water blaster furnace and early iron smelting

[tallbear]

MD

These hill folks were probably not in the habit of buying things they could make for themselves and especially when manufactured iron was so far away and expensive.

If this is the cae why do almost all of those rifles have imported locks on them??

Mitch Yates

 

[M. De Land]

I don't know that all the early ones did,do you? MD

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Define early

 

[M. De Land]

Cline said the earliest settlers of the southern mountains smelted in water blast furnaces that originated in Catalonia Spain known as a Catalonian forge.
Have no idea of the date of the earliest settling of the southern mountains.My guess would be late 1600's to early 1700's.
They called it charcoal iron and reforged the small amounts from the water blast forges, in bellows forges and hammered this iron out into flat bars a bit longer than final barrel length needed.
Pages 77-79 of "The muzzle loading rifle" then and now by Walter M. Cline. MD

 

[tallbear]

MD
Walter Cline is hardly a reliable historical source.He simply recorded oral history.The trouble with recording oral history is that more often than not it's wrong.Cline was not an historian nor was he a gunbuilder nor iron smelter.His lack of understanding of the basic process's lead him to belive what he was being told and his retelling it in his book.The Foxfire books suffer from the same problem.Many people belive everything in those books.They are great books(I enjoy reading them) but they are basically just high school students recording oral history.A good bit of the information in them is wrong.But somehow some people regaurd them as gospel.

I have no need to argue this subject with you but will leave you with a quote from one of my mentors Gary Brumfied who was a master smith at Williamsbug.

"If you accept your thoughts as facts, then you will no longer be looking for new information, because you assume that you have all the answers."

Mitch Yates

 

[Loyalist Dave]

If they could make cutlery and farm implements from iron they smelted themselves(which none seem to question)

I guess you missed my previous post. I clearly questioned that it was done, which is not the same is it being impossible to do, but simply that it wasn't.

Why did the communities that I mentioned fashion "iron-works" (one of which I demonstrated closed for lack of ore) if folks could do the stuff at home? Why would folks be paying for iron from an iron-works when doing it at home was free? Folks wouldn't construct and work an iron-works if there wasn't a market for the iron. Why would one such works close after fifty years for lack of raw materials if the raw materials were plentiful? Why were there not more iron works established if this is a simple and common thing to do?

History if rife with examples of folks in certain places and eras that had they the knowledge of later centuries, they could've produced something, often more easily, than was done in their time.

Corn was grown, hollow reeds were known, tobacco was known, and smoking pipes was known, all in the 18th century, yet there is no evidence that anybody used a corncob pipe until the 19th century.

Lemons were known, and black tea was known, in Western Europe for a couple of centuries before somebody in Russia in the court of Katherine the Great put lemon in sugared tea instead of milk.

Steel was known, olive oil was known, and blacksmithing of steel into skillets was known, but nobody in America developed stir frying or wok making until Asians arrived with the idea. I believe on the west coast, and during the time of the railroads, was when the first Asian restaurants appeared.

Showing something could have been done is not evidence that something had to have been done, no matter how simple we think it would be to do.

LD

 

[BillinOregon]

Many points to consider here. I'll just say the topic of building a primitive bloomery to smelt iron ore is a fascinating one. Folks have been doing this in Africa for thousands of years.


2nd millennium BC: West Asians invent iron smelting
8th century BC: Phoenicians bring iron to North Africa (Lepcis Magna, Carthage)
8th-7th century BC: First iron smelting in Ethiopia
671 BC: Hyksos invasion of Egypt
7th-6th century BC: First iron smelting in the Sudan (Meroe, Jebel Moya)
5th century BC: First iron smelting in West Africa (Jenne-Jeno, Taruka)
5th century BC: Iron using in eastern and southern Africa (Chifumbaze)
4th century BC: Iron smelting in central Africa (Obobogo, Oveng, Tchissanga)
3rd century BC: First iron smelting in Punic North Africa
30 BC: Roman conquest of Egypt 1st century AD: Jewish revolt against Rome
1st century AD: Establishment of Aksum
1st century AD: Iron smelting in southern and eastern Africa (Buhaya, Urewe)
2nd century AD: Heyday of Roman control of North Africa
2nd century AD: Widespread iron smelting in southern and eastern Africa (Bosutswe, Toutswe, Lydenberg
AD 639: Arab invasion of Egypt
9th century AD: Lost wax method bronze casting (Igbo Ukwu)
8th century AD; Kingdom of Ghana, Kumbi Selah, Tegdaoust, Jenne-Jeno

 

[tallbear]

Bill
No one is disputing that there were iron smelting operations in this country,there were as early as the 1600's(Saugus iron works for one).What I've seen no proof of was that gunbuilders were smelting their own iron and making gunbarrels from it let alone making steel nessacary for locks.It was a labor and resourse intensive process and was left to the dedicated craftsmen who sold their product to others(blacksmiths,gunbuilders,founders and others).

Mitch Yates

 

[BillinOregon]

Mitch, I hear what you're saying. My thought would be that some frontier smith somewhere probably smelted a bloom that ended up as a gun barrel, but that by far the more common practice would have been for the gunsmith to have gotten his iron or steel from an ironmaker or he would have welded up precious scraps carefully hoarded.

 

[M. De Land]

I sure appreciate the discussion guys and am considering your views testing them against my own for the truth is what we all should be seeking.
I think it important to remember most of these folks were immigrants or first generation American and would have brought the iron smelting skills learned in the old country with them. The remoteness of where they settled and the scarcity of gun building supplies would have created necessity and that is the impetus for invention and innovation.
Gusler was building guns from purchased iron, steel and brass and is representing gun building of colonial America in Virginia. I did notice he built his own locks though!
I see no reason why these people in remote regions could not have or would not have smelted their own iron and built their gun with it.MD

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Woulda, coulda, shoulda is not the same as what actually happened historically. In other words, guessing about what could have been or what could be possible in the view of modern logic rarely turns out to match what really was.
One really needs to research history to get the facts. That means primary sources. I think everyone can agree of they possibility but the context here is what happened historically right?

 

[M. De Land]

I would recommend getting a copy of Cline's book guys if you don't have one.
It looks to me like he spent most of his life collecting, studying,shooting, and interviewing the folks about their ancestors he talked about in his book.
He has owned very many original guns clear back to the revolution an seems to me to know of what he spoke. MD

 

[Capt. Jas.]

For reading enjoyment and NOT historical research maybe. :thumbsup: