Aristotle Furnace - Demo / Workshop

March 10, Ontario Artist Blacksmith Association, Guelph Ontario

'Building and Operating the Aristotle Furnace' - Darrell Markewitz

This will be a practical demonstration and participant workshop session held as an additional part of the regular monthly meeting of OABA. The Aristotle Furnace was first introduced by Skip Williams at Smeltfest 2008 and further refined during Smeltfest 2009. It is a small table top re-melting furnace which easily allows the production of a small cake of bloomery type metal - ideal for bladesmithing. It will convert any scrap iron material into a roughly 0.5% carbon metal, but with the stringy slag inclusions of a 'wrought iron' type. Each operation cycle consumes roughly 2 kg of charcoal over about 25 minutes, yielding a mass roughly the size of a hockey puck.

Darrell will demonstrate the layout and working of the furnace, and provide enough materials for a number of people to actually try making their own 'pucks' (as time permits).
This demonstration is offered as part of his current 'Craft Project - Creation & Development' Grant via the Ontario Arts Council - Government of Ontario