Refining the iron bloom into usable wrought iron

Our bloomery smelt is completed and its time to make wrought iron from the bit of bloom. Neither Jake nor I have ever refined bloom iron into wrought iron, so join me as we learn how to make wrought iron.
Thank you for watching. Black Bear Forge is a small one person shop located in Southern Colorado.
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The following list provides just a few resources to help you find supplies and equipment for blacksmithing.
www.piehtoolco.com/
www.centaurforge.com/
www.blacksmithsdepot.com/
www.blacksmithbolt.com/
www.oldworldanvils.com/
www.nimbaanvils.com/
fontaninianvilandtool.com/
www.abana.org/
www.mcmaster.com
kensironstore.com/
Blacksmithing and related activities can be hazardous. These videos are not a substitute for competent professional instruction. Your safety is your sole responsibility. Always use appropriate safety equipment including eye and ear protection when working in the shop. Follow manufactures safety guidelines for the use of all equipment. In the event something shown in one of these videos seems unsafe, it is up to you to make the appropriate changes to protect yourself.

[@magicponyrides]

This is the cool-ass grandpa that everyone wishes they had.

[@WatcherintheDark69]

It really makes you think of how valuable every little bit of iron was in olden times. Great video!

[@scottleft3672]

It's how the Hittites beat the Egyptians.

[@linming5610]

Made me realized how important they are for human civilization. No wonder they can't form large professional armies even when they had the population. Every bit is a result of accumulation of decades or even centuries.

[@caleblandry1780]

Every bit of the stuffs valuable to me.. personally I'm a young fella from camada who just got into blacksmithing/metalworking and can't find any where im at other than small bits here n there out on walks

[@bhaktapeter3501]

It still is very valuable, the price is deflated because of chinese slave labor dumping Products into usa as part of economic warfare

[@Theelderdragon01]

Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid -- Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade "Good!" cried the Baron, sitting in his hall "But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all." So he made rebellion against the King, his liege Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege "Nay," said the cannoneer on the castle wall "But iron, cold iron, shall be master of you all!" Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong When the cruel cannon-balls laid them all along He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall And iron, cold iron, was the master over all Yet his King spake kindly (ah how kind a lord!) "What if I release thee now, and give thee back thy sword?" "Nay!" said the Baron, "Mock not at my fall For iron, cold iron, is the master of men all." "Tears are for the craven. Prayers are for the clown Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small For iron, cold iron, must be master of men all." kzbin.info/www/bejne/jmmmnIatac2Jpck Cold Iron by Kipling set to music.

[@jawdatfares2831]

Grandfather Tech,, ,,, that was awesome,, thanks

[@Rolandbadger]

Am I bored watching you hammer? Nope- I love watching iron being worked. Its positively mesmerising for me.

[@jojoemcgeejoe457]

To me, it's very zen watching smiths work. Before the forge, there is iron. After the forge, there is iron.

[@jakeradcliff3652]

John, thank you so much for hosting me at your forge. I got so much valuable data that will improve the future iron smelts that I do.

[@JF-fx2qv]

Thanks Jake. Hope to learn more from the data you gather.

[@BlackBearForge]

It was my pleasure

[@mheman1]

Thank you guy's for the great serie of videos, it was well worth watching! As is all your other videos John, really apreachiate your efforts!

[@WinDancerX]

Thanks Jake for all your hard work and sharing your labor and knowledge with us! I extended my morning coffee the past four mornings to enjoy the vids! And I didn't even get my hands dirty! Thank you again. Dave WinDancerKnives

[@hosiercraft9675]

Thanks Jake. hope to see you around on KZbin. If your ever in Illinois give me a holler, maybe we can do a river clay and straw smelter. here along the Mississippi river just next to st. Louis there are lots of public resources. IDNR and COE don't mind at all if i gather mud and black sand for iron work. the conservation police department are very friendly here.

[@nightwolf9645]

I used to throw away any iron I don't need, any old screw, bolt, nut, and cut I can't use anymore.. After I watch your series of iron journey, I started to keep them to give to someone who can recycle them into usable iron..

