That's because magnetite has a much higher yield than hematite, and they ran a large amount of the black sand thru it between feedings. It boggles my mind how many hobbyists out there get even those most basic details right ... not tall enough, insufficient airflow, insufficient fuel, insufficient ore, etc. There are so many vids out there with the resulting bloom being tiny, uselessly impure and overfull of trapped slag, etc. It was refreshing to see someone do such a relatively good job.
Wow thats the way to do it ...I see so many of these videos where people just don't value what theyre making and the resources going into them but you nailed it...a beautiful bloom and a huge homogenous piece of iron...very very cool Well done guys
great quality video. as your friends sat around watching you guys I wondered how it would have been the same so many years ago with your ancestors. neat video 10/10
*Very impressive, I could see you guys on **_Survivor_** .* *Team Zebra (Day 2): "Wait a minute where did those guys get all the axes from?"* *Team Zebra (Day 4): "C'mon, those guys have a speargun and they're casting an engine!"*
@@styx62ga95 the bloom is spongy impure iron. To get it to a useable state it's hammered into a rectangular billet, drawn out in length, folded in half, reheated, and drawn out again. Done carefully this results in useful material. If you ever see old time iron objects that look like they have a faint wood grain it's the result of that purification folding process.
I have to say...your soil is magnificent. Here in North Texas, our ground is mostly rock and infertile and must be heavily modified to make things grow
Not surprising the magnetically separated material produced a giant bloom it had to be hundreds of times purer than that bog ore. Also multiple tappings moved most of the slag left out and away. Pretty genius.
I'm actually surprised about how much stuff there is in the sand. I know it's sand but I thought the iron content would be much higher! Makes sense now that I actually think about it though, it's sand not powdered iron 😅
I've been trying to make my own iron on and off (mostly off) for a little over a year now, most of that time spent gathering ore. A few things I tried to smelt it didn't work, but yesterday I had a very minor success using my diy gas forge as a bloom furnace. Most of the magnetite sand didn't smelt at all, but some worked out well and coalesced into a couple small melty looking pieces. This should help a lot in improving my process, thanks
Where I live black sand consists of oil....was the wheel barrow just for video ? Couldn't help but notice one bag of charcoal in it. Coulda just carried that eh ?
Fascinating video. Thank you. Watching you prepare the sand, after drying it, I wonder if you were to put it into a drum roller of some kind with a magnet placed in the center so that the drum would spin around the magnet. Sand would slide off but the treasure would stick.
@@jakobhalskov Super cool, and really you couldnt have done it better I dont think, your collection and separation really gave you a good volume of material, and for Me, really gives a good idea of what a more ironcentric village might have produced way back when at the beginning of time. Really cool, and I bet all your friends who helped will Never forget that.
Hello! I just stumbled onto your video and I am really glad that I did! Your skills and resourcefulness are amazing! Thank you for sharing that process with us! I subscribed. All the best!
You can easily make a magnetic drum separator to take the magnetite out. That way you can process more material, and make multiple runs, reducing the extraneous matter.
That was pretty cool, but what do you do with the bloom now? Am I correct that it is actually steel rather than iron due to having a high carbon content? So it needs to be folded in a forge and over an anvil to reduce the carbon content and other silicate impurities?
@@kovona If you get it completely molten, won't the slag and steel settle into different layers due to gravity and their different density? Like oil and water separating? Then you can just skim off the iron/steel? Is that what blast furnaces do? ( I really should know this seeing as my grandpa worked in a blast furnace all his life ).
@@phillipsusi1791 They did that with pig/cast iron, but cast iron has a lot of carbon in it which lowers the melting temperature (to about 1100-1200'C). The excess carbon also makes it more brittle and less malleable, and impossible to do forge work with. Wrought iron and steel has much less carbon in it, so the melting temperature is higher (above 1400'C), too high for the simple charcoal fueled furnaces of antiquity and middle-ages to melt completely. Since smiths couldn't reliably get the iron to melt, forging it to expel slag and consolidate the iron/steel was the next best thing. Note, there was also another process in which iron ore was first smelted and processed into cast iron to remove the slag, then the cast iron was remelted over and over again in a finery forge to burn off excess carbon and turn the cast iron into wrought iron. Later on, they expanded the process with the puddling furnace, where a pool of molten cast iron was stirred with iron rods to help carbon burn off. As carbon was reduced and the melting temperature of the iron increased, the solidifying iron stuck onto the rods and formed balls of refined wrought iron. This "puddled" wrought iron was a lot purer and had different properties to the old bloomery type wrought iron.
