today we’re gonna be taking a look at a
very old-fashioned way to heat up a fire
hot enough that it can melt metal I’m
here again with my friend Joseph and
we’ve got some leather and some other
supplies and Joseph is gonna teach us
how to make a bellows that can heat up a
fire hot enough to melt metals that are
yes very cool yes and this is for an
upcoming project where we’re actually
going to try making iron from scratch
just like the Vikings did but one of the
key points for that is you need to get a
fire just unbelievably hot to do that
yes well less hot than you think because
when you make iron you actually never
actually melt it nothing iron like that
was invented way way way after we had
you know swords and stuff and how hot
are we going for about a little over
2,000 degrees over 2,000 yes just like
not that hot and how long does it have
to go like seven hours seven hours a
long time that would take probably
several propane tanks worth of fuel but
we’re not gonna use propane we’re gonna
be using charcoal yes and cheeseburgers
to power the human powered bellows or
maybe not cheeseburgers here’s the basic
idea we’ve got a bunch of leather and
we’re going to cut and sew that into a
shape that lets us control the flow of
air heating up a fire so let’s look at
some of those supplies we’ve got first
off a Russian olive tree yes and the
thing that’s important about this one is
it’s got nasty spikes on it all over the
place it’s a fairly durable rigid spike
and it’s quite sharp and this is one of
the tools we’re gonna be trying to use
to poke holes in the leather so what
we’re gonna give a try and see how it
goes trying to make holes with this to
sew it together
I mean we’re thinking primitive here so
no sewing needles that would be cheating
we might cheat just a little bit this
will work we’ll try some of the
primitive and then for the sake of speed
we’ll probably cheat speaking of
cheating these are very nicely round
sticks in it I did not harvest these off
of a tree myself I harvested these from
Walmart but for this having a perfectly
straight smooth stick that’s really not
important for what we’re gonna use these
are going to be sort of handles at the
top of our bellows that we can open and
close as
we manipulate them now we have a piece
of antler I don’t know if that’s as
pointy as the thorns but it’s probably a
lot stronger yes probably
bamboo why do we have bamboo bamboo is
for the airpipe so we’re gonna have a
bag made out of leather with two sticks
at the top that you pinch closed so you
open up for air this way then you close
and push it down but the air needs
somewhere to go out to go to the fire
and that’s what this is for this is what
we use to direct the air get us where we
want it now bamboo will burn what’s the
strategy for preventing that will coat
the tip in clay and then of course we
have leather this is quite a bit of
leather and again we cheated we did not
tan the leather ourselves so we have
quite a big sheet of really nice tough
leather this is actually more industrial
than it needs to be like yeah this is
pretty thick pretty high-quality tanned
hide and this is really a lot nicer than
we need but if it’s super robust and
that means we can use it for a long time
yeah this is artificial sinew in the old
days they would take tendons from a dead
animal but like the cow we didn’t want
to do that so this is a replicated stuff
made of just some very fine fibers and
coated with wax we’ll probably use this
for most of the sewing so what’s gonna
be our first step first step we need to
measure out exactly what we want
the bellows to look like and that’s
going to be dependent on how much
leather we have we’re gonna do four side
panels and two bottom panels the goal is
to make two bellows yes and I think
that’s because that way as you’re
pumping air you can always have one
pushing air in while the other one is
refilling yes and one does two things it
regulates the air flow and it also
prevents the air from the bellows from
sucking air in from the fire which would
burn it and cause problems alright we’re
gonna use this very authentic primitive
technology chalk marker so let’s make
four rectangles four rectangles asides
and you are saying we want them about
one cubit young and not quite a cubit
tall cubit if you don’t know is the
distance from your elbow to the tips of
your fingers I don’t know the exact
scale but of course as you get taller
your arms also get a little bit longer
so let’s instead of the full cubit let’s
just take it down by a few inches maybe
the top of the top of the first nipples
very precise commands
measuring here to save time hover we’re
going to use this pair of industrially
large sharp scissors
[Music]
we’ve got four rectangle ish pieces of
leather cut out yes so now we want a
bottom piece that’s kind of flat I’m
thinking just kind of like almond shaped
yes all the shape would be just about
