Building a Furnace

[Oriental]

Goofy Question:
How hard do you think it would be the build a small scale bog iron furnace? Do you think that a 3' round 5' high fire brick furnace could get hot enough to get the mixture molten? How much smoke do you think it would make? Just curious if it could be done.

 

[Boyd]

I've done a lot of welding, but that's pretty much my only experience with iron/steel. The melting point is 2800 degrees F (see: http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Fe/heat.html)

Stuff gets scary when it's that hot - even if it's only a little puddle under your welding torch. I gather the only way to generate that heat in the old furnaces was by operating a huge bellows (with a waterwheel?) to blast a lot of oxygen into the fire. You could do some simple experiments with your BBQ grill and some sort of little air compressor. You might get a small area hot enough to melt brass if not iron.

My guess is that one of the main things you'd learn by trying to build a functioning mini-forge would be why all the old towns burned down regularly...