Think magnets to have a significant strength to do this is only know for a few hundreds year (i could be wrong).To my knowledge there have not been used magnetic separation of ore in a historical content.
@@jakobhalskov I mean magnetic rocks have been around as long as rock itself. I am sure our ancestors would have picked up magnetic rocks and thought "I wonder what would happen if I melt all this together".
Did you pan that black sand for gold before you melted it down? Now I know what to do with all the black sand I have left over from prospecting for gold. I have buckets of it I have saved.
We did not pan the sand for gold, but don't expect there to be any significant amount of gold in it, as we are in an area with very low gold occurrence and don't think the beach waves is able to concentrate the gold there should be precent. I'll give it a try next time im at that beach. With the concentrated black sand you need about 4 to 5 times as much sand than iron you expect to extract. And at least 10 kg to make a small bloom, you'll regret to make a 30 kg bloom as we did. Regards Sebastian
The big pieces you see falling off is part of the furnace walls and slag that is stuck to the bloom. But we did loose some iron that did not stick properly to the bloom, though that can be used in a future smelt.
Nice last yield. How much does a bloom typically reduce in volume when fully compacted ? I have a lot of redly colored hill magnetite here. I find the idea of doing an old fashion coalpile and smelts rather tempting :)
if you fold it a few times it is not unlikely you are only left with 1/4 of the starting bloom. So make more than you think you need. The 1/3 loss is mostly in the first compaction. Sorry for the potential confusion. -Sebastian
@@jakobhalskov Life is learning by confusion, revision of detail is a step process. I appreciate both it and that you bother to add correction. Thanks :) I figure from observing scaling from impact working any mass manufactured iron/steel, there will be losses of mass at any process of compaction shaping. Carbon reduction, impurities etc. Thinking of it, it does sound much like the Bessimer... On mere ish assumption; How much stronger could a traditional poured steel cast anvil become, compared to one well forged in iron ?
A comment on the Bessimer process; the iron in a blommery dose not really melt. Though planning on doing a video on hearth fining iron, to reduce phosphorus and slag, maybe make some steel. With out promising anything. About the strength, using tensile strength as a proxy for strength/toughness/quality. As from the 2 articles I can find on strength of bloom/wrought iron. Bloom/wrought iron have a tensile strenght of 200-300 MPa. The samples was probably not heat treated, though the low C content is not allowing for much hardening. In comparison to 4140 alloy (common tool steel) have a tensile strength of 900-1500 MPa. after heat treatment. Not in any way a one to one comparison but might give a ballpark feeling of the difference, might be completely wrong. One "common" failure of old forged anvils is the horn and heel gets knocked off with sufficient abuse, because the anvil is forge welded together from multiple pieces. But there are also many anvils that have not broken in that way. -Sebastian
Any strong magnet will do; it is just a matter of how much you can pick up at a time. It helps to have something between the magnet and the sand to be able to separate it. We were using a magnet from a medium large generator.
We did not pan any of the sand for gold, but don't think the conditions at the beach would concentrate gold in any significant amount. At 0:48 you can see the "gems", the brown is most likely garnets, green olive and clear and pink is quarts, but they are sub mm in size; regards Sebastian
I didn't quite understand why you were doing it this way to begin with until you broke the first one open, and then I got it immediately. Imagine in the old days when they first figured out such things by accident.
At the west coast of Northern Jutland, i didn't know we had it either before i stumbled upon it. It must be something with how the waves is that sorts the sand -Sebastian
Most likely not, as the black sand indicates the content of iron oxides. White sand is quartz. the yellow sand have traces of iron oxides, but nothing that's possible to extract metallic iron from.
When I was a kid I would use the 2 Tupperware bowls one had the strong magnet the other had the surface area I would rub on sand when you wanted to remove the filings lift sealed bowl and place the surface bowl in the container. My uncle worked for Lockheed so got me a high tech magnet well high tech for the 80s.
I'll say it could be done with out the magnet, especially if the sand was collected more carefully, the bog ore is definitely possible to do wit out a magnet if you know where to find decent quality ore. The higher amount of silica sand and other non-ferrous minerals in the ore would most likely change the slag chemistry, for the better or worse i cant say. But the yield would be significant less. But how the furnace is operated also have a large impact on the quality. Sorting the ore with a magnet, just ensured that we would get iron. -Sebastian
I thought best practice was to mix limestone with the iron sand to assist slag formation and runoff ? BTW your plinth probably should have been underlaid by 4 small I beans ... it wouldnt have tilted the way it did when you harvested the bloom (6:50).