[@yorik79il]

@Black Bear Forge, It never gets boring to watch a working person. That's a real thing in psychology, man.

[@BlackBearForge]

I love work, I can watch other people do it for hours.

[@drason69]

Something that might be helpful, is that when we did the smelt at the event, we went straight from the furnace to the forge. When consolidating the bloom, it was done basically in a dishing stump. The smaller bits that break off can settle to the bottom of the bowl, and be worked back in to the larger section of bloom. It definately consumes a LOT of fuel, but so does reheating it all. Loving this series! Thanks John and Jake!

[@milonguerobill]

How many people alive today have ever done what you two have, only a hand full I'll tell you, nobody can ever take that away, Way to be!

[@Jagdtyger2A]

The best thing to do about the smaller pieces of iron is to cover them with flux and a bit of charcoal, put them into a sealed/covered crucible and bring the entire thing to melting temp. Once melted, pour it into a sand or clay mold and continue to refine it

[@wadestewart9891]

nothing is boring as long as your learning from the process thank you and Jake for taking the time to make and process this series very interisting

[@jetblackstar]

For what its worth I've tuned in to see if the next one of this series had been uploaded religiously. Really enjoyed it and am very much looking forward to the wrought iron axe build. Fantastic collaboration thanks to you and Jake!

[@BlackBearForge]

Glad you liked it. I hope I get a chance to this again sometime.

[@frankgaletzka8477]

Hello John This Video is a hidden treasure It Shows how hard it is is to get iron out of ore. It Shows how worth it was to have a knive or a Axe out of iron in older times. Today iron is nothing worth but you Show a other time Yours Frank

[@robphone4895]

Awesome, you created iron, from dirt, amazing!! This is really impressive, thank you for showing this. Makes one appreciate and realize what a luxury we have these days.

[@rustybroom7071]

Yeeeeaaaahhh! Now it is time to recall some ancient technologies.

[@stevegreka358]

I thought a42:33 minute video was going to be long,seemed like 10 minutes , very interesting ,THANKS.

[@BlackBearForge]

Thanks, I was afraid it would be way to long.

[@jens-eriklangstrand1689]

Patiense, the name of the game ...Good Job!

[@gardeninginnorway478]

You say sometimes that the "tapetitap" is boring. Well, I think its interesting and not boring. Really fun to watch how this takes shape. The best and most interesting project I've seen you've done so far. And the other stuff you do is exellent, so this has to be good! 😊

[@BlackBearForge]

Thanks

[@johnwholetrain]

I agree! Love the videos, so much knowledge...

[@workwithnature]

Appreciating iron in a new way!

[@steadfasttherenowned2460]

I've watched a few people on KZbin try to make and consolidate bloom iron for the first time. I think this video is the first one I've seen where the blacksmith was successful in consolidating it.

[@doubtingflock1073]

Shows why it took a couple of thousand years for our ancestors to go from bronze age to iron age imagine figuring all this out from scratch. Brilliant job thanks for the time machine.

[@BlackBearForge]

So very true.

[@larryholloway2869]

Cant get bored with Knowledge

[@parlainthtownie85]

You messing around and seeing what you get was very entertaining. Very educational. Its great to see you talk through what you are doing. Explaining things makes it Not boring.

[@workwithnature]

Can not wait for you to make the hammer and axe and turning the wrought iron into steel.

[@WinDancerX]

I appreciate that you are doing this full-tilt- I mean doing everything you can so save every possible little bit of the bloom to get the maximum amount of wrought iron. It was a TON of work to get that precious little bit of bloom and I am pleased you are not wasting any of it. And it is NOT tedious or boring to watch- it is very interesting to see what has to happen before you can actually do a little smithing and make a small tool or two. Thanks, John! Dave- WinDancerKnives

[@BlackBearForge]

Glad you liked it

[@fishbuscharters]

This is great! Consider the advancement the first bit of wrought iron brought. Incredible.

[@longboy1998]

When we smelt at the local community center we save all the to small bits and add them to the next batch works well

[@TheDistur]

Thank goodness they came up with easier processes.

