Is it possible to someone to make a forge from a scratch, only using raw and worked by hand materials?

Is this for real life or a fantasy setting???

Hell, according to some research it was Russia's primary method of indigenous iron extraction until the 1600s.

Russia was pretty backwater back then so I don't doubt that.
FYI there are also fuckloads of natural coal deposits all over the place. I've found a couple while hiking before, shit's literally just laying all over for anyone to find.

The reason we even took so long to progress to this point is because the expended resources, energy, and time of innovation was something early societies literally couldn't afford to waste. Ain't got time to think about making sturdier tools or new machines when there's crops that need harvesting and if you don't do it your family will fucking starve to death

Hell, making charcoal isn't even that hard. A single family working part time can easily make enough to run a town forge and still have room to do other stuff.

youtube.com/watch?v=GzLvqCTvOQY
fuck his videos are so cozy

youtube.com/watch?v=RuCnZClWwpQ

Good video. Smelting iron without modern tools. What I found interesting was they mixed hay into the termite clay to prevent cracking and improve insulation for the forge.

The chicken sacrifice was a bit unnecessary, but eh.

wow I have the chance to finally use a picture I found years ages

primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/forge-blower/

In case there are doubts that you can do all of this starting from basically just having hands, this dude basically does exactly what OP is talking about. What is important is the knowledge that ore can be made into iron, how to find that ore, and what the forge has to do in order to work.

It's a shit ton of work for one person to smelt enough iron to create an anvil, hammers, tongs etc. while also feeding themselves. It's basically your entire adult life bootstrapping from dirt and sticks to the level of blacksmithing most people think about, even if you know *precisely* what needs to be done. But you can definitely shorten that amount of time if you're not the only one working on it, to the point where you can start working on tool steel and actual machinery.

youtube.com/watch?v=hHD10DjxM1g

For those who want a quick fun.

This is real life user, crazy isn't it

Caught in a landslide?

No escape from reality?

Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see.

The problem with Iron is generally getting furnace temperatures high enough to purify iron mineral deposits.

But basically once you figure out charcoal or have access to naturally purified iron deposits like bog iron or meteoric iron you're good as long as you have wood to burn and some flat rocks you can hit the hot metal with.

Copper and bronze only act as an intermediary between stone and iron tools because copper and it's close cousin tin can be shaped with stone tools into tools better than stone, and eventually someone notices that if you heat tin or copper in a container, the tin or copper melts and takes the shape of the container - from there it's a simple step to build dedicated furnaces and mold techniques you need for bronze and iron working, and bronze working in turn requires people grasping the core idea of alloying that helps make iron weapons better.

But if you start with the idea of heating metal in furnaces that burn charcoal to melt iron that is then poured into molds or mixed with other metals to alloy them then you can skip copper and bronze working, because copper tends to be less plentiful in surface mineral deposits.

The real trick is making aluminium by creating electricity to power electrolysis, which folds the molecules of a metal on an atomic level over aa thousand times to make a metal as hard as iron but much lighter.

Aluminium is as hard as iron?

When I read that post about 'iron is hard to smelt(hurr i don't know shit) that's actually the first thing that popped into my head
but 3 computers and several years down the line I didnt have the pic anymore

Only if folded a about a thousand times.

For the real shit you have to use diamonds as that is the hardest metal know to man.

Maybe if you hadn't spent the whole of your embryonic development hoarding chromosomes you'd be able to figure this out for yourself.

Nah. Hopefully he's just being hyperbolic, aluminum in it's base form is as soft as copper or bronze, sometimes softer.

Once you anodize it, it gets MUCH harder, harder than even most steels, but tool steel will still beat it and is available sooner.

What about brass?

You could probably just stack stones and clay together to get a decent one, but you need tools to get at the molten metal afterwards.
And some sort of shovel and saw to make charcoal to fuel the forge with.

Aluminium is way easier to get hold of nowadays, though. Takes way less energy to make it from scrap aluminium than to smelt ore.

I'd love to do something like this someday. For now I have to make due with steel stock I purchased and a propane forge.

This thread is great.

I've started associating with the local blacksmith's guild because of my work. Some of them make dirt forges that they assemble on-site. It's basically just a pile of dirt with a hole in the middle, and a bellows stuck in the side that somebody else works.

>chicken sacrifice was a bit unnecessary
Shows what you know.

How exactly do you make those forges? Any pics?

>Is it possible to someone to make a forge from a scratch, only using raw and worked by hand materials?

Obviously yes. The forge proper is just some rocks or clay bricks stacked in the right shape, with some way of blowing air in, which can be as simple as a bunch of dudes with hollow reeds.

Without metal to start with, though, you'll be starting with rocks for hammers and anvils, and for tongs, well, that's going to succ. Maybe a bunch of disposable wooden tongs soaked in water between uses? Or cast into rough shape from copper or bronze melted in the forge.

A blast furnace isn't anything particularly complicated either, though getting it to actually work takes major skill, and obviously a way to blow a large amount of air. A double acting bellows blower could probably be made with stone tools and patience, though.

>double acting bellows blower could probably be made with stone tools and patience, though.
or a turbine blower...

Brass is not something you find in nature

So is bronze and yet it was extremely popular.

Another related video:
youtube.com/watch?v=F3rjjpuhCLI

Good for cannon barrels. Armor and weapons, only if a very humid/salty environment such as islands.

Yes, if you know how to.

You can even bypass the Bronze Age and go right to making carbon steel.
uh.edu/engines/epi385.htm

youtube.com/watch?v=8zQEGLObYN8

>Can Bronze Age Weapons Pierce and Cut Steel Armor?
youtu.be/YAFz7UeVm4E
The best bronze alloys surpass some steels. Useful for mythical Greece settings.

>The furnaces are all situated on the western margins of hills and ridges, where they are exposed to the strong monsoon winds. Field trials using replica furnaces confirm that this furnace type uses a wind-based air-supply principle that is distinct from either forced or natural draught, and show also that it is capable of producing high-carbon steel.
nature.com/nature/journal/v379/n6560/abs/379060a0.html

>How exactly do you make those forges? Any pics?
I don't have any on hand, sorry. I might have some at work but I won't have time to look for them until at least Tuesday.