I love how much effort, time and money goes into this, because it is simply cool. It would be much easier to melt down some scrap iron. But what's the fun in that? :D
I don't know who you are or what organization you are with but that was a very awesome video I have one bit of advice though try surrounding the furnace and a layer of cob to try and contain more heat in the end it still worked so that just might help in the future
The slack is more viscous like honey or thicker, if it was molten iron it would flow nearly like water. When you break it apart the slack is brittle like glass and black, where the iron is metallic
Hot DAMN that was a massive iron bloom! Man, I cannot wait to make my own iron again. Did it twice with my friends back in school, alas, I ended up getting nothing from the smelts. Ack!
@@jakobhalskov just my curiousity if we use induction furnace can we increase yield of iron by weight of sand? or your bloom was efficient enough so there were no more 30 kg of iron?
You would risk making cast iron, which is unforgeable and it's not exactly easy to oxidise the carbon to make it into steel at home, but can be done. There is also the risk of introducing sulfur from the coal which isn't desirable. Charcoal burn fast and clean.
Not worth the neighbor complaints with the smoke in an urban neighborhood. Have made charcoal on a small scale before. it would be fun to make a larger batch of charcoal if I get access to cheap/free wood and a place outside of the city. Not sure if it is profitable to make my own charcoal if i need to purchase the wood. -Sebastian
@@jakobhalskov Oof! I had not even considered the neighbour complaints. Yeah, we can all do with fewer neighbour issues. :) I suppose it is the kind of project you can do if you own or manage a piece of woodland, and otherwise we're just left dreaming. :)
Used a strong industrial magnet i borrowed from a friend, think you could use one of those they use for magnet fishing. As for the sand, found it on the beaches of north western Jutland. I dont know how common magnetite sand is on other beaches
@@jakobhalskov is Black Sand basically sand with Iron and Minerals? While Ironsand is purely Iron that's been turned into like Small Powder like? Would that make them different right?
@KyuuDesperation blacksand is just sand primarily made of dark(igneous) minerals, in this case mostly magnetite. In most cases i would accept using black sand an iron sand interchangeably. I would not consider metallic iron "iron sand". Hope that made sense.
Good job the last is a nice baby. It's a pleasure to give birth to monsters like that even if you regret it when the cleaning process starts! Did the big one get more carbon than the iron bloom of the first smelt? And also why did you choose a tuyere made of copper?
Indeed! I will ask my brother, Sebastian, about the carbon content of the two blooms. Regarding the tuyere we had casted one of copper to be able to cool it well to prevent it from melting when exposed to the high temperatures within the oven.
@@jakobhalskov Thank you! I still don't understand. Copper melt before steel pipe. And cooling it OK, but why would it be easyer to cool? Or... You are aiming historical accuracy and in this case copper is better than clay and steel pipe would be anachronic? Sorry that's a lot of questions
@@MrWTPunk The idea is that when the tip of the tuyere gets heated, that heat energy can more easily be transferred to the outside at radiate away due to coppers ability to transfer heat (compared to steel for example). Regarding the carbon content; our feeling is that the black sand iron has a larger carbon content than the bog ore, but we still need to do a proper spark test to determine this.
@@jakobhalskov Thanks for taking the time to explain, I like to understand. So you never ended with a blocked, molten tuyere at the extremitie, that's good to know. I have read somewhere that magnetite creates in general carboned blooms.
Magnetite is thought to be found only as large crystals, but those are extremely rare. Instead magnetite is found as banded iron formations or in iron sand. In igneous rocks the grains of magnetite are very scarce and minuscule but are concentrated into sand due to weathering.
This is pretty damn cool, I might have tried making my own iron in the future but it really looks like doing this alone mighe not be a very smart idea lol. Possibly if a smaller scale is possible to make something that weighs only a few kilos, but you do need people around to prevent fire spread.
enough iron to potentially make 15 swords
Spears
or 60 horseshoe, or 15 hoe )
The most impressive thing for me was the fact that you were able to sun dry the sand in Denmark :D. Nice job chaps
That was an amazing oven, great execution, one of the best home made smelters I've seen. That harvest was impressive.
That's because magnetite has a much higher yield than hematite, and they ran a large amount of the black sand thru it between feedings.