[@ThePillenwerfer]

Well I certainly didn't find any of that Tedious or Boring. Great stuff as always.

[@ComfyWombat]

Yeah the reason you had such a hard time with this, and why it was so brittle, was because your smelter friend was wrong. You need limestone in the melt, to tie up the Silicon elements otherwise you end up with a very brittle iron. Limestone becomes Calcium Oxide in the fire, which reacts with the silicates and turns them into Calcium silicate, which is your slag. Next time try it with limestone powder and you'll see a huge difference in the product. You ended up having to do a LOT more work to get it to a useable state, than you would have if you had used limestone powder in the furnace. Simple garden lime (not hydrated or quicklime) will do fine for what you're doing.

[@garygenerous8982]

John, this has been an amazing series of videos and it really shows the work that it took for our ancestors to move from stone and wood to copper and bronze to iron and steel. Also I wanted to let you know that watching you hammer is not boring and I could honestly watch you just hammer and forge for hours because it is interesting to watch. Keep doing what you do because it is amazing :)

[@user-yp9pc3rh6k]

Great video series on producing iron! For the little bloomey bits, could you heat a bunch of them in a crucible covered with coal, then consolidate them on a hydraulic press, using some flat bar around the lower die as containment? I think that if you flux the bits in the crucible, dump them into the fenced die and pressed them rapidly, they may stick enough to then oroceed to the anvil.

[@111raybartlett]

Nothing boring here! Thanks for doing this, obviously not for profit

[@MrMudNugget]

Not boring. Watch metal take shape from ore is inspiring.

[@MrMZaccone]

Everything you lose, you were supposed to lose. Everything that stays is good shit. Quality material demonstrates itself.

[@TemplarX2]

This is not boring at all. This is super interesting to me. I'm fascinated by this. Taking dirt to make a very strong and useful alloy is like magic.

[@gustavfranklin]

I think people who do this fairly often keep the crumbles and just remelt them in something like an orishigane process to get bigger bits. Thank you for great videos! Love the slow/patient format.

[@stefflus08]

Agree, but there's an english term for that, "Hearth refining".

[@marlinblack6597]

I think the greatest value that comes from things like this is a much greater appreciation for those people we called primitive such as the African tribes were a billet would be produced from the efforts of the whole tribe and the head blacksmith would divide it out to the families. Each family would get a hoe or other valuable tool. They would appreciate the value of that tool. Unlike us today that can purchase a cheap $5 hammer or the likes. Understanding these things grounds us and teaches us appreciation. And thanks to people like you who take the time to bring it to us here on YT.

[@huntintrailmetals9343]

I’m loving every second of you struggling with these blooms, no boredom here!

[@gryph01]

Smelting and refining iron is a labour intensive process. Thanks for sharing

[@StumpfsCurse]

Loved this series on smelting and refining iron.

[@jonsey3645]

Alright already, Jeez. I would think that you would enjoy the experience but you found it ridiculous. I am no Smith but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night and I watch KZbin so.... The old Japanese fellow who made arguably the best swords in history broke his blooms up into crumbs and graded them. The hard and brittle were the edge of the blade and the softer more flexible bits were in the center for flexibility. And he said that he had to fold the product 1000 times with rice straw in the middle and flux before each heat. Thanks, I am loving it!

[@kimepp2216]

Good job on capturing the most primitive iron making process.

[@bilbo_gamers6417]

don't know if you have already learned this by now but the japanese would wrap their bars of steel in paper, straw, and clay slurry while refining them to prevent decarb and from losing the little pieces of iron. working it in one ounce increments is honestly pretty good compared to the little fragments they have to salvage sometimes.

[@stelmac3212]

Thank you John and Jake for such an enlightening presentation. Not many of us get to see the principles of smelting and refining iron ore on a small scale, or even industrial scales.......🤠

[@BlackBearForge]

Jake gets most of the credit, I was just along for the ride

[@lucianoguerra9013]

Thank You Loader. I've see two video's having to work with bloom. One was remembering where iron started in Africa. It was good but for them it was a people project and the end product was hoe's and picks to work the land. It's always good to remember old skills an pass them onto the next generation. Some will fine it to be a waste of time, while others will fine what they want to do with their life. In making this video, you have helped the next generation remember their pass. Thank You For Passing It On.