right eyeball almond that goes out when
football you take the marker okay I’m
just gonna take this piece of leather
and hold it sort of up in this curved
shape and then you’ve also sort draw
along that curve and then we’ll know
[Music]
so we’ve got a bunch of pieces we now
need to sew them together so the order
to do that in I figured we’ll just sew
along the sides to make kind of a
envelope shape and then put the bottom
on Joseph is going to harvest a thorn he
just slapped me with this
fortunately the part that hit me did not
seem to have any thorns on it yeah how
are we doing on stabbing a hole in
leather with it
well I’ve broken three or four points
off of this thorn now I actually did
stab a hole in this leather with one of
these thorns before but I’m now
struggling to do so it’s just the the
leather is winning there are lots of
primitive ways of making meals that you
even get through leather there are other
types of natural thorn that are harder
that are sharper we’ve got a piece of
antler that we can get through it’s very
wide very quickly though so in that rich
tradition of cheating we’ve also got
some metal needles which even have eye
holes in them to stab right through the
leather and we’re gonna use those
because I love metal tools they’re great
poke a hole through both layers that
stab through fairly easily
and then you’re the first one again it
pulls the sinew through but now well we
still have this loop we take the other
end this long end and poke it through
that hole and pull it all the way and
now when we pull that loop down tight we
have a stitch right in place and we have
one on the other side as well so I just
need to keep doing that and go down the
line poking a hole creating a loop
feeding the seen you through that and
and my second side I am going to leave a
gap just a couple inches so that we can
either just tie the pipe right on to
that or at our little pipe sleeve
[Music]
alright this bag has one side two sides
and the bottom stone on when I’ve left
this gap here this is where we’re gonna
try and attach our pipe but for the
moment we’re just gonna make a mess by
putting some sawdust there and showing
that if I have this bag and then I
pinched the top closed we get a good
amount of air flying out of ax it there
so messes everywhere
Joseph’s gonna keep stitching up the
bottom of that one I am going to start
adding some sticks onto the top and
bottom of this and we’re just gonna make
it so they fit pretty nicely in there
and just have a few stitches we don’t
need to stitch all the way along we’ll
probably have three to five bind points
whatever seems like it’s necessary to
really hold it in place open it pulls an
air from the top close it pushes air out
the bottom
[Applause]
[Music]
okay update this first bellows is I
believe complete and in working order
Joseph is getting really good progress
he’s got one more seam to finish on his
and then a couple sticks and handles but
we did want to show you where this one
is handles up at the top we’ve got these
sticks in here
those are rigid so when we squeeze that
it holds the whole bag top shut in the
event that that’s not quite enough
pressure although it seems to work
pretty well you can also sort of roll it
over as you press down that keeps the
seal even better these handles are there
so as I lift it up I can hold it open
that way it doesn’t draw the heat back
up through the pipe into the bellows so
you’d fill it up with ash and if it
burned it just takes in the air from the
top so you lift close and squeeze and it
just blows a whole bunch of air right
out this piece of PVC is just fit into a
hole that I left at the bottom I then
wrapped a lot of this sinew down around
it it’s in there pretty nice and tight
holds onto the bag and this size PVC
just happens to be the right size you
might you might be able to get some
marshmallows shooting out of this let’s
give this a try I’m gonna see if I can
all right update time we’ve got two
completed bellows bags how’s yours
working very cool you’re using bamboo so
more realistic in terms of things you
might find in the wilderness although
it’s kind of depends on what wilderness
you have but there’s lots of different
ways you can get a pipe shaped thing my
way is PVC which grows on the PVC trees
of course very cool so now I think the
next step is to test these out with
actual fire I think that’s the next
thing and we are going to be doing an
iron smelt we’re gonna be taking the
iron ore running through the furnace and
trying to extract the iron out of that
ore and these what we’re gonna use to
keep that fire hot enough for hours and
hours on end so let’s take these out and
test them out yeah in an iron our bags
are made and we’ve switched out the
bamboo and PVC that we had before for
this cool little bamboo forked shape
that way we get both of the bags going
into one spot in the furnace
this stake is here to keep it from
