Smelting Steel

This is something most smiths wanted to try and a lot of them acctualy do. The motivation behind this visual article is to show that with little equipment and some free time you can do it.

We learnt a lot during this day, mostly that some of our choices here were wrong. We used a forge blower for this operation, but we figured there was need some something more powerfull. Our setup was not very good, as we adapted an old charcoal forge design instead of using a real furnace. The bloom kept clogging the blower because it was too weak and because we didn't leave much room on the bottom for the steel to sit on. And so many other little things

We got some decent results though, as you can see from the pictures. Hope you like this little backyard fun me and Rodrigo Sfreddo had at his shop that day. It was a lovely afternoon!

Jeff Velasco


Raw materials are charcoal and iron wire	Both cut to proper size	We adapted an old forge to serve as a furnace

The fire is build and temperature is high	Ready to start adding stuff	We keep feeding iron

And we keep feeding charcoal	And more and more and more...	Keep it running

We tried to keep the flames that high	Cooling down after two hours	A look at the beast

Cooling it down	Ain't she pretty?	Spark testing

Cutting in two	our final results	Second view of that

Português

English