It boggles my mind how many hobbyists out there get even those most basic details right ... not tall enough, insufficient airflow, insufficient fuel, insufficient ore, etc. There are so many vids out there with the resulting bloom being tiny, uselessly impure and overfull of trapped slag, etc. It was refreshing to see someone do such a relatively good job.
Wow thats the way to do it ...I see so many of these videos where people just don't value what theyre making and the resources going into them but you nailed it...a beautiful bloom and a huge homogenous piece of iron...very very cool
Well done guys
Man literally made a minecraft grass block
he had a silk touch shovel
@@smilysht238 yes
Ong
Smelted real life iron
He is the Real Steve
Tune in next time for him to carry lava buckets in his pocket
this is what this game is doing to us :D
great quality video. as your friends sat around watching you guys I wondered how it would have been the same so many years ago with your ancestors. neat video 10/10
Thanks for your kind comment Rusty! :)
*Very impressive, I could see you guys on **_Survivor_** .*
*Team Zebra (Day 2): "Wait a minute where did those guys get all the axes from?"*
*Team Zebra (Day 4): "C'mon, those guys have a speargun and they're casting an engine!"*
With the ancestors, there would have been more singing, beer, and mead.
The last bloom was absolutely huge! 😯
Yeah, we did not expect to get such a big yield from the black sand!
What’s the purpose of the bloom?
@@styx62ga95 The bloom contains the refined iron and slag, and the bloom is compacted to further refine the iron
At 07:03 onwards I enjoyed the dance😅.
@@styx62ga95 the bloom is spongy impure iron. To get it to a useable state it's hammered into a rectangular billet, drawn out in length, folded in half, reheated, and drawn out again. Done carefully this results in useful material. If you ever see old time iron objects that look like they have a faint wood grain it's the result of that purification folding process.
Love how you're doing like next level blacksmithing in a suburban garden lol
Actually this form of blacksmithing has been used in Denmark for at least 1300 years. Vikings don't ya know...
Awesome video! I was wondering though why is the bloom first hit on a stump instead of straight to the anvil?
Wow! Everything about this was beautiful, from the iron working to the scenery.
You make me want to visit Denmark.
I have to say...your soil is magnificent. Here in North Texas, our ground is mostly rock and infertile and must be heavily modified to make things grow
Yeah, we got great soil here in Denmark - more than 60% of the country is used for farming and growing crops.
From where did you get the bog ore?
From a plowed field in Midtjylland, Denmark :)
I'm more impressed with the way y'all saved the sod
Foreal, perfect squares
Not surprising the magnetically separated material produced a giant bloom it had to be hundreds of times purer than that bog ore. Also multiple tappings moved most of the slag left out and away. Pretty genius.
I'm actually surprised about how much stuff there is in the sand. I know it's sand but I thought the iron content would be much higher! Makes sense now that I actually think about it though, it's sand not powdered iron 😅
@@amogusenjoyerYeah the magnetic separation prior to smelting was absolutely genius. Took away a huge amount of the slag before it even melted
I've been trying to make my own iron on and off (mostly off) for a little over a year now, most of that time spent gathering ore. A few things I tried to smelt it didn't work, but yesterday I had a very minor success using my diy gas forge as a bloom furnace. Most of the magnetite sand didn't smelt at all, but some worked out well and coalesced into a couple small melty looking pieces.
This should help a lot in improving my process, thanks
Cool, we wish you the very best luck with the process and journey this is! :)
The trick is it has to be a charcoal forge. In a gas forge there's nothing to add carbon to the iron.
@@anoncommenter6726 thanks for the info! It's been a long while since I've had a chance to try it, but I'll save this comment for next time
@@gamemeister27carbon is needed to reduce the iron oxide into iron, to do the same in gas stove you would need to burn hydrogen or carbon monoxide.
@@williamkao5747 So it was designed as a gas forge, but I did this by burning charcoal inside it and stuck a blower in the torch hole
This is what happens when there's no Renaissance Fair or cosplay event for these guys to attend.
Removing the lawn to place it back later at first had me convinced this must be Germany. :D
Hah, close! Denmark just north of Germany :)
@@jakobhalskov For now ....
@@Sphere723 pft Denmark was a founding member of nato, which now includes Germany.
This is very cool that you did this with just some friends in your yard.
Thanks skipmage! It was great fun. :)
What a fantastic bloom! And I love your technique with the magnet.