sliding out backwards so it always keeps
directing the air right where we want it
so Joseph tell us about our little
furnace here so this furnace is called a
blue Murray stack furnace and the
purpose of it is to transform rock into
metal what we’re gonna be doing is
stuffing it full of charcoal and then
layering it with charcoal and Orr and
Orr is just a stone that contains
basically rust and so as those burn down
to the level of the air they’re gonna
slowly transform chemically into iron
and then collect in the bottom and then
we’re gonna collect a big lump of it
which is called a bloom compensatory so
we’ve got our bags and I think we can do
a nice demonstration we’ve already got
stuff burning in here you can see just a
thick white smoke coming out of it I’m
probably half of that is steam as well
but what we can do now is we can pump
with our bellows and we’ll watch as this
just gets hotter and hotter and I think
pretty quickly will start having flames
coming out of the top instead of smoke
now we basically just smothered all that
hot fire we got smoke is thick as any
smoke bomb we’ve ever made our back
bells are up and running they’re
focusing a lot of concentrated air into
our bloom furnace very cool so Joseph
the next step is to actually try and
extract iron ore right yes and for that
we need iron ore alright our next video
we do with Joseph is going to be
extracting iron from iron ore using our
bloom furnace and the bellows look for
that coming soon guys that’s it for
today but we’ve always got more for you
to see that box up at the top will
transport you directly to our last video
you should go check that out the other
box will show you what YouTube thinks
you should be watching next and if
you’re not a subscriber yet just hit
this bomb to get in the club and that
way you never miss out on the fun don’t
forget to ring the bell and we will see you in the next one talk to you then
very old-fashioned way to heat up a fire
hot enough that it can melt metal I’m
here again with my friend Joseph and
we’ve got some leather and some other
supplies and Joseph is gonna teach us
how to make a bellows that can heat up a
fire hot enough to melt metals that are
yes very cool yes and this is for an
upcoming project where we’re actually
going to try making iron from scratch
just like the Vikings did but one of the
key points for that is you need to get a
fire just unbelievably hot to do that
yes well less hot than you think because
when you make iron you actually never
actually melt it nothing iron like that
was invented way way way after we had
you know swords and stuff and how hot
are we going for about a little over
2,000 degrees over 2,000 yes just like
not that hot and how long does it have
to go like seven hours seven hours a
long time that would take probably
several propane tanks worth of fuel but
we’re not gonna use propane we’re gonna
be using charcoal yes and cheeseburgers
to power the human powered bellows or
maybe not cheeseburgers here’s the basic
idea we’ve got a bunch of leather and
we’re going to cut and sew that into a
shape that lets us control the flow of
air heating up a fire so let’s look at
some of those supplies we’ve got first
off a Russian olive tree yes and the
thing that’s important about this one is
it’s got nasty spikes on it all over the
place it’s a fairly durable rigid spike
and it’s quite sharp and this is one of
the tools we’re gonna be trying to use
to poke holes in the leather so what
we’re gonna give a try and see how it
goes trying to make holes with this to
sew it together
I mean we’re thinking primitive here so
no sewing needles that would be cheating
we might cheat just a little bit this
will work we’ll try some of the
primitive and then for the sake of speed
we’ll probably cheat speaking of
cheating these are very nicely round
sticks in it I did not harvest these off
of a tree myself I harvested these from
Walmart but for this having a perfectly
straight smooth stick that’s really not
important for what we’re gonna use these
are going to be sort of handles at the
top of our bellows that we can open and
close as
we manipulate them now we have a piece
of antler I don’t know if that’s as
pointy as the thorns but it’s probably a
lot stronger yes probably
bamboo why do we have bamboo bamboo is
for the airpipe so we’re gonna have a
bag made out of leather with two sticks
at the top that you pinch closed so you
open up for air this way then you close
and push it down but the air needs
somewhere to go out to go to the fire
and that’s what this is for this is what
we use to direct the air get us where we
want it now bamboo will burn what’s the
strategy for preventing that will coat
the tip in clay and then of course we
have leather this is quite a bit of
leather and again we cheated we did not
tan the leather ourselves so we have
quite a big sheet of really nice tough
leather this is actually