I've been prepping for my 4th smelt for the past week and this morning I got up and started to smelt
A few details about the smelt, I used about 45 pounds of crushed taconite pellets and crushed up bloomery bits. I used a new blower for this smelt, an industrial vacuum cleaner motor. It's a 2 stage pump and makes about 3 psi of static pressure. The burn rate was kept at about 1800 grams of charcoal every 10 minutes along with the same weight of ore. The added pressure was nice as It kept my tuyere clear from slag, I never had to clear the tuyere of slag the entire smelt, BTW I use just a black iron pipe for a tuyere.
The bloom was nice, solid, nicely centered and a nice shape, my best yet, I'll weigh it tomorrow.
Now for some pictures
The new blower
And a boring video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q23kEZA7sOM&feature=youtu.be
Now that the fun part's done, it's on to the hard part, the processing...
Thanks for watching
Zeb
A few details about the smelt, I used about 45 pounds of crushed taconite pellets and crushed up bloomery bits. I used a new blower for this smelt, an industrial vacuum cleaner motor. It's a 2 stage pump and makes about 3 psi of static pressure. The burn rate was kept at about 1800 grams of charcoal every 10 minutes along with the same weight of ore. The added pressure was nice as It kept my tuyere clear from slag, I never had to clear the tuyere of slag the entire smelt, BTW I use just a black iron pipe for a tuyere.
The bloom was nice, solid, nicely centered and a nice shape, my best yet, I'll weigh it tomorrow.
Now for some pictures
The new blower
And a boring video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q23kEZA7sOM&feature=youtu.be
Now that the fun part's done, it's on to the hard part, the processing...
Thanks for watching
Zeb