Smelting Iron from ROCKS (Primitive Iron Age Extraction) 

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So, were here at this railroad and we found that these rails are made completely out of iron so were just gonna pop off few bars.

Ah yes, very clever to use the residue of the still free ranging wild freight trains.

the amount of decated time, effort, research and will to make these videos is honestly incredible.

Idk how I’ve never seen this channel before, I’m goin through my own similar journey and having the hard work laid before me is really helping so thank you this is right down my alley!

"I made this" 4 people working the bellows: "I'm sorry what?"

Finally. Tongs. No more messing around with chopsticks.

Watching this makes you appreciate how far weve come as a society in terms of these metallic alloys and elements, and also, this also gives me some kind of excitement as to what is to come in the future in terms of material science. We are still a young species technologically-wise, and Im sure that there will be some some great breaktroughs in the next 500 to 1000 years, as long as we can get along with each other, geopolitcally wise.

What I liked about all of your Videos the most is 'you show how you failed during the experimentation' this is where I learn about it a lot and get my doubts clear as the video goes on. Thank you for putting so much effort into video editing and everything, we as viewers are learning a lot from you. :)

10:30 Who else thought he was about to start tearing up abandoned railroad tracks?

Achievement reached: “Acquire Hardware”

I've been using coal that is found by train tracks here in north Carolina, so I was not surprised at your finding iron ore pellets there. Thanks for showing this!

This reminds me of my youth at our placer gold mines in B.C. You wouldn't believe the minerals you can find within a 20 minute drive of the hamlet of Wells. The beach sand of Jack-o-clubs lack is literally made of iron ore (iron sulphide to be specific, aka, fools gold or pyrite). It's incredibly heavy and very beautiful. Our mines were only a few miles from the townsite and in that small area you could find shales of all sorts, pyrites, the biggest chunks of quartz you've ever seen (I still have a piece that's probably a couple thousand pounds in front of my house from there), etc. In retrospect, it was a good place to spend the summers as a kid, despite hating it at the time.

So we found this natural source of high grade iron *proceeds to pull out an angle grinder and cut up the train tracks*

"Anyone wanna try this?" Goes to chill in the background, while the rest works...

Great job! I love your humble curiosity and I admire your willingness to put in a lotta work with a smile to make things basic and authentic.

Awesome info. Thank you for doing all of the heavy lifting. And thank you for bringing us along.

I've done a few smelts using a similar design to your combined cob stack and bowl bellows. I added ONE extra feature tho. And its made a HUGE difference to the process. I used a thin piece of bark (set low on the inside of the bowl and worked into a recess) to create a one way valve. The difference it made in air flow. AND in shoulder pain was... Tremendous. Basically you take a strip of bark. or anything thin and flexible and bury the top half into the cob wall as you lift the leather the pressure difference lets the valve flex and let air in. But when you push down the valve is forced close and all the air goes out thru the stack. It makes the bellows so much more efficient.

And lo, on the end of the 6th day, God created tongs. He click-clacked them together twice, and it was good.

Interesting. In Southeast Texas we have "redbeds" of iron ore at the surface from Early Permian-age. They were mined in late 1800's till 1920'ish. Very easy to dig. There are huge piles of it. Often used for rural roads. May have to try to do some smelting.

There's a method of making bellows that doesn't utilize leather and is essentially just a piston. I bring this up because you said leather is a requirement when it's more of a strong suggestion. You have a hollow cylinder with a hole at the bottom for air. You put a disc with a long handle inside it with a trapdoor on the inside so when you're pushing it pushes air through the tube and when pulling it pulls air from the top of the cylinder instead. That's basically it.

Everybody gansta till htme starts surpassing modern technology.

Ah yes the "involuntary workforce" really makes this historically acurate

Working at a foundry, I learned a little about copper, carbon, manganese, zinc added to the furnaces. High side iron. loved it. Slagging furnaces at 2800 is like breaking through the surface of the sun. It does trip me out though when some say we had to use electricity to get it started. Lol no electricity. Good stuff. I like it.

This is amazing. Thank you so much for making this video.

YEAH WE'RE IN THE IRON AGE!!!!

The Japanese box bellows work really well. There were no railroad tracks or black beach taillings in the Iron Age. Just go to a river and find rocks that look rusty and use those. Smash them up. Also, make a lot of coal out of wood before you start smelting. Take a look at how the Japanese and the Persians used to make high quality steel.