Where I live black sand consists of oil....was the wheel barrow just for video ? Couldn't help but notice one bag of charcoal in it. Coulda just carried that eh ?
It was just one of the lasts bags my brother carried in when I came by with my camera :)
When you threw the sawdust in during the preheat 😂👍.
Definitely sharing this one. Great video. Subbed
Hah, thanks! I do my best to add a bit of fun and silliness to my life and these videos :)
I love TH-cam, ''I'm bored. lets make some Iron''
Yeah, we are happy to share the experience with you!
4:25 do people not both to add limestone to the mix?
How many long did The smelting take how many Times did you need to get The slag out?
Around 6-8 hours as far as I can remember.. slag removed once an hour.
Fascinating video. Thank you. Watching you prepare the sand, after drying it, I wonder if you were to put it into a drum roller of some kind with a magnet placed in the center so that the drum would spin around the magnet. Sand would slide off but the treasure would stick.
Thats a really cool project, and nice to see you went all the way, well done.
Thanks Mr Nobody! :)
@@jakobhalskov Super cool, and really you couldnt have done it better I dont think, your collection and separation really gave you a good volume of material, and for Me, really gives a good idea of what a more ironcentric village might have produced way back when at the beginning of time. Really cool, and I bet all your friends who helped will Never forget that.
Could the silica found in the quartz act as a flux that's pre-mixed in with the ore?
The playground at my elementary school had some sort of black sand playlots. We would drag magnets thru it to collect the iron.
Ah that sounds like fun! Here in Denmark I only know of one place where this black sand can be found.
Hello! I just stumbled onto your video and I am really glad that I did!
Your skills and resourcefulness are amazing!
Thank you for sharing that process with us! I subscribed.
All the best!
Thank you very much for your kind words :) Wish you the best
You can easily make a magnetic drum separator to take the magnetite out. That way you can process more material, and make multiple runs, reducing the extraneous matter.
Shouldn't you wear breathing protection when crushing charcoal?
Very nice guys! A lot of work but you got a denent amount metal to work with! Good job!
How much bloom from the 70 kg ore ?I can't grasp it ...
How did ppl extract black magnetite from dark sand back then? Do you think they just smelted all sands together?
Oh my god the way the dirt came out in solid blocks when they were shovelling is so satisfying
Yeah, our old Boy Scout skills come into great use here :)
I remember that from old Boy Scout Manuals but the new ones don’t have that anymore I think.
Estimation of how much all that charcoal cost?
We bought around 300 kilograms of charcoal at price around 2400 DKK ≈ 400 USD for four runs of iron extraction.
What is the melted liquid we saw coming out when you punched out the slag? Was it flux?
That was pretty cool, but what do you do with the bloom now? Am I correct that it is actually steel rather than iron due to having a high carbon content? So it needs to be folded in a forge and over an anvil to reduce the carbon content and other silicate impurities?
It will be iron/carburized steel with slag mixed throughout. It will need to be worked hot to expel the slag and consolidate the metallic content.
@@kovona If you get it completely molten, won't the slag and steel settle into different layers due to gravity and their different density? Like oil and water separating? Then you can just skim off the iron/steel? Is that what blast furnaces do? ( I really should know this seeing as my grandpa worked in a blast furnace all his life ).
@@phillipsusi1791 They did that with pig/cast iron, but cast iron has a lot of carbon in it which lowers the melting temperature (to about 1100-1200'C). The excess carbon also makes it more brittle and less malleable, and impossible to do forge work with. Wrought iron and steel has much less carbon in it, so the melting temperature is higher (above 1400'C), too high for the simple charcoal fueled furnaces of antiquity and middle-ages to melt completely. Since smiths couldn't reliably get the iron to melt, forging it to expel slag and consolidate the iron/steel was the next best thing.
Note, there was also another process in which iron ore was first smelted and processed into cast iron to remove the slag, then the cast iron was remelted over and over again in a finery forge to burn off excess carbon and turn the cast iron into wrought iron. Later on, they expanded the process with the puddling furnace, where a pool of molten cast iron was stirred with iron rods to help carbon burn off. As carbon was reduced and the melting temperature of the iron increased, the solidifying iron stuck onto the rods and formed balls of refined wrought iron. This "puddled" wrought iron was a lot purer and had different properties to the old bloomery type wrought iron.
Hello, do also this things. But with bought ore. No i want to search it. Germany is not so far away.
Where in Denmark you found it?
