10m

I made a water filter from cane that siphons clean water from a dirty water while simultaneously using the xylem present in the the cane as a filter. MIT engineers had already proved that pine branches can be used as water filters as the thin membranes connecting the straw like xylem filter out 99% of bacteria such as E.coli which make water unsafe to drink. Taking this concept, I used a type of c... Read more

10m

I took a brittle, high carbon/iron alloy (cast iron) made from local ore and used a decarburization method to reduce it's carbon content making it malleable and forged it flat by hammering. Rather than producing a single bloom of soft iron in my furnaces, as was done in most of history, I tend to produce cast iron prills from the ore. Cast iron is iron that has a very high carbon content. Its go... Read more

10m

I developed a cement made from iron bacteria, then made pots from it to test its ability to set and not dissolve in water. Iron bacteria lives by oxidizing dissolved iron 2 oxide in the water table, converting it to insoluble iron 3 oxide, which precipitates out of solution forming an orange slime. This material can be concentrated to a paste that can be shaped into objects. After drying out compl... Read more

10m

With more iron smelting experiments coming up, I demonstrate 3 different methods to make charcoal, ranked easiest to hardest. The first method was in a simple clay lined pit where a pile of wood was neatly stacked over and lit from the top down. The second method is the mound which involves making a conical pile of wood and coating it in mud leaving openings around the base and one on the to... Read more

10m

I tested 2 ways of improving iron smelts by treating the ore, roasting the ore and using snail shells as a flux. Then finally I recycled old slag to see if it would produce any more iron. The first way was to roast the ore before smelting. This drove off the moisture and volatiles in the ore as well as burning off any sulfur present. The resulting ore produced a higher yield of iron than normal... Read more

10m

I cleared an area as a workspace for making bricks, trialed a new source of clay for brick making and tested a new kiln variant that uses fewer bricks than the previous design. Near the existing brick hut, there is a area on a slight slope near a seasonal creek with a possible source of clay. The area had a large fallen tree in it that I burnt into 3 pieces and rolled out of the way with logs as... Read more

10m

I built a thatched shelter to make bricks in so that they are protected from the rain before they are fired. Despite it being the dry season, it still rains unpredictably in this climate. This can undo lots of labor in dissolving bricks. I built a shelter from wood and palm thatch to house the entire brick making process from the rain. This was no easy task with primitive technology. Leveling the ... Read more

10m

I made a furnace insulated with wood ash to smelt iron in. Furnace insulation stops heat being lost from the walls of a furnace and so increases the heat within the furnace. Dry wood ash makes an excellent insulator for heat as the fine particles separated by small air gaps don't allow heat to conduct very well. To make the furnace a double layered wall of clay was made and the space between was f... Read more

10m

A Phoenix kiln is a type of downdraft kiln where the firebox is below the ware chamber. It was developed in America in the 1970's by George Wright and gets it's name from the Phoenix workshops. It is classified as a downdraft kiln because the flames go up into the ware chamber and then down to the exit flue of the ware chambers before going up a chimney. I built one from mud to learn about how it ... Read more

10m

In this video I use the thatched hut to fire bricks and make charcoal in for the first time. To make and fire bricks, a workspace protected from the rain must be made to protect the bricks from dissolving before they are fired. Built in a previous video, the hut was used as a space to fire the bricks. The firing went well with no issues with the thatch catching fire due to the height of the roof a... Read more

10m

I made a volute shaped blower where the housing for the fan is volute shaped, that is to say a widening spiral to test the effectiveness of a one way spinning impeller. The previous blower design is tear drop shaped so that the direction that the fan spins is un important. Also with the previous design the impeller spins one way and then the other as it is powered by a simple string mechanism.

10m

I built a natural draft furnace and smelted iron ore in it, producing a small amount of iron. A natural draft furnace is one where the draft is supplied by convection alone. This is opposed to a forced draft where bellows or fan is used to supply air flow instead. Natural draft furnaces are typically taller than forced draft furnaces to make use of the stack effect. They also often have multiple l... Read more