Copper smelting

Smelting is the process of applying heat to ore in order to extract a base metal. In the case of copper, combining tin and/or arsenic in the right proportions produces bronze, an alloy that is significantly harder than copper.

Process

Smelting is usually done using a furnace, whose design can be as simple as a pit in the ground. In this case, with copper ore and bellows, one of the possible processes steps are the following:

1. A small pit is dug unto the ground using an antler pick or another tool, such as a stick.
2. A small groove cut into the edge to allow air from a set of leather bag bellows
3. The copper ore is crushed on a small anvil until it is a fine powder.
4. A fire is lit in the pit and charcoal is added.
5. The crushed ore is sprinkled onto the hot coals. More charcoal is added.
6. The end of the bag bellows is placed in the pit and a turf cap is placed over the pit.

Normally, a natural draft furnace using wood, a kiln, can reach up to 1400 Celsius degrees (or 2552 Fahrenheit), while a furnace that uses fuel such as charcoal can reach temperatures up to 1600 °C degrees.

See also

• Bloomery Furnace

External links

• Prehistoric copper smelting in a pit!, ancient1580, 25 May 2012, YouTube

Further reading

• Rehder, J.E. (2006). The Mastery and Uses of Fire in Antiquity. McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0773530746.

References

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Smelting, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).