Adventures in Early Iron...

So - cat is outta the bag on this one:

http://www.warehamforge.ca/ROMiron

'Adventures in Early Iron Production - An overview of experimental smelts, 2001-2005'

This is the FULL text of my recent (as in March 25) paper for the 'Friends of the Medieval Studies Society of the Royal Ontario Museum'

It was a 25 minute delivery, and despite the length of the paper (about 35 pages!) I managed to get almost all of the main points across. I also will have to re write the whole thing for publication (which is under planning) - down to closer to 10 pages (!)

I gave my best attempt to try to attribute ideas to the individuals who most likely first voiced them. You'll see that Lee, Skip and Mike are listed as as major contributers. (Add to your CV without having to actually WRITE anything!)

For DARC I took the approach of listing the main players of the smelt team, then people who had a major role in 'more than two' individual experiments. Those who worked directly on an individual smelt are listed. (BTW - none of then can hide, I showed images of Gangue aux Fer and DARC at June 04 in the lecture when I credited them all!)

I have posted the paper up on the Wareham Forge web site. The Appendix needs graphic formatting still.

Along with other things I am (more or less) working on is a revised version of the 'IRON SMELTING' CD ROM. I will be including a version of the paper on the V2 disk. I want to set the main paper up with a set of smaller images that pull out to duplicate the slides I used for the talk.

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I'll be giving a more practical talk derived from this same work at Neil Peterson's 'Forward Into the Past' teaching event this coming Saturday (April 1). Search under the event title to get the web site with directions and full course listings. I will be concentrating mainly on how to set up and run the 'Econo Norse' test/teaching smelter.

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I STILL have to get the rough notes and images put into some kind of order from the two smelts undertaken at SMELTFEST 06. Use of a variation on the standard clay cobb Norse Short Shaft. Although industrial hematite was the ore, the results were very interesting. May indicate something about furnace design (via an idea from Skip) and modification of the pre-heat phase.

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From a BLOG standpoint - still have to monkey with code. I'm working changes to my own site (plus formatting the paper earlier this week) plus starting a limited 'web design' service for area artists. WAY TOO MUCH HTML.

Didn't get to the forge yesterday. Did spend several hours (most the afternoon) outside. Cleared a couple of things in the yard. Checked over the old Honda. Those concerned about our drift to white trash status (with three dead vehicles in the yard) may be happy to know that I've got a lead on getting the two old Hondas outta here. Will be keeping the dead Astro as its been used the last year as charcoal and iron ore storage.
Also started working on re-arranging and cleaning up the larger shop floor. Have to move everything at least twice to accomplish anything. Have the front quarter cleared and the rear quarter about 1/2 done. Intend to put the front decking into the rear quarter. With the wagon pulled out (as soon as the snow is gone from the drive and front parking to allow it) will be using the flagstone area for displaying major work. (Bet those who have visited didn't KNOW there was a large natural flagstone area under there!). Intending to set a second coal forge up to the front quarter - mainly for architectural work.

ENOUGH!

Darrell