@primativetechnology - did they have magnets "back in the day"? I feel like this is a good way of getting a bloom if it fits the genre.
Think magnets to have a significant strength to do this is only know for a few hundreds year (i could be wrong).To my knowledge there have not been used magnetic separation of ore in a historical content.
@@jakobhalskov I mean magnetic rocks have been around as long as rock itself. I am sure our ancestors would have picked up magnetic rocks and thought "I wonder what would happen if I melt all this together".
how would they do this process back when they didn't have magnets? use gravity and water to sort out the heavier stuff?
I can't say from a historical standpoint, but natural magnets exist
You are crasy my friend! Great work!
Did you pan that black sand for gold before you melted it down? Now I know what to do with all the black sand I have left over from prospecting for gold. I have buckets of it I have saved.
We did not pan the sand for gold, but don't expect there to be any significant amount of gold in it, as we are in an area with very low gold occurrence and don't think the beach waves is able to concentrate the gold there should be precent. I'll give it a try next time im at that beach. With the concentrated black sand you need about 4 to 5 times as much sand than iron you expect to extract. And at least 10 kg to make a small bloom, you'll regret to make a 30 kg bloom as we did. Regards Sebastian
That oven was impressive and that ball of iron surprisingly YUGE! You earned yourself a sub good Sir 😊
Thanks for your kind words! We will soon be back with new videos :)
awesome, can't wait to try for myself! Don't forget to make a movie about the forging process
We did some of it today and will soon have video ready! Thanks for your interest :)
Do u lose any iron once u remove the lump from the oven? Seemed like some was lost but idk what I am looking at really
The big pieces you see falling off is part of the furnace walls and slag that is stuck to the bloom. But we did loose some iron that did not stick properly to the bloom, though that can be used in a future smelt.
Great video I wasn’t expecting to see so few views when I saw the counter. Keep up the great content
Thanks MP! We will soon release more videos :)
Nice last yield. How much does a bloom typically reduce in volume when fully compacted ? I have a lot of redly colored hill magnetite here. I find the idea of doing an old fashion coalpile and smelts rather tempting :)
From the raw bloom to forged into usable bars you lose about 1/3 in weight, a combination of slag and forge scale
if you fold it a few times it is not unlikely you are only left with 1/4 of the starting bloom. So make more than you think you need. The 1/3 loss is mostly in the first compaction. Sorry for the potential confusion.
-Sebastian
@@jakobhalskov Life is learning by confusion, revision of detail is a step process. I appreciate both it and that you bother to add correction. Thanks :) I figure from observing scaling from impact working any mass manufactured iron/steel, there will be losses of mass at any process of compaction shaping. Carbon reduction, impurities etc. Thinking of it, it does sound much like the Bessimer... On mere ish assumption; How much stronger could a traditional poured steel cast anvil become, compared to one well forged in iron ?
A comment on the Bessimer process; the iron in a blommery dose not really melt. Though planning on doing a video on hearth fining iron, to reduce phosphorus and slag, maybe make some steel. With out promising anything.
About the strength, using tensile strength as a proxy for strength/toughness/quality. As from the 2 articles I can find on strength of bloom/wrought iron. Bloom/wrought iron have a tensile strenght of 200-300 MPa. The samples was probably not heat treated, though the low C content is not allowing for much hardening. In comparison to 4140 alloy (common tool steel) have a tensile strength of 900-1500 MPa. after heat treatment. Not in any way a one to one comparison but might give a ballpark feeling of the difference, might be completely wrong.
One "common" failure of old forged anvils is the horn and heel gets knocked off with sufficient abuse, because the anvil is forge welded together from multiple pieces. But there are also many anvils that have not broken in that way.
-Sebastian
If you were ever stranded on an island, I’m not so sure you would need to be rescued. That was pretty good. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks, that is nice of you! :)
Hey question what kind of magnet ???
Any strong magnet will do; it is just a matter of how much you can pick up at a time. It helps to have something between the magnet and the sand to be able to separate it. We were using a magnet from a medium large generator.
Did you pan any of the sand off to check for gold/gem content?
We did not pan any of the sand for gold, but don't think the conditions at the beach would concentrate gold in any significant amount. At 0:48 you can see the "gems", the brown is most likely garnets, green olive and clear and pink is quarts, but they are sub mm in size; regards Sebastian
Ever done in Denmark???
