Why does the Primitive Technology guy have so much trouble, when it comes to creating usable iron out of iron bacteria he fishes out of rivers? Is it bad luck? Bad location?
furnace is too cold
>>16776281he made a knife?do you mean his tiny yields or how the iron is bound up in slag?because the iron bacteria is like 0.00001% iron
>>16776301I'd say he's not getting the sustained temps needed to burn the impurities out of bog ore with that new furnace, you can see he's trying to maximize draft with this kiln but only went up about 10 feet. He wasn't pumping air in at all
>>16776281Sulfur.
>>16776327yeah sulfur is a really bad contaminant
>>16776335Almost inevitable with any bio iron sources.
>>16776352It's common in acidic bottoms where they eat iron and biological stuff break down rocks. Bog ore. Clay found in these areas have high amounts of sulfur and need to be heated for an extended amount of time to remove the sulfur dioxide or it will start robbing oxygen from the hematite and turn it into magnetite which causes the pottery to bulge and fracture when cooled
>>1677628scalehe need to go bigger
>>16776281There's a reason that commercial iron is iron ore and not iron bacteria. Namely quantity available. If he had some iron rich rocks he would have plenty of iron.
>>16776281>>16776313What is he burning? Coal was historically used because it burns hot enough but if he isn't using coal because he can't mine it that would make iron / steel very hard to work with.I built a propane fired furnace with furnace bricks and still struggle to get mild steel hot enough to work let alone refine ore.
>>16776281why do you think there was a whole bronze age where they invented writing, math, fucking chariots for war, shipbuilding and had a complex international trading system to supply the copper and tin to make bronze? iron ore is everywhere but it's really hard to figure out how to get to usuable iron or even steel.
>>16776731charcoal is as good as coal for heat and purer in carbon content
kawaii
>>16776297thishe is using basic furnaces that were used to melt bronze not ironmoreover he doesnt have a crucible which means all the iron is scattered on the floor of the furnace
when he make first transister?
>>16776281He just keeps on trying 'till he runs out of cake.
>>16777074I'm not sure his goal is even to break into the iron age. Looks more like experimenting with the bare minimum.
>>16777471He's one villager. He has to gather all the resources and he only has a granary, not a Town Center.
>>16777471seems like one of those "I don't need society, I can do it myself" types, that is slowly figuring it out why he actually needs society
>>16777492How the fuck did you reach that conclusion?He wrote a book.
>>16776460its kinda sad that he doesnt have some more resources around. some good ore or at least some iron sand and he'd have a bunch of tools already instead of doing years of smelting for 50g of tiny iron balls.another big issue is that he doesn't really have a good way to forge his iron. he cant consolidate his small pieces into a bar, draw it out and fold it a couple of times to make it more uniform and forge out impurities and some of the carbon. if all you got for that is a anvil stone and hammer and some wooden tongs, you're gonna have a bad time.he also doesn't have any good source for lime. only thing he ever did was collection massive amounts of thin shelled land snails to make a tiny test brick. and aussie laws means he cant legally hunt, so he cant make leather.
>>16778543>its kinda sad that he doesnt have some more resources around. some good ore or at least some iron sand and he'd have a bunch of tools already instead of doing years of smelting for 50g of tiny iron ballsIt's sadly realistic.
>>16777492>you need society hence it’s my right to rape and steal from you
>>16778543I find it quite interesting, struggling with poor inputs and still making good results.
I read once that vikangs used to make their iron tools from bog ore and it was very expensive so it was quiet a bit of a capital investment to have a few iron tools but they started to get cheaper metal once they got in touch with mainland europe
>>16776904Would it help if the air was pre-heated?
>>16778543>and aussie laws means he cant legally hunt, so he cant make leather.He can definitely hunt. He was limited before because he wasn't on his own land, he's on his own land now. He's also mentioned that partly he doesn't do any hunting because it would likely cause issues with youtube.Not having access to any copper to be a stepping stone definitely hampers his tool creation.
He's basically just throwing bacteria slop in to the furnace raw, he really needs to treat his ore more before using it. I think he failed to notice a difference from pre-roasting it once and abandoned the idea altogether.
I learnt a lot from his charcoal making experiments.
>>16779060the thing is that bog iron ore is created when you have that iron bacteria slime in a slow flowing stream draining in to a bog, and the iron enriched goop ends up settling and accumulating over the years. The dirt under his iron goop stream might be usable, but as far as I know it flows in to his actual creek and just gets washed away, and to create actual bog ore that people have used to make iron before, he'd need to divert his goopy stream in to an artificial bog, just letting it soak in to the ground again so it can deposit iron in to the dirt, and let it accumulate for probably years to create a material that isn't just going to produce tiny prills of iron in a giant mass of slag.
>>16778543>aussie laws means he cant legally huntYou can hunt any animal classified as 'invasive' without limit or season in Australia, which includes the widespread feral deer and pig populations.
>>16780991donesn't aus have feral camel and buffalo problems too?
>>16780991Never mind pest species like kangaroos and wallabies, which are just giant rats.
>>16780991He could probably take a deer or wallaby with primitive gear. Anything like a pig or bigger is going to be a serious potentially lethal headache without real firepower.
>>16777471That was also my impression, but I haven't read his book or blogposts.For example he proposes that the leaf-valve billow was a missed shortcut (tho the idea didn't turn out to be that promising).
>>16781149It doesn't even make sense calling it a short-cut since you're skipping.. leather to make the bellows bag and valve with, which humans have been using since before they were humans.
>>16777432And the Science gets done.And he makes a neat gun.
>>16776450thishe needs to roast his sand before trying to smelt itmight wanna integrate that into his coal-making process
maybe just turn a new leaf (get it?) and start another project. maybe bronze first, the AGI
>>16781033a deadfall trap is good for a pig
>>16778543>and aussie laws means he cant legally hunt, so he cant make leatherWhat gave you this idea? Non natives like deer, rabbits and pigs are free pickings
>>16782190maybe for a piglet, but a big sow or boar is gonna be a big issue
>>16782190A fenced pit trap would be safer. Early iron age hunters in the Nordic countries used to use them, mainly for elk but there's some evidence they were used occasionally for moose, wolves, and even bear. Basically you build a fence across a known animal trail that funnels them to a covered pit with sharpened poles similar to punji sticks at the bottom.