[@backyardforge5568]

It's normal to compress the Bloom when it's right out from the fire. Here in Norway, we take the bloom out of the furnace, put it on a stump, and several people hit it with big wooden sledges. The bloom will be more solid before forging. Thanks for a great video,a again

[@BlackBearForge]

That is what we did with the largest piece of bloom. All of these small pieces had to be collected from out of the rubble after it was cool enough to dig through and find them.

[@joeryerson9295]

I have. A bad rabbit of commenting on old videos, but I'm going to do it anyway. If you do another smelt; any small pieces that you can't get to fuse together can be thrown in as seed material.

[@k1ng5urfer]

now this is content! 5/5

[@sdunca4864]

The little bits and bobs of bloom you have left are excellent pendants and bracelet centers for those who want a piece of "actual history" and they are out there. Get a jeweler from KZbin to collaborate using "heritage" crafts (handmade) and list them for auction on your favorite selling site- or reach out to a museum- bits of slag glass are being used as bracelet materials mined from old furnace sites in WV and AL- parallel market and keep the collaborations going! -Love this series of videos! Bravo!

[@bartonius1063]

I love it, can't wait for the next installment

[@christopherharrylang7424]

Great series on the making of wrought iron. Enjoying every minute. Thank you for sharing this project.

[@StNuttall]

This is great watching you learn.

[@bentoombs]

Yes a very cool process thank you for the series

[@loganbuser8636]

Finally found a video whith what I was looking for. Thank you.

[@gregsmith3289]

Really enjoyed this series. Cool stuff.

[@charlesmay8251]

this is amazing and fascinating to watch!

[@alansloas777]

Excellent! Very interesting!

[@gregfarley5737]

That was an amazing process that you took us through. Thanks so much.

[@krustysurfer]

Bloomin spoons with John and Jake! Mahalo and aloha Black bear forge!

[@jacksonjones9931]

Great video!

[@stevesyncox9893]

Very grateful guys....

[@leaflee2066]

Amazing video, I can't wait to see you make some tools from this.

[@willienolegs8928]

What great skills were learned, thanks for showing this.

[@jawdatfares2831]

Thanks for your time and sharing your thoughts with us,,, that was awesome

[@GWIRailroad]

Thank you and Jake what an awesome demonstration. I really enjoyed the presentation.

[@kosworkshop]

That was an amazing process and very interesting. Thanks to you both!

[@michaelwan4268]

great video, thanks!

[@elprodeminecraft6770]

Very great job! 👏👏👏👏👏

[@forMacguyver]

Another great video. Look forward to trying it myself one day.

[@wallacedavis8922]

Very interesting. I have enjoyed this series. Look forward to getting back on the grill project

[@sammanno3303]

John another Outstanding Video,I'am so glad that we have progressed so far in the making of all different grades of Steel,I could'nt help noticing that ,It looks like the edges of your Anvil have been repaired,who ever did the work did a Great Job.Thanks Again.

[@BlackBearForge]

Thanks, the anvil repair was before I acquired it

[@bryanrobinson1980]

Other than keeping with hand forging for the video content, I would suggest using your press to assist consolidating the bloom. May help in not losing the little bits and bobs and could help you consolidate the bits and bobs you have now. Cool project, very neat to see the process form start to finish!!!

[@Linsdell-forge]

Awesome series. Just lacked banjo.

[@mistorymage]

looks like a lot of fun actually, i would love to try this someday

[@jawdatfares2831]

Thanks,,, that was awesome

[@jimbarbara1704]

grate vid ty and jake jim

[@OleNavy]

Well, good on you! You just said what I was saying in my first little message!!!

[@jawdatfares2831]

Keep up the good work and we,,we'll be there to see all your work,,,

[@davidquate420]

Such a great video thanks again for good content

[@jframe5512]

My god man keep them coming 100000000 thanks for what you do for us you make me a better blacksmith with every video

[@andrewbabcock8332]

I really enjoyed the video, and your end results looked pretty good!

