a kiln to do my burn outs, jus need to replace the elements.
Wow, the iron ore where I'm from in the Southeast United States is red, and already magnetic. If you drop anything magnetic on the ground it will immediately be covered in everything from red dust to chunks of rocks.
There is considerable amount of literature on magnetic separation of weakly magnetic ore such as limonite though. Check for instance "Developments in the physical separation of iron ore: magnetic separation" DOI 10.1016/B978-1-78242-156-6.00009-5.
You are right that this is an iron ore, though it's actually a different mineral called marcasite, which is an iron sulfide, quite similar to pyrite (often called fools gold), while limonite is an iron oxide-hydroxide and has a more brownish powder like look. Marcassites can be found a lot on the coastal side near cap gris nez in France.
Keep in mind that iron is flammable and will burn in the presence of oxygen. The normal way of smelting is with silicon flux, the flux and iron ore will melt and most of the impurities and slag will float to the top of the silicon and will also keep the iron from burning, thus producing a mildly refined iron. With the addition of carbon mixed in with the iron in an oxygen deprived environment inside a smelter/foundry, it will create low to high carbon steel. You can even add chromium and nickel and a few other metals to make different grades of stainless steel from it.
Limonite is an oxide of iron that also contains water. By heating it you likely converted it to hematite. Basically hematite is an iron oxide. The "easiest" way to get iron from your limonite would be to heat it, removing the water and then crushing the brittle hematite to some form powder. You then mix that with powdered aluminum and then ignite the mixture. Be careful this can be extremely dangerous. Aluminum powder can be volatile if dispersed. The termite reaction is also extremely exothermic. Other ways of converting ironoxide to elemental iron involve heating the ore with reducing agents like coal (see boudouard reaction).
It's been a long time since blacksmithing was my hobby but if I recall when forging iron from ore of a lower purity it's best to grind it up first heat up your crucible then add the ore little by little until it all reaches a molten state then skim the dross off the top and cast it away the more dross you remove the more pure the metal will be but iron also oxidizes so there's always going to be a layer of slag or dross a cross the top of it to an extent
