I recently visited a Korean craftsman who smelts and smiths iron/steel.
He has built what looks like a bloomery, but the iron apparently
actually melts and flows out an opening. According to accounts I've
read, bloomeries always only had/have blooms (German: Lupe), the iron
not reaching melting point. I can't find any-thing about a "bloomery"
with molten metal. Can any-one help?
Oneota

I believe you are referring to an iron melting cupola. The name Steve
Chastain along with cupola on a Google search should yield more
information and a book on how to construct one.

The product of a cupola furnace would be cast iron, not forgeable
steel. Maybe this fellow was whipping up a fresh batch of wootz by the
thermite process.

Mike Mandaville

Are you sure that the stuff flowing out the opening was iron? If it was
indeed a "bloomery", they would tap off the slag from time to time. If
he simply got the stuff out of the furnace and forged it, then that
would have to be the case. But, in that case, he would have to
eventually let the furnace cool, open it up and take out the solid
"bloom" to consolidate (by heating and hammering) the bits of iron or
steel that has formed. This "bloom" often looks like a big black
clinker with tiny bits of charcoal stuck in it.

When you saw the material flowing out of the furnace, was it being
captured in a crucible or directed into a trough for casting into
roughly shaped items? If so, then is WAS cast iron, not wrought iron.
If, however, the material running out of the furnace was simply being
allowed to run out and cool in a puddle, then it probably was a wrought
iron production setup.

Here's my favorite place for small scale wrought iron manhfacture.
Also, google "rockbridge bloomery" for more places to get info about
this group and what they have been doing. We saw them several years ago
at the Flagstaff AZ ABANA conference and I'd say they have a better
understanding of how to ACTUALLY do it than anybody I have ever met.

http://iron.wlu.edu/Bloomery_Iron.htm

Pete Stanaitis
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oneota wrote:
I recently visited a Korean craftsman who smelts and smiths iron/steel.
He has built what looks like a bloomery, but the iron apparently
actually melts and flows out an opening. According to accounts I've
read, bloomeries always only had/have blooms (German: Lupe), the iron
not reaching melting point. I can't find any-thing about a "bloomery"
with molten metal. Can any-one help?
Oneota

On 26 Mar 2006 03:40:38 -0800, "oneota" wrote:

I recently visited a Korean craftsman who smelts and smiths iron/steel.
He has built what looks like a bloomery, but the iron apparently
actually melts and flows out an opening.

Iron or steel ? A bloomery works with a bloom, not a melt. This is
pretty fundamental. The composition varies between iron through to
blister steels.

Melting is usually done with iron, in a cupola furnace. This won't work
for steel.

If you're melting actual steel, then you're into the territory of either
Huntsman's crucible cast steel and its sophisticated ceramics workign to
make the enclosed crucibles. Modern furnaces with modern refractories
could use either arc, muffle or reverbatory furnaces without ruinign
steel metallurgy.

Thanks to all for the feed-back.

The problem is that when I was there, the man only explained (in
Korean) what he did, indicating his equipment. I did not see him
actually working live (though he did simulate his hammering).

I only saw a video (from a national documentary show) of him in
action, and there was so much to see that went by so fast, so I can't
be positive that what I saw was actually molten though that's what my
notes indicate. The man uses the product (which he called in English
"pig iron") to repeatedly hammer and heat into steel which he finally
makes into steel sword blades, which are replicas of historic Korean
swords based on his museological, metallurgical and practical research.

'Any more comments?

On 27 Mar 2006 17:46:12 -0800, "oneota" wrote:

The man uses the product (which he called in English
"pig iron") to repeatedly hammer and heat into steel which he finally
makes into steel sword blades,

I havent a clue about Korean techniques, but this is a typical process
for any sword-making tradition from the medieval period to the 18th
century.

You begun with a billet of crude pig iron. Surface carburisation turns
this to a blister steel and repeated cut-weld-draw down cycles make this
into a high quality steel. The final result varies from surface hard
through laminated pseudo-damascus to pattern-welded steels.

There's a good description in Leon Kapp's excellent Japanese sword book.