A Fools Experiment

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Heath Besch

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
211
Reaction score
0
I have been collecting hematite iron ore from the place that I call my home for the past year. I finally have plucked up the determination to start down the road to making a child's dream into an adult reality. This is a WIP that will take a very long time. I have much to learn from others as well as from my own mistakes. Please bear with me on this because through the whole I will share all that I learn.

Here is the start:
image-21.jpg


image-20.jpg


image-22.jpg


image-23.jpg
p

Any and all feedback/input is more than welcome. I hope you enjoy this very long journey!
 
Wow, smelt away Heath! I'll be watching your adventure and hoping for your success.
 
Cool, and if you'd like to add a running commentary for the less knowledgeable that would be fine too. :newhere:
 
Cool, and if you'd like to add a running commentary for the less knowledgeable that would be fine too. :newhere:

I am newer to this than you, but here we go;
This is specular hematite from the Marquette range of the upper peninsula of Michigan. I lived within a 15 to30 minute drive from five different mines that the ores ha e been collected from. From all that I have researched and that I know, this is some of the best iron ore available dating back to the 1800's.
The total ore weight at this date of post is 156.34 lbs. I do have more coming that will increase the mass before I will actually start smelting it. I am very curious to see what the final yield will be?!
 
I am newer to this than you, but here we go;
This is specular hematite from the Marquette range of the upper peninsula of Michigan. I lived within a 15 to30 minute drive from five different mines that the ores ha e been collected from. From all that I have researched and that I know, this is some of the best iron ore available dating back to the 1800's.
The total ore weight at this date of post is 156.34 lbs. I do have more coming that will increase the mass before I will actually start smelting it. I am very curious to see what the final yield will be?!
Traditional Tatara produces a few hundred kilos of Tamahagane with varying quality out of ~10 ton smelt. But their process is not too efficient, you will have a lot more control over what is going on so the yeld could be high. Walter Sorrells has a video of making tamahagane on you tube., that you may like.
 
Heath, this could turn out to be really cool! While I was visiting Randy, a guy came by showing off some Tamahagane he just made. To me it looked like a lump of semi-sparkly coal and Wunderbar. To Randy, it looked like something that might make a great knife, once Jr. had gotten to it. To Jr, it looked like Tamahagane. Haha. I wonder if the source was the same. Hmmm.

I'm excited to see what comes of this. :D
 
Thanks for sharing this Heath. Posts like this are a big reason I've become so fond of this forum.
 
Kudos on taking this venture head on.... If nothing else Im sure you'll learn a ton and well learn too.... Thanks for posting and doing the commentary!

Oh....... and congrats on having the stones to do this! (Pun intended?) :clown:
 
Any idea the percentage of iron in this ore?

From the research that I have done the% of the ore is between 50 to 60%. Extremely high grade ore. The hematite was mined out back in the 30's or 40's if I remember correctly and all that is left are the occasional rocks that people find while snooping around old pits.
 
So after an all-nighter, her is the progression/results:
image-26.jpg

image-25.jpg

image-24.jpg


There is going to be about a two week delay on further posts on this thread because of the rest of the refinement process and trying to fill orders (more importantly!). The next step is going to be crushing the charcoal.
 
I'm bummed that this will be on hold, but that means a nakiri is being worked on, so I'll just look forward to that instead. :D
 
I really wanna see the outcome! But I also wanna see the look on my wife's face when she opens the santoku as well :)
 
Any update on this? It looks pretty darn cool, I'm intrigued ;)
 
Back
Top