The iron ore at the Soudan Mine can be very high in iron content, they have a sample that they were able to arc weld two pieces together. The mine is way off the beaten path in northern Minnesota, but the tour is really interesting. Most iron is now mined in huge open pits, Soudan was an old fashioned deep tunnel, even though the iron is very high grade, it became too expensive to mine that way. When I visited, the elevator ride up and down was an adventure. We were squeezed into the “box”and half way up I realized there was a bat crawling up my arm, I did not say anything til we were at the top and the door opened.I was not fazed, but could imagine quite a traumatic event if someone freaked out.

18:24 100% accurate. I work in the semiconductor industry where we create organo-metallic compounds out of rare-earth metals to supply some of the world's largest electronics manufacturers. In my first two months alone, I worked with at least a dozen different metals: Zinc, Titanium, Zirconium, Palladium, Hafnium, Tungsten, Osmium, the list goes on. Most eventually end up in the processor chips for your phones and computers in conduits 1000x thinner than a hair on your head. Truly crazy stuff.

I can't wait to see him trying to refine oil...

Heya, for your bellows. Use some hollowed stick (bamboo) with a flanged end. You don't want the inside hole bigger than your thumb. This way when you pull up on the bellows you bring in cooler, richer air from away from the flame into the bellows. The way they were working on this episode, I'm afraid they were pulling in a lot of hot and/or combusted air. The quality wasn't as good so you weren't able to get the fire hotter, faster. If you can get in the quality, rich, oxygenated air that doesn't have CO, CO2, or other derived pollutants then you can get your fire hotter. Just a minor change on the bellows. If you don't have a flanged tube-like object then put a slit in your leather, wet it, and then put in your tube. Tie it tight as possible so when the leather dries, it shrinks, and acts like a natural grommet. For a future episode, either flip the bellows upside down to use a stick to stand on it OR keep them like they are but make the bellows linked on foot pedals (lack of a better term) so that you can just "walk" on them so one presses down when you step down on the left, then the right, etc.... This will be less painful on the arms, knees, and hips so you aren't sitting weird or get tired faster. Quality over quantity.

When working with clay for large projects, I suggest taking a look at the channel primitive technology. You have to let it almost fully dry before going onto the next layer. the way you were doing it, it was too wet, and therefor would collapse onto itself.. The only time you can really ignore that is if you build it around a frame. Then, when it's completed around it, burn away the frame. This will bake it as well as remove the frame at the same time. just clean out by hand and bam! you're good

It's funny, My brother and Myself growing partly up in the countryside. Started trying to make spears, stone arrowheads, hatchets, and bows. We experimented with techniques, even using tree sap, and hardening it in fire and cooling it suddenly. We discovered soaking wood branches in cold creeks for a week made it very pliable. And we would use it to secure things. And when it dried, it would stay in the shape needed. And we found pounding it, we could make a type of cloth, paper like material. And thought this could be made into clothing if we were inclined to make a bunch. Even baskets. Digging deep into the side of the creek ravine, and down into the water we discovered a very passable clay. And made by hand some cup like bowls. We let them dry and actually believe we could have fired them and made them serviceable. Around that time I started using a magnet. It was on a Keychain. And I noticed when I picked it up it was covered in iron fillings. And I started collecting a bunch. I wondered it people discovered a lodestone and had a similar experience. We intended to see if we could smelt them into a bloom. While firing the clay cup like bowls. But alas, that Summer ended and we never went back. However, 10 years later some locals had their reputations tarnished claiming they found an archeological site. My brother and Myself went: "Oops!" LOL!

So exciting! I'm glad it turned out so well, and thanks for having us along!

Sweet! Cool to see you connect with Good and Basic. Doing an iron smelt with them was tons of fun.

Ive literally been looking for a book like that for years, perfect.

this is a very good video for me...when ever i go to our big Garden i alway looks the small stone and i alway see some iron in/on them i will try to make it out ...thanks for the video

Dear Andy and HTME team, Thank u for making quarantine interesting.

Growing up in an iron mining town, the first thing I thought of when you were looking for iron ore was the train tracks. I remember as a kid, the tracks looked like they were built on nothing but iron ore pellets there were so many on the ground.

This is such a cool video series/channel idea. I am sure that I could find the answers to the whole 'tech tree' by googling each of them individually, but just like in video games, what fun is it to always play with everything unlocked that you did not do yourself? This is almost like Runescape IRL lol. You put a certain amount of hours in, and gather enough materials... then you can once you have enough XP you level up to unlock more efficient and stronger materials. Super cool. Well, you got a new sub.

Just discovered this channel, instantly hit subscribe. This is exactly what I need in my life! 😁

I actually picked up both of Dr. Dartnell's books when you had introduced them while working on clear glass a while back. Origins was fantastic, one of my favorite reads in the last few years. I'm a biologist, so I was aware of a few of those geologic events (namely the Great Oxidation Event that created the banded iron deposits), but it was really mindblowing just how deeply ingrained the geology of the planet has been with the development of human history. Still working through The Knowledge. It was actually that clear glass project that was how I found this channel in the first place, through your collaboration with the late Grant Thompson from TKOR, and Cody.

