Today was a record breaking heat wave in Southern California. In the triple digit heat, what did I decide to do? I lit up a coal fire and decided to smelt some iron.
What I have here is a pit full of burning coal. I use a blower to pump air into the bottom of the pit to get it extremely hot. My original intention for this setup was to get iron red hot, so that it could be pounded out and manipulated. Unfortunately, the pit got so hot that my metal kept melting and dribbling to the bottom. That got me thinking: If the pit liquefies iron so easily, maybe I can find some iron ore and extract the metal from nature.
I drove down into a dry creek, and found some iron-laden sand. Since iron is heavy, it remains even when much of the other sediment is washed away by water. I tested this sand with a magnet and found that a large proportion was iron.
After I got the coal fire hot, I added the sand mixed with borax. Theoretically, the borax clings to non-metallic slag and helps to separate it out. I capped the pit and let it burn for several hours.
The pit is still too hot to find out if this worked. I'm hoping that most of the iron ran to the bottom, separate from the non-metallic components of the sand. If it did I'll be able to remove it and use it to make something. I'll let you know how it turned out tomorrow.
Let me know what you think, and if you've ever done something similar. I really don't know what I'm doing, so any advice is appreciated.
UPDATE: This really didn't work. That's not a big surprise since I had no idea what I was doing.