[@johndilsaver8409]

I'm very interested to see what you can ultimately make from this. It really became clear watching this where the 'wrought' in wrought iron comes from. Excellent work!

[@BlackBearForge]

I would like to have seen the old mills where they made wrought iron in huge quantities.

[@ronbarker3074]

That was totally amazing! I also live in Colorado, up by the Wyoming state line. I've done my share of panning looking for something that glitters and usually wined up with a little black sand and maybe a few garnets. I'm sure as hell grateful I don't need to sweat that much in order to get some iron to work with...

[@krustysurfer]

Awesome!

[@jasonvanover6716]

Very informational video iv learned a lot just these past few months watching and getting out into my own little shop if can call it that thanks a lot for what your doing

[@MatthewBuntyn]

I would get bored, eventually. Somewhere around 20-30 videos, and I'd have to say, "enough is enough."

[@paulorchard7960]

Thanks John, and thanks Jake, information, even if I don’t need it increases my knowledge that could be used in future years for all sorts of things at this time I have no desire to follow! Who knows, maybe in the future one of my grandchildren will use some of this random knowledge I passed to them to build a better wheel!

[@ChrisBennettGameDesign]

This is one of the most fascinating videos I’ve ever watched. Amazing work! 🙌 🔥

[@BlackBearForge]

thanks

[@sprungmonkey6inches]

u got a subscriber. excellent, zombie apocalypse education.

[@galendirks1580]

A wonderful video and it's very interesting what you have done all the way from the furnace to the wrought iron.

[@BlackBearForge]

and it was fun

[@monkeykong6230]

I know that the Japanese would stack the little bits and pieces onto a sort of spatula, cover that with with paper, pour a thin slurry of clay on top, and finally top that with straw ash. I imagine that it would work in a similar way to a canister for damascus. As it was worked together and homogenized the clay/paper skin would crumble away, leaving a single forge welded billet.

[@youbeadumass4138]

I’ve been told that all the small, unused stuff would be saved then added to the kiln/forge an hour or two (last) before it was opened up to retrieve the next bloom. My uncle ( who told me that) was a survivalist, and generally knew what he was talking about.

[@BlackBearForge]

Perhaps but outside the scope f this particular project

[@youbeadumass4138]

Black Bear Forge Sorry, a few minutes after I made the comment you said you were going to do it. But after I read my comment, I can see how I said it in a confusing way. Rock on brother!👍

[@kam70111]

Filing or wrought iron but it was fun. Thank you.

[@klkkylekin5948]

Thanks very interesting to see nice video

[@bonbonpony]

Another good idea for a video might be using recycled iron junk from scapyards as source material for the same process of refining. Because if something bad happens and the civillization will have to start over, we most likely won't need to get iron from dirt again - there will be plenty of junk iron around that we would have to find a way to reuse.

[@johnwholetrain]

That was not boring AT ALL, Sir! This process is absolutely mesmerizing. Is it just me or there are not enough videos on youtube showing Bloom being Refined?

[@benjamindejonge3624]

Ooh man my first Tatar grandfather ever registered with the surname, was a blacksmith in a swampy area’s in the 13st century. Imagine what he was doing all day with bog ore.

[@jmikronis7376]

I’m an electronics tech that’s watching all these videos on wrought iron and how people are attempting to get all the usable parts out of it. In my honest opinion, if one wants to get everything they can, the only option is to actually bring all the iron bits to a molten state where it sinks to the bottom. But, that is MUCH more dangerous than building a bloomery furnace. On those videos, it’s not something you can do in your backyard.

[@TheNoodlyAppendage]

Try a burrito weld, flatten the main piece out as much as possible, put the smaller pieces to be folded in on top, and fold the larger piece around it. Add some flux before folding and then put it in the forge. Then it should weld together. I don't know that will work but its what I would try.

[@Douggg1000]

That was a really interesting video for someone like me who has no knowledge of the subject.