Did this with my son for a science project a couple years ago made a whole smelting thing in the backyard

I grew up in Duluth, live Northeast now. In the summer of 1965, between 7th & 8th grades, I took a history class at the St. Louis County museum which was on East Superior St. at the time. We took some class trips, one of which was to the Tower-Soudan Mine the day before it opened and became a state park. Our guide told us we couldn't tell anyone because the governor of the state had the "official" opening ceremony the next day.

Thank you for doing this! If I, as a child,saw this it would have changed my whole view of history.

learning science from school:😐 learning science from books:🙂 learning science from dr.stone:😄 learning science from htme:🤯

Did u ever find out who smelt it

@06:16 "repeat for the second bellow" - *_bellow_*_ noun:_ *"an act or sound of bellowing"* *_bellows_*_ noun_ (used with singular or plural verb) *_"a device for producing a strong current of air, consisting of a chamber that can be expanded to draw in air through a valve and contracted to expel it through a tube."_* *_Bellows_** is the same class of noun as **_scissors_** or **_pants._*

Very cool. We survived the bronze, copper and now we know hundreds of ways to smelting. Good job on video.

episode 500: Using my steamhammer to forge steel armor for my battleship

Welcome to the Iron Age! Soon you'll be making tools that can last a lifetime :)

I realize I'm a little late but you should have an inlet valve on your bellows. It would stop reversing air flow at the mouth of the kiln, but also reduce the overall effort by around 40%. African tradition has it in the skin atop the drum, opened and closed manually with each stroke. Once you get accustomed it is quite efficient.

Thank you for this wonderful video - it helped me understand so much

Welcome to the Iron Age!! I’ve really been enjoying this series since you started it, I hope you guys make a hammer first out of the ore , insanely useful for future projects/tool making

I can't wait to see what you do with iron, and what insight you could provide once you make steel!

Got to see someone smelt in a covered updraft trench (from a good distance). Slag left behind looked volcanic. Very impressive.

You are the person I was looking for, thanks mate for the brilliant content.

Lol "Meteoric iron was to small to make any major 'Impact'" hahaha

Andy: We need tongs to make tongs Me: *tree punching intensifies*

I had no idea about the 'Great Oxidisation Event' ! Really like this btw. Thanks!

Iron is also plentiful in Ringwood New Jersey where the iron for the giant chain floated across the Hudson River (to prevent British ships from going upriver) links are displayed at Ringwood manor.

They developed Iron Smelting and...uh..."unpaid labour"

Aww heck yeah I've been waiting for this for a long time, since watching Good and Basic's attempts. One thing you didn't mention: do those pot bellows have valves in them? If they don't, then I imagine if you're alternating them, one will be sucking in the air the other just blew out.

If you use a toller bloomery, one that's say, 8' to 10' high, it becomes its own bellows by drafting hot air through a long, thin chimney. Tip: Insert a copper pipe about 3/4 towards the top, run it down the chimney and exit the chimney at about 1/4 from the bottom. Feed it in a D shape to the very bottom of the bloomery, where air from it can get to the base of the coals. Encase the D in mud. By using this as an exclusive air vent, the bloomery's draft creates negative pressure in the chimney, pulling air in through the pipe. The air is heated in the pipe, thereby creating a significantly hotter fire. The process also slows exit from the chimney, moderating the fire at the higher temperature. I used this method with a 6' bloomery with the entrance at 5', a spiral coil lining the chimney, and the exit at 1'. Once all other exits were sealed with clay, the bloomery furnace quickly increased into high gear and got hot enough to thoroughly glaze the brick and partially melt the end of the copper tube nearest the coals, at least 300 degrees F hotter than required to melt iron.

Excellent show. Fascinating to see sketch of how iron was originally made. I’m going to listen or read Origins. I’m hopeful that here in Wyoming we will begin mining some of our rare earth metals.

Yay! Really glad to see the transition to iron age. Bronze age was getting a bit tiresome. Im very excited to see what you can make!

Is it just me or is it ironic that his sponsor is a hair growth company but most his audience is under 20

With respect your ol lady is bad to the bone. Its really nice to see a couple doing something this cool that takes alot of dedication and work. Respect. Great video

This video just saved me a lot of time and trouble. I'm a bladesmith and I'd like to make a quality knife from materials sourced from my own land. I have access to a creek bed with unlimited blue clay. I know I can do it. I may even try the ancient Japanese method after collecting black sand from the creek. Theres a lot of it and it sticks to magents really good. I've saved about 10 lb over the years. I was lost on where to begin lol. This helps. Thank you.

I've been to that beach. I didn't know the sand was magnetic. I just know it hurt my feet. 😂

When he went to the train tracks I actually kind of thought he'd start ripping up abandoned rails for some reason

RE: "low grade" - While the originally mined Minnesota (& gogebic, etc) was about 60-70% iron, the taconite left because more expensive or slow or bulky, whatever, is 30-40% iron. This waste astonished me , as world mining & shipping was less efficient than using the taconite. Israeli anthropologists, by the way, discovered years ago that their ancestors, when released by the Egyptian empire by the stochastic plague & other events(ALL such nomadic tribes are frowned upon by empires and they lived originally in the contested region between 3 empires, as pastoral nomads), their supposed "40 years" were in Sinai, learning mining, smelting from Egyptian miners. Those miners like most humans were reverent toward the mystery of extreme kiln heat. So, according to the anthropologists, the Hebrew ("Hebiru" the Old Akkadian word meaning "dirty nomads") dropped their former Pantheon - the Elohim, a batch not so different from the Greek Pantheon. Iron's advantages allowed them to make weaponry and settle down on the Jordan Valley . The "tabernacle" was a Kiln, holding the mystery of transforming rocks to useful metal. So they acquired the Kiln/smelting/fire deity, JHVH - They had to settle down to accomplish this & demoted their other "spirits" And now you have ridiculous dispute & war & hate, based upon disputes & hate over minor but always selfish differences creating sects of that heritage worldwide. Professionals at ANYTHING regard their pursuits as making them better , smarter, more excellent than others. I skim over a little complexity, but brains evolved to create heuristic distillations for over 1/2 billion years, to create the great gods Twitter & RU-vid Comment. Who am I to be an apostate to THEM?

Thank you for that little tid-bit on the first pair of tongs. I'd never heard that one. Nice to see a fellow Minnesotan succeed on RU-vid. Great channel שלום

Oh my gosh I’m a big Pokémon fan that diglet meme was amazing

In the next episode he figures out the hard way why you shouldn't let a newly formed bloom cool down before you hammer it down.

Shout out from Uptown! Cool seeing you all do this locally! I love the silver bay area.

A smooth stone in the underside of the leather of the bellows then tied to make a handle might help, keeps it air tight and gives you a grip to hold onto

Absolutely in love with this series. Has Netflix already contacted you guys to buy the distribution rights?

that was the cutest diglet noise ive ever heard

I haven't seen anything but the intro. But I know I need to subscribe to this channel. I find this kind of thing fascinating.

i subscribed in like the first 30 seconds this channel is litterally what ive been looking for im about to binge it

Using a magnet at that "beach" was so wild omg

You actually jumped from making "iron" to making "steel", with the use of charcoal.

Growing up near a steel mill, taconite pellets were my favorite slingshot ammo!

seeing the Iron smelter you guys built at 14:20 is crazy, to be fair I didn't check the channel yet who you consulted. Either way that was really impressive

Iron Concrete Magnets Chemistry Electricity Lights Silicon Circuitry Phones Liquid Crystal Display Calculators and computers

A closable door on the bellows is a great upgrade. You open on the refill. Close and press. You go way faster and it's not hard to pull the leather up. It also doesn't pull heat from your fire.

Fantastic. I'm gonna have to go back and watch from the start, this is a great idea.

you should make this into a playlist of all the stuff from stone to modern age

The end makes me think about how rich society is today. Walk through your house and see how many metal things you can find. Even people in the medevial often had very few metal possessions unless they were wealthy (or maybe specialized like a blacksmith)

BRUH I'm waiting for the titanium

Human beings are amazing all these discoveries and inventions culminating to this world today is crazy.

This was awesome 👏 very interesting to see how our ancestors used everything that had at their disposal

wow this is exactly what I have thought for years. Nice to somebody do the whole series of causality of how iron is made without the iron tools! :)

This is the episode I’ve been waiting for since the reset 🤘🏻I hope you go into more depth of refining your bloom as this can hardly e classed as “unlocking iron”

Love this channel and especially what you guys are doing.

Growing up in northern MN, we used to grab pellets along the tracks for slingshot ammo. That probably makes me sound 90 years old, but I’m under 40. Definitely brings me back.

When are you going to make Plague doctor masks and hazmat suits?

This is straight out of Episode 8. of Dr. Stone, that Science Anime, where everyone in the world gets petrified, and have to start humanity over thousands of years later.

I have been looking for this type of content for years