I didn't quite understand why you were doing it this way to begin with until you broke the first one open, and then I got it immediately. Imagine in the old days when they first figured out such things by accident.
Thats the way my furnaces are. Great video Jakob but I make open hearth furnace and melt brass, bronze and aluminum.
Thank you for this extremely useful knowledge. 💯
I'm weirdly amazed! I just watched a Viking BBQ party...😁
is it a good idea to cool down the bloom in urine?
Hah, did not expect that question! Presumably not the best idea, even though it could be a nice video title.
Have you added any flux? Or both bog ore and iron sand have enough fluxing content already?
We did not add any flux for this iron extraction process - later when forging it to more solid/compact iron, Borax is used to help with this.
Imagine they did this thousands of years ago. Just amazing. Who would have thought to do such a thing.
Where could I do the likrs of this in a friend's yard...
Where did you buy that magnet plate?
This specific magnet was lend to us by a friend who got it from a broken wind turbine :) It's used to hold ladders in place
Wait how did you find black sand in Denmark ?
At the west coast of Northern Jutland, i didn't know we had it either before i stumbled upon it. It must be something with how the waves is that sorts the sand
-Sebastian
Is it possible to get iron from usual white or yellow send?
Most likely not, as the black sand indicates the content of iron oxides. White sand is quartz. the yellow sand have traces of iron oxides, but nothing that's possible to extract metallic iron from.
Why did you take out the blum so soon? To burn off impurities.
When I was a kid I would use the 2 Tupperware bowls one had the strong magnet the other had the surface area I would rub on sand when you wanted to remove the filings lift sealed bowl and place the surface bowl in the container. My uncle worked for Lockheed so got me a high tech magnet well high tech for the 80s.
Lovely looking soil there. Shame you don't get enough sun, you could grow some lovely vegetables.
Health and Safety??
Couple of Questions
In a purely fictional survival situation, could this be done without magnets?
Would the results be similar or different?
I'll say it could be done with out the magnet, especially if the sand was collected more carefully, the bog ore is definitely possible to do wit out a magnet if you know where to find decent quality ore.
The higher amount of silica sand and other non-ferrous minerals in the ore would most likely change the slag chemistry, for the better or worse i cant say. But the yield would be significant less. But how the furnace is operated also have a large impact on the quality.
Sorting the ore with a magnet, just ensured that we would get iron.
-Sebastian
One could build a primitive box with v cuts in it to separate the magnetite from the sand.
I thought best practice was to mix limestone with the iron sand to assist slag formation and runoff ?
BTW your plinth probably should have been underlaid by 4 small I beans ... it wouldnt have tilted the way it did when you harvested the bloom (6:50).
That soil was amazing. It just came up in nice square chunks.
That was wild. Tried it once with hematite but wasn't really succsessful. You made the fire god proud!
I love how much effort, time and money goes into this, because it is simply cool.
It would be much easier to melt down some scrap iron. But what's the fun in that? :D
I don't know who you are or what organization you are with but that was a very awesome video I have one bit of advice though try surrounding the furnace and a layer of cob to try and contain more heat in the end it still worked so that just might help in the future
We are just some young guys new to this and we are learning a lot from every time we try this. Thanks for the advise!
How can you tell that its slag thats coming out and not liquid iron
The slack is more viscous like honey or thicker, if it was molten iron it would flow nearly like water. When you break it apart the slack is brittle like glass and black, where the iron is metallic
Awesome, sands so rich in magnetite are very rare!
Amazing! Great work. You guys are metal af.. hahaha
🤘😎🤘
Oh cool, youtube randomly decided to show me *vikings smelting iron.*
Hot DAMN that was a massive iron bloom! Man, I cannot wait to make my own iron again. Did it twice with my friends back in school, alas, I ended up getting nothing from the smelts. Ack!
Why charcoal?
what is iron yield for a kg of pure magnetite?
We got around 30kg of iron bloom from 70kg of sand we estimated to be 80-90% magnetite :)
@@jakobhalskov just my curiousity if we use induction furnace can we increase yield of iron by weight of sand? or your bloom was efficient enough so there were no more 30 kg of iron?
I cannot give a qualified answer on that I’m afraid.
the tapping method for the slag was new to me, very interesting and effective!
are those the guys from how to make everything?
Nope, but we do like to make quite a lot of things ^^
Absolutely cool video, makes me want to go there and try this. How would your results been if you used coal instead of charcoal?
