Smelting Steel - Tamahagane

[@brysonalden5414]

To paraphrase, I love smelting steel, I could watch people doing it all day! Man, that's a lot of effort, and of course a lot of knowledge. Never seen re-usables like this before.

[@Aleeknives]

This was super interesting and very enjoyable to watch, thank you Walter!

[@TyrellKnifeworks]

Amazing that you do your own blooms for your swords, Walter. Thanks for showing your process!

[@EthanVandal]

Thank you for inspiring me to start making knives. There's a lot of people that are leading beginners the wrong direction, but you set me on the right path towards quality end product production as opposed to cheap and easy junk builds like some other so called teachers. Even the 1095 file knives are a useful and durable end product. I'm currently working on a bastard file bushman's Tanto with a maple handle. I even setup a gas forge and a smelter inspired by your easy to follow videos. My grandfather handed me down a cranked upright coal forge. It's fun to operate the hand crank, for short work runs. Sometimes I cheat and plug in a 4" duct fan for longer runs. Thank you again!

[@simonhopkins3867]

Cool. Would be good to see the next stage in the process. Thanks stay safe.

[@NKG416]

that machete..... "still filling...still filling...still filling"

[@4l45t0r]

ahahahahah got the reference

[@Divine_Serpent_Geh]

We got to see the legendary O1 machete in action! Lol so much filing for that beast.

[@NKG416]

@@Divine_Serpent_Geh that video is one of my gateway to knifemaking

[@Divine_Serpent_Geh]

Mikail Rahmadnegara Yeah! Same here.

[@jonadams4062]

Mr. Sorrells, thank you very much for that. Amazing video.

[@robinsievers2756]

thank you for the education, I fully intend to gather even more information to eventually start doing the whole sword making process to make my own swords. truly an inspiration, thank you for making the information accessible

[@pjhalchemy]

Thanks Walter! Very cool that you can present the essence of a ancient black art in ~11 minutes with quality videography! Always appreciative of what you share with us.

[@jawdatfares2831]

Thanks again that was awesome to see,,we wont more videos about this project and haw you piled it

[@4funrc11]

DIY smelting has always interested me. Thx. 👍

[@michaelochoa9282]

One of these days I’ll be on your level Walt. Your videos are packed with knowledge

[@Aleeknives]

I hope to someday be that good also!

[@timreid9556]

That is a very clever smelter , Walter.

[@VGranath]

Cool video! Nice too see something different compared too other knife makers!

[@waskasoometalworks3329]

as a guy who actively does bloomery i greatly appreciate this! man does it ever take so much effort!!!

[@MichaelTessin]

Great, that was an exciting and very interesting insight how you make Tamahagane! I didn't think there was that much effort behind it. Respect!

[@tengu190]

Doing this with Lee Sauder back when I was in high school was blast.

[@Divine_Serpent_Geh]

You’re awesome Walter. You’re an inspiration to me, an amateur bladesmith and many others. One thing that is so commendable about you is the way you share your talent and skill with all of us. Currently forging a Katana out of W1 tool steel with your help. Thanks you sir.

[@TrojanHorse1959]

Great video and process explanation Walter, thank you!

[@thereallevel27]

That backlit water quench is still one of the cooler shots you've gotten. Pretty good cinema for an author 😉

[@Zogg1281]

I love your smelting setup, thanks for the awesome video 👍

[@RyanPardoe]

Sorrells for the win with the stash!

[@erikcourtney1834]

Gah damn that’s hot...😂😂 i could only imagine the heat coming off that furnace.

[@jamessnodgrass7055]

I never thought of purchasing ore, I assumed you would have to find it in nature. As always Walter a very informative and interesting video. Keep up the great work.

[@ChrisR676]

Woah mate! Blew my mind, really good to see

[@c0nnys1]

Do you have a video where you go into more detail of the dimensions of the furnace and weight of iron ore and charcoal etc ?

[@dralonthemystery1984]

Call that is TATARA. Nice work of create the Tamahagane

[@WmHorus]

I have been contemplating making a similar setup I first saw in a video from a japanese smith years ago.

[@tylerkrug7719]

Love the guitar in the background.

