Some IRON snippets...

...stumbled or sent via the wide world of the web.

Telluric iron

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Iron, native iron or telluric iron
Sawed slab of basalt with bright, metallic native iron inclusions from Uivfaq, Disko Island (size: 7.8 x 3.5 x 0.6 cm)

Telluric iron, also called native iron, is iron that originated on Earth, but is found in a metallic form rather than as an ore. Telluric iron is extremely rare, with only one known major deposit in the world, located in Greenland.

I'm always telling people about this - the only occasion metallic iron is found on the earth's surface, other than nickle-iron meteors. Someone should compare the trace elements in this material against known Norse artifacts - to see if this resource (within reach of the Greenland Colony) was ever utilized by the Norse. 

Excerpt on Iron Making from the BBC's Tudor Monastery Farm 

Filmed at the Rural Life Center in Surrey, England

link to clip

From the Rural Life Center web site : 'Smiths and Wrights' :

... a half-scale furnace complete with bellows and hammer at the Rural Life Centre. ...
There have been several burns in the furnace, proving the efficiency of the bellows, but currently there isn't a big enough supply of charcoal yet to enable iron to be made – despite being only half-size, this furnace will still need four tons of charcoal when in action.
Actual smelting of ore is still being considered (due to potential dangers involved) but a charcoal burning programme has already been initiated at the museum ...

Those who have ever undertaken or observed a full iron smelt likely spotted the same thing I did on viewing the video clip : Everything was spotless clean and there was no heat effects visible on the tapping surface - or slag anywhere. This is also an early blast furnace (late Medieval technologies), charcoal fired to produce liquid *cast* iron. Mention is made of the second part of this system, the use of a separate 'finery' forge set up to effectively *remove* carbon from the cast iron to create workable wrought iron. I strongly suspect the large bar seen being worked under the (very neat!) water powered tilt hammer is actually modern mild steel - understandably used for demonstration purposes.