This is a fast report on the bloomery iron smelt undertaken by a Parks Canada team, with some assistance from DARC, on Sunday July 16, 2017 - at L'Anse aux Meadows NHSC.
This was in conjunction with 'Historic Sites Day' - and in turn part of the ongoing Canada 150 events.
This is only the second time in the modern era that iron has been smelted at LAM, since Leif Eirikson and his crew undertook the process some time about 1000 AD.
This iron smelt was a very long one.
The 'smelt master' was Mark Pilgrim ('Little Ragnar'). He and I started at 7:00 am with the organization and pre-heat.
Main sequence start with ungraded charcoal at 10:45
(from here on constant bellows work by Ian / Kevin / 'Thorstien')
First ore (DD2 Analog) at 12:00
A bit of mix up there, poor communications / instruction (?) resulted
in the first charge being a full 2 kg , followed by a more normal 1 kg
amount.
Burn times ran an average of about 20 minutes each (fastest = 17 /
slowest = 29)
Total of 29 kg ore was charged, last addition at 5:36
Although the normal burn down to ready for extraction was finished at
6:45, the extraction was delayed to about 7:30 to allow the visiting
group from C-3 to assemble.
The end result of this was that the furnace interior had cooled, the
normally white hot bloom had shifted down to at best a bright orange.
This in turn resulted in great difficulty separating the bloom from
the slag bowl - and the slag bowl becoming completely frozen to the
furnace walls.
Mark undertook the extraction process, but in the end had to break the
furnace apart to free the mass.
 |
| Top of Bloom - showing 'scoop' from air blast. |
This is still a bit lacy on the outside, due to initial compaction
being undertaken well below the normal welding heat. Still the bloom
looks and feels quite solid under the hammer. This a marked contrast
to the crumbly texture of the 2010 results.
 |
| Cut (and broken) along the mid line. Top 'half' is to left. |
Impressive work by all involved!
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