[@titotito3155]

Loved the video.. do you have a video how to build that air pressure gauge?

[@daleb1225]

Wow, what a process, I can not imagine the price you have to charge to make a sword using this method and to be honest there is no need in knowing. Great work

[@lundgrenbronzestudios]

What happens if you take the bloom and melt it into an ingot. Is it good for anything?

[@roejimbo2293]

So awesome, thank you so much for all your hard work, its very appreciate!

[@tylerkrug7719]

You always make awesome videos!

[@EzioAuditore]

Thanks for the 4 minutes of black screen at the end, i needed to think about my life choices…

[@nikolaoskoulouriotis7403]

awsome. can I ask sir. actually I got two questions. if you were to make a very strong katana sword. would it be from tamahagane or Damascus steel. and how much to purchase one ?

[@KuddlesbergTheFirst]

It may not be as strong as modern metals used for blades, but to turn weak material into decent craft is something. It feels as if the sword had a soul of its own and will grow stronger along with its wielder after the smith poured his effort and will into his work.

[@bschwartzberg]

I can't help but wonder what would happen if you took the bloom and used it to make crucible steel. Normally using pig iron and adding carbon, would it be a way to get a refined homogeneous ingot, albeit with more work?

[@franotoole2702]

Niee insight walter. And people wonder why handmade costs so much!!!

[@pnwprospecting]

Any recommendations on the size of Forge for doing around 50 pounds of sand

[@marcelamarita4662]

Hi Walter, from Barcelona! Very interested on your work, i have few questions about your tamahagane productions... Even Lee Sauder on one of his documents (Update on the "practical treatise") he recommends tapping the slag heavily and constantly, I don't see you at any moment doing it on the video. I suppose everyone has a method, can you explain your point about it, please? As well as, i don't see so much angle on your tuyere, maybe near 0, and again Sauder, he talks about steeper angles promote higher carbon contents, is your way something about to don't produce cast iron with your kind of furnance? And the last one, which values are you looking for on the air rating flow, are you searching also for a charcoal consumption rate? Thanks so much! Getting inspired by you!

[@NateWebb0483]

Hot work in Georgia... Although today would be nice enough for it, miracle of miracles. Good video Walter :)

[@thomasbecker9676]

National Geographic has a documentary about "samurai swords" that visits one of the last tradition tatara (spelling?) remaining in Japan. Pretty cool stuff.

[@francesmendenhall189]

he MN Guild of Metalsmiths did an iron smelt much like yours. But we used th traditional clay-and sand chimney. we used bog iron, which we had to roast in a wood fire first. we got about a ten pound ball of something pretty solid. Not sure what the carbon content was though.

[@fistofthenorthend204]

Where do you get your iron ore? I have been considering trying to find a natural source (in Texas) to harvest my own. Also: Do you have any good technical documents that walk through the entire process from collecting materials and building a forge/tatara to identifying good characteristics in a tamahagane bloom? I would really like to know. Thanks!

[@calitrimshaad2044]

My man made jewel steel!

[@Dylanschillin]

You ever done orishigane? I find it hard to acquire ore so I kinda just looked into orishigane and had some fair success but would like to know if you got any knowledge on this and if there's any difference in quality between the higher carbon blooms

[@Smallathe]

Awesome!

[@jacknemo8021]

Does it make a difference to the curvature if you quench blade edge down or spine side down in to the tank?

[@qasimmohammed2042]

How much your boat Iron and charcoal every time please give me details🙏🏼

[@LYLEWOLD]

very cool. do you / can you use the scraps, cut offs, rusty dust from the steel work done in the shop?

[@64t120r]

I would really like to work with some tamahagane. I'm looking forward to the next videos you put out about it.

[@clonexili]

Those hidden frames in the last few minutes of the video made me laugh. Perfect hidden easter egg. I will make sure to use the code

[@AZ.tattoo]

Amazing!

[@Ray-gz4ut]

Haha, love how the last minute is black just to make it 10min. But ya that is insane making your own steel I mean that's a hell of a lot of effort going into a sword and the risk of something going wrong and then having wasted lots of time and money, that's hectic.

[@jwoodward1776]

I really want to learn this

[@SBG420]

very cool,

[@Neeverseen]

Cool to see that you're using your "beginner's" machete.

[@alexanderellwood8952]

Is 30 too old to start learning this? I did some welding in highschool but never took metallurgy any further. Now I kinda regret not getting into forging

[@philochristos]

This looks to me like a "Do it one time for the experience" project. I can't imagine wanting to do it twice.

[@valtcustom3602]

Dang...this is almost as much work as my smoked pork chili.

[@frankbruce6889]

How many pounds of steel did you get out of the process?

[@shanek6582]

Seems like turning that moon rock into a solid bar of steel without inclusions would be almost impossible. That’s got to be another art in itself

[@Geo64x]

The inclusions become part of the steel

[@wekker090]

Had some really red iron ore once, the garden was interesting after the smelt and the wife pissed... :-)

[@isaiahkerstetter3142]

Is that really tahamagane or just wrong iron?

[@Bakers_Ville]

I see this and think to myself all the shortcuts I could take working in a heat treating facility. Make it at whatever temperature with however much carbon. Then get it folded out and homogeneous then just run it on an annealing cycle in atmosphere to even out the carbon and raise/lower it to what I want. Then do whatever I want and carborize it if I so desire. All in total 3 hours of processing to be lazy

[@sudo_nym]

Way cool! 😎 🇬🇧🤜⚡️🤛🇺🇸

[@oldgoat8132]

Have you ever tried crucible steel?

[@iflystuff1]

My favorite part.....9:12

[@guardsmenedwin6213]

So you use that old hand tool made machete to chop up your charcoal, surprised to see that thing again.

[@S8tan7]

Yeah I think I'll stick to commercial crucible steel for the time being, looks cool though

[@shockwave6213]

Yeah, this Tomahagane process is really just for the guys who wanna do it the old fashioned way. Folding the steel billet from this process may make it mostly uniform, but it won't every be nearly 100% consistent like modern crucible steel. But making steel this way is an art form, rather than a science. Especially the way it was made back then.

[@anasmark-nd8sj]

❤❤❤❤

[@enricociccia1821]

The roots

[@rocksdxebec3406]

I want to produce Tamahagane, But my neighbors are a bunch of crying babies who complain about everything, especially if I work with something fire-related, I guess I will have to look for someplace and start planning and studying the process in order to fully understand it

[@luciusirving5926]

Nowadays, people would rather have swords or axes made from chromoly or spring steel.

[@RovingPunster]

Silly me ... I used to spend weekends doing all grain beer when instead I coulda been making steel. What was I thinking ?! 🤔 😉

[@RovingPunster]

I was expecting to see a slag runoff but there wasnt. Was also hoping to see the bloom refined into billets. Oh well. Still +1. 😃

[@makemorethings4016]

USA Tamahagane!

[@amaroussama]

First comment from ALGERIA Great video

[@rickcimino743]

...a lot of other....hot stuff. Not cool stuff. Cmon Walter. hehehe 7:35

[@Sleepers2.1]

Ppl coming here after Watching Ghost teaser

[@billclancy4913]

Kinda like making beer...work a little, talk a bit. Repeat.

[@evilotis01]

5:27 you guys should, um, work on that process a bit more

[@bartlomiejswierczynski7949]

primitive steel? tamahagane meets the standards of today's modern steel so who do you call primitive? Because your process was so fast you ended with steel that would not even end as fork material. Real tamahagane is created over a few days... too fast to furious. Most likely because you were using iron oxide instead of iron sand... i know that it should not make difference but for some reason, they were using iron sand stead of rust

[@blackly999]

They did indeed have mechanical blowers. Mechanical blowers are traditional. You’re just doin stuff for a hobby. This is certainly nothing special

[@New2Kendo]

Tamahagne can only be made in Japan and has to be tested and approved, most is only good enough for Kitchen knives, it is only the highest grade that is used for Japanese Swords. You can smelt steel but it will never be Tamahagne.

[@kovona]

Yeah...we gaijans don't really give a shit.

[@makemorethings4016]

USA Tamahagane!