10m

The brick hut was destroyed by a falling tree. It had lasted 2 years and 8 months and would have lasted quite a bit longer if it were not for the accident. I recovered the tools and materials that were in the hut and then salvaged the bricks and tiles from it that were still intact. A large pile of about 750 bricks was stacked up to be used in other projects. Also in this video I show how the othe... Read more

10m

I tested a fly wheel on the blower

10m

10m

I took the iron I already smelted and re- smelted it. The iron was old and rusty from forging experiments. Iron oxidises faster when in the forge due to the hot and oxidising conditions. So I tried smelting it again to turn the rust back into iron. The first attempt involved charging the iron into a furnace in a single charge. The results were mixed, the iron was in separated pieces though the... Read more

10m

I tested a charcoal retort based on the Hookway retort method using only primitive materials. A normal retort is one in which the sealed chamber of wood is inside a furnace and the heat drives off the volatiles converting it to charcoal. The Hookway retort, invented by James Hookway (see original video: • The best charcoal retort kiln in the ... ) has furnace, a metal pipe, inside the sealed ... Read more

10m

Certo, ecco il riassunto ancora più sintetico, mantenendo le persone verbali originali, questa volta in inglese: --- I built a **belt and pulley drive** for a blower because the previous rope-and-stick system limited RPMs, producing only low pressure and non-solid blooms. The belt allows continuous rotation and higher RPMs. I tested **clay wheels** (heavy but the small one worked) and **cane... Read more

10m

10m

10m

10m

I built two water bellows to use in tandem for smelting. Previously I made and tested one water bellow. It was small and was fired in a pit. For this project I made two that had a deeper stroke than the last one. I also fired it in a kiln so it would be stronger. I made a wide based tuyere for the two spouts of the bellows to fit into during use. When one bellow was lifted the other dropped so tha... Read more

10m

I made mortar from wood ash and crushed terracotta and then used it to mortar bricks together. The ash from previous brick firings was formed into pellets and re-fired in the kiln to calcine it. There is calcium in wood ash which behaves the same as limestone when burned so it will set after being wetted and allowed to dry. The aggregate was crushed terracotta from old broken bricks. These contrib... Read more

10m

A natural-draft brick furnace, 50 cm wide, was built and fueled with wood instead of charcoal to smelt a cylinder of iron ore and charcoal powder. The ore was placed on a small pot meant to catch the melt. The furnace operated for about two hours, successfully melting the ore. However, the catch-pot melted and failed, causing the ore brick to topple, which prevented the proper flow of slag and iro... Read more

10m

10m

The previous pulley blower was fixed in place and couldn't be moved due to stakes hammered into the ground that supported the rotor for the blower. This meant that the blower took up room in an already cluttered hut. To make it portable, I tried to lash the stakes to the housing but it would not do so in such a way that the rotor would be centred. So the solution I came up with was to the piece o... Read more

10m

10m

I made a batch of tiles to test the underfloor heating in the new hut. A new chimney was made from bricks and the floor of the hut was given a new layer of mud. A roof tile mold and form were carved and a batch of 40 roof tiles were made using them. Despite wet weather, the new hut was able to keep the tiles out of the rain and actively dry them with the heat from the floor.

10m

Mud mortar experiment and firing roof tiles.