You would risk making cast iron, which is unforgeable and it's not exactly easy to oxidise the carbon to make it into steel at home, but can be done. There is also the risk of introducing sulfur from the coal which isn't desirable. Charcoal burn fast and clean.
Have you considered making your own charcoal?
I mean, you probably have made some. But is it worth the effort, once you have the setup figured out? :)
Not worth the neighbor complaints with the smoke in an urban neighborhood. Have made charcoal on a small scale before. it would be fun to make a larger batch of charcoal if I get access to cheap/free wood and a place outside of the city.
Not sure if it is profitable to make my own charcoal if i need to purchase the wood.
-Sebastian
@@jakobhalskov Oof! I had not even considered the neighbour complaints. Yeah, we can all do with fewer neighbour issues. :)
I suppose it is the kind of project you can do if you own or manage a piece of woodland, and otherwise we're just left dreaming. :)
That was owsom,,, let us do that again we love this video project
thank you this is very helpful and will help me alot in projects
Happy to hear that - wish you the best!
@@jakobhalskov hey so what kind of magnet do you use and can you find patches of that sand
@@jakobhalskov because you inspired me to start to forge
Used a strong industrial magnet i borrowed from a friend, think you could use one of those they use for magnet fishing. As for the sand, found it on the beaches of north western Jutland. I dont know how common magnetite sand is on other beaches
If anyone's seen the Netflix show ragnarok will get the reference I'm making, I would turn half of that into mjolnir
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1:40 me and the boys digging grass blocks after finding a silk touch shovel
Important Question: is Black Sand and Ironsand the same?
Yes, in 99% of the time. It's mostly magnetite mineral. Black sand can also referer to vulcanic sand that's basalt.
@@jakobhalskov is Black Sand basically sand with Iron and Minerals? While Ironsand is purely Iron that's been turned into like Small Powder like?
Would that make them different right?
@KyuuDesperation blacksand is just sand primarily made of dark(igneous) minerals, in this case mostly magnetite. In most cases i would accept using black sand an iron sand interchangeably. I would not consider metallic iron "iron sand".
Hope that made sense.
When are we going to see that metal being forged into some weird tool?
Quite soon! Today we worked some pieces of the bloom into more solid pieces of iron; the video of this will be released this week.
Good job the last is a nice baby. It's a pleasure to give birth to monsters like that even if you regret it when the cleaning process starts!
Did the big one get more carbon than the iron bloom of the first smelt?
And also why did you choose a tuyere made of copper?
Indeed! I will ask my brother, Sebastian, about the carbon content of the two blooms. Regarding the tuyere we had casted one of copper to be able to cool it well to prevent it from melting when exposed to the high temperatures within the oven.
@@jakobhalskov Thank you!
I still don't understand.
Copper melt before steel pipe.
And cooling it OK, but why would it be easyer to cool?
Or... You are aiming historical accuracy and in this case copper is better than clay and steel pipe would be anachronic?
Sorry that's a lot of questions
@@MrWTPunk The idea is that when the tip of the tuyere gets heated, that heat energy can more easily be transferred to the outside at radiate away due to coppers ability to transfer heat (compared to steel for example). Regarding the carbon content; our feeling is that the black sand iron has a larger carbon content than the bog ore, but we still need to do a proper spark test to determine this.
@@jakobhalskov Thanks for taking the time to explain, I like to understand. So you never ended with a blocked, molten tuyere at the extremitie, that's good to know.
I have read somewhere that magnetite creates in general carboned blooms.
Crazy amount of effort and energy being spent back then. We owe so much to technology
A part of the reason why Denmark went from being covered in forrest to only having primarily commercial forrest
That’s pure iron ?🎉
Magnetite is thought to be found only as large crystals, but those are extremely rare. Instead magnetite is found as banded iron formations or in iron sand. In igneous rocks the grains of magnetite are very scarce and minuscule but are concentrated into sand due to weathering.
You could use a sluice box right on the beach, that way you are bringing mostly black sand home and leaving the other sands behind.
Awesome! I see black sand on our beaches all the time.
Like it so much. Best way to pass time. Hope to do it myself one day
Thanks for your kind words Waleed! I hope you will get the chance to try this one some day :)
Best wishes // J
Reminds me a bit of how tamahagane is made. Great work!
This is pretty damn cool, I might have tried making my own iron in the future but it really looks like doing this alone mighe not be a very smart idea lol. Possibly if a smaller scale is possible to make something that weighs only a few kilos, but you do need people around to prevent fire spread.