As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.......
Betty White in a diatribe against trappers once stated that no one needed blacksmiths any more in her arrogance and ignorance. I place her a process for smelting, as it is that million dollar information which might be necessary once you no longer have a Walmart to run to.
All of these things are of value, as you try to cut down a tree with a stone axe, and you have no idea even how to form a stone into an axe in how un educated all of you are now.
This is how to smelt metals, all metals, just like Solomon's smelters ran long ago.
Having procured the desired amount of ore, it is rendered as small as possible by pounding with a hammer.
A platform is then built of clay, about six feet in length by three feet in height and width. A small well is formed in the centre of the platform, about eighteen inches in depth and diameter, egg-shaped. A few inches from the bottom of this well is an air-passage, connected with a pipe and bellows. The well is then filled with alternate layers of charcoal and pulverized iron ore; the fire is lighted, and the process of smelting commences.
The bellows are formed of two inflated skins, like a double "bagpipe." Each foot of the "bellows-blower" is strapped to one skin, the pipes of the bellows being fixed in the air-hole of the blast. He then works the skins alternately by moving his feet up and down, being assisted in this treadmill kind of labor by the elasticity of two bamboos, of eight or ten feet in length, the butts of which, being firmly fixed in the ground, enable him to retain his balance by grasping one with either hand.
From the yielding top of each bamboo, a string descends attached to either big toe; thus the downward pressure of each foot upon the bellows strains upon the bamboo top as a fish bears upon a fishing-rod, and the spring of the bamboo assists him in lifting up his leg. Without this assistance, it would be impossible to continue the exertion for the time required.
While the "bellows-blower" is thus getting up a blaze, another man attends upon the well, which he continues to feed alternately with fresh ore and a corresponding amount of charcoal, every now and then throwing in a handful of fine sand as a flux. The return for a whole day's puffing and blowing will be about twenty pounds weight of badly-smelted iron.
This is subsequently remelted, and is eventually worked up into hatchets, hoes, betel-crackers, etc., etc. being of a superior quality to the best Swedish iron.
Yes you are going to have to know metals too in nature, but would you like me to shit for you too.
Rhetorical.
You should though be able to at least finger out in this how to melt metal enough to beat on it, into things you like or need from existing metals, even if most of America was rapined for Chinese inferior smelting.
You can use this too for melting SAND which makes GLASS for you to store things in. This is just enough to keep in mind. Sand is thrown in to bond to take out impurities and the clay smelter will not melt.
Very interesting stuff really and I have mentioned here the English method for creating steel which I suppose you forgot too.
Any case, that is how things work, and when you put clay into high heat, you get china....not the nation, but the pottery.
nuff said
agtG
