17 High Furnaces - Part 1

We continue with the development of construction materials for another week. Meanwhile a group of villagers started with the carving and cleaning of a road in the direction of the sea and parallel to the mountains. We still had raw materials, but soon we would have to send another expedition.

My main objective, now is to focus on the construction of the blast furnaces, once we can make iron and steel, we can improve the performance in different jobs.

Once a week after the air pump test, we started to decrease the production of construction materials, but we started with the construction of the blast furnaces.

On the one hand, a group of villagers began to dig holes in the ground at the height of the air pump, these would be connected to the blast furnaces by a channel covered with refractory bricks, when burying the lower part of the air pump in the hole and connect it to the blast furnace through a narrow channel, we would make the pumped air reach the furnace at enough speed and pressure. My goal was to connect all future air pumps to the blast furnaces in this way. To each blast furnace will be connected 3 air pumps, which will eject air in different time intervals so that the flow of air is continuous, both the holes for the air pumps and the channels that you reach the blast furnaces will be made of refractory bricks In total 8 blast furnaces will be built, for this we will need 24 air pumps, that is, we will have to build other water wells. We will reduce the number of water wheels to eight, each axis of each wheel will be connected to after toothed wheels which will move the pistons of the air pumps. It would be inconvenient to have to build 24 waterwheels. Although if these waterwheels were made with bronze pieces they would not be able to withstand the weight of 3 air pumps. For this reason we will only make a blast furnace, which will be powered by 3 air pumps. One which is connected to the water wheel and two others which will work manually from our own strength.

Once we get enough steel we can make the new water wells and we can build more blast furnaces.

Both the holes for the air pumps and the channels were made in just 2 days, now we will have to make the blast furnaces. I made several calculations and concluded that the blast furnaces will be 2 meters in diameter at the base, and this diameter will decrease as the blast furnace rises higher. The height of this will be 8 meters.

In the first phase we built the base of the blast furnace with a height of 3 meters, we made it in a circular way. But in a section one meter from the ground we left a hole without refractory bricks and only covered it with refractory mortar, which was simply the mass of the bricks still wet. We returned to do this at a height of two and a half meters. When the base of three meters was made we let the construction dry and settle for 3 days. During that time we made several scaffolds that surrounded the structure, in this way we can build the blast furnace of the height that we want. Once the base is made we start with the rest of the body of the blast furnace every time the diameter of the furnace was decreasing until we reached the height of eight meters where the diameter of the furnace is one meter, through this opening the necessary minerals will be poured to make iron. As in the base we leave a section about 4 meters from the ground without covering leaving a hole. This hole would be where the channels of the air pumps are connected to the blast furnace.

It took us a long time, but in the end we have a blast furnace.

-The truth is quite impressive-

-si- before the comment of Mors I could only agree.

-Then what is missing-

-for the moment we have to let the construction dry, meanwhile we can build the cranes that will raise the minerals until the entrance of the blast furnace, we can also make the containers where we will accumulate the cast iron-

-The containers??-

-yes, the cast iron will be placed in these containers.. To maintain its high temperature after leaving the oven we will have to make the containers of refractory bricks. Although these containers weighed a lot, we can still raise them to reintroduce them in steel-making ovens.

-steel ehh ... As you explained to me, this metal is much harder and more resistant than iron.

-that is, with this material we can create much more effective tools for the activities that are carried out with them. Both the plows, axes, nails, saws and other tools will now be made of steel. And not only that, we will also produce steel weapons, although at the moment they are not necessary-

-all you say is very good, but to be able to do all these tools we will need many men to mold the molten metal-

Before the comment by Mors I could only get a smile. After this action I showed something to Mors.

-watch this-

-mmm ... this is a wooden sword- Mors asked me.

-that is, this is the sword style that we will make with steel-

-but because this one is made of wood- Mors was still confused.

-because from this wooden sword we can make dozens of swords at the same time-