[Paul Rondelez]

Dear Quentin,

Not my speciality but the publication The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel (p. 402-403) by H. S. Osborn, published in 1869, seems to have all the ingredients Verne needed: the end product of combustion [in the blast furnace] is carbonic oxide [carbon monoxide], this carbonic oxide will react with any oxides within the furnace.

Catalan forge/Corsican method was frequently used to describe any bloomery process in the late 19th century, which I am assuming Verne was doing. And charcoal, not coal, is the fuel for this process. As you say, the various term for ‘coal/charcoal’ can be confusing in various languages but Verne’s use of ‘charbon’ (for charcoal) would seem correct. The translations as ‘coal’, however, are not.

Kind regards,

Paul

 

[Paul Rondelez]

Hi Lee,

Essentially yes, without the ‘super-solid’ bit.

The hammer I’m hoping to compare to was found on one of a handful of Irish medieval sites dominated by large slag cakes, generally associated with bloom processing. The mean weight of 84 slag cakes is 1205g. Difficult to be 100% sure that no further forging took place but these sites all lack the typical pit hearths found on sites with evidence for blacksmithing.

Other sites where only bloom processing can be assumed would be one-off smelting sites with a single large slag cake. Larger smelting sites where the blooms were refined but not further forged can also be envisaged.

The hammer is of the cross pein variety and weighs 1435g, see added picture, please (!) don’t share outside of this forum. Due to heavy mushrooming on the upper edge of the flat face, Rowan Taylor, who is researching the hammer, is interpreting this as meaning that it most likely was used in an upright position (as opposed to sitting/crouched which is typical for early medieval forging) and thus represents a sledgehammer.

Paul

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[Paul Rondelez]

Hi Richard,

Justine and myself will be in Falun, not heard of others.

All the best,

Paul

[Paul Rondelez]

Hi Richard,

Maxime L’Héritier and team have done extensive research on characterising structural iron in France mainly for the medieval but also early modern period

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fv8BrR4AAAAJ&hl=en

https://univ-paris8.academia.edu/MaximeLHéritier.

They are now working on different types of puddled iron. Might be worth contacting Maxime.

All the best,

Paul

[Paul Rondelez]

Hi Lee,

About 2 to 3mm, original thickness. Blades was also Jamie Smith’s (Irish bladesmith) first unprompted guess, ‘when quickly making lots of them’.

Paul

[Paul Rondelez]

The copper-alloy off-cuts

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[Paul Rondelez]

Hi Richard,

Would you mind sending me an email (prondelez@yahoo.com)? I’d like to get to the bottom of this but not in this thread.

Paul

[Paul Rondelez]

Hi Richard,

I did the same search on Safari while logged into the SIG and not. No results were to any discussions here…

Can you please share a screenshot to the results page?

Paul

[Paul Rondelez]

Hi Richard,

We received three different images, not sure how the same ones were sent…

Can I please ask you, and others who have not done so yet, to change your User Name to your actual name? This can be done by going to Member Area, and under Account details to change Display Name to your name.

Thanks,

Paul

[Paul Rondelez]

Hi Peter,

Thank you so might for this insightful reply! And can only but agree with your last paragraph, which sadly applies to archaeology as well.

Paul Rondelez

[Paul Rondelez]

Hi Ray,

Thank you! Not my time period, so not too familiar with the various techniques.

Does this mean that Cort obtained patents for both puddling (wrought from cast) and one for wrought from bundled scrap? If so, the paper would seem somewhat unfair as it documents Cort’s ‘borrowing’ of the Jamaican scrap to wrought process while not mentioning the puddling process for which Cort became most famous? ‘Puddling’ is mentioned once in the paper, as an alternative name for the ‘air furnace’, which is elsewhere used to describe the furnace for converting scrap to wrought. Also the title of the paper ‘Black metallurgists and the making of the Industrial Revolution’ would seem to be somewhat misleading as the scrap to wrought was unlikely that impactful in that Revolution. (again, please excuse my ignorance of the period, just really curious about the paper).

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Paul Rondelez.

[Paul Rondelez]

Thank you Peter!

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