[Sca-cooks] Charcoal forge suggestion ;-)

[marilyn traber 011221]

> Yes, quite a lot of shaping and directing the fire there, but I 
> believe that the photo is showing a smelter, not a forge.
> 
> Several teams have built and run smelters at Pennsic over the years, 
> although a bit smaller than this one. The website mentions this 
> being next to a river to provide water power for the operation. My 
> suspicion is that the water power did nothing for the smelter(s) 
> except perhaps power bellows. Rather it was used to drive the trip-
> hammers used to process the blooms after they were pulled from the 
> smelter. And the area likely had a number of forges handling the 
> processed iron or this was referring to the trip hammer operation or 
> the area as a whole and not specifically to those stone tower smelters.
> 
> Phlip? other metalworkers have comments or corrections?

I agree- Vincenzo took me over to see it/them when I was down visiting, and 
that's just a mite large for a forge- it's most likely a smelter. It's at 
least 20 feet tall, and I can fit conveniently into the "oven" opening- it's 
(as I remember) about 4 ft tall.


Saint Phlip,
CoD

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