Iron Blooms to Bars - An OAC Projects Grant

Day 45 (!)

There have been few postings of late. Returning from Smeltfest, some fairly annoying work on the hydraulic press, one more bloom converted to bar (more on that later).

Although not normally required in the progress of an OAC Crafts Project grant, I personally consider communications an essential element of any research project - especially one related to recovering lost skills.

Although more a related topic, than part of the project at hand (Bloom to Bar), two of the lectures I will be giving inside the grant period are on the 'Vinland' experimental smelting series. This work was undertaken in 2009 and 2010. The public lectures are formal presentations, which describe the objectives of the experiments, plus the results. The first was given this weekend (March 31) at Forward Into the Past at Laurier University, Waterloo ON. This was in some ways a trial run for the presentation at the more academic International Congress on Medieval Studies conference at Wester Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI (on Thursday May 10).

I have placed a converted version of the power point presentation that accompanied my delivery up on my iron smelting documentation.

The title of the formal paper is : Towards an Iron Smelt in Vinland - an experimental investigation

PS - Preparing that presentation took most of two days last week. Today I will finish installing the venting system to exhaust the gasoline engine on the hydraulic press. Then its back to bloom work!