13 votes

Natural draft furnace iron smelting

4 comments

  1. cfabbro
    Link
    From the video description: p.s. Make sure to turn on closed-captioning on the video.

    From the video description:

    About This Video:
    I built a natural draft furnace and smelted iron ore in it, producing a small amount of iron. A natural draft furnace is one where the draft is supplied by convection alone. This is opposed to a forced draft where bellows or fan is used to supply air flow instead. Natural draft furnaces are typically taller than forced draft furnaces to make use of the stack effect. They also often have multiple large air entries or tuyeres to help reduce resistance to air flow. Natural draft furnaces where used to smelt iron in ancient times in Europe and up to more recently in Africa where some are still standing. The lack of the need for bellows reduces labor and complexity.

    The furnace was 1.5 m tall and 25 cm internal diameter with 4 tuyeres 5 cm internal diameter. Charcoal was used as a fuel and iron bacteria was used as an ore. The smelt produced about 4 g of iron prills but could probably be improved with a longer preheat and a higher charcoal to or ratio. A second smelt was run with slag from previous smelts using 8 tuyeres this time to increase air flow. But it made only about a gram of iron, possibly due to the slag not having much iron left in it.

    Natural draft furnaces do not rely on bellows or blowers and so labor is significantly decreased during a smelt. They are also simpler to operate with less components to break down or maintain. However, I've read that they use more charcoal per iron made, possibly because part of the energy from the fuel goes into supplying the air flow through the furnace. With further experimentation, I believe that my natural draft furnaces can make better yields of iron.

    p.s. Make sure to turn on closed-captioning on the video.

    5 votes
  2. [3]
    doors_cannot_stop_me
    Link
    Sometimes I think you and I have nearly identical YouTube habits, so I feel compelled today to offer a recommendation: AtomicShrimp. He's a British YouTuber with varied subjects including cooking,...

    Sometimes I think you and I have nearly identical YouTube habits, so I feel compelled today to offer a recommendation: AtomicShrimp. He's a British YouTuber with varied subjects including cooking, foraging, scambaiting and crafts. I find him to be calming in much the same way that John's videos are, but with delightful banter and a dry sense of humor. I'm blathering at this point, but if you haven't already I highly recommend you give him a shot.
    Cheers!

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      cfabbro
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Great minds think alike. ;) And wow, it's honestly a bit of a rarity these days that someone recommends a channel to me that I've not heard of before, and I'm not already subscribed to. But you...

      Great minds think alike. ;)

      And wow, it's honestly a bit of a rarity these days that someone recommends a channel to me that I've not heard of before, and I'm not already subscribed to. But you just did exactly that. Thanks! It looks like they have a really varied array of interesting content too, which is cool.

      Edit: Oh, wait... I think I have actually heard of this channel before, and even watched some of their old viral scam baiting vids. I already sub to a few other scam baiters (E.g. Kitboga and Jim Browning) but for whatever reason I never subscribed to Atomic Shrimp after watching their videos all those years ago. I have subscribed now though, so thanks again for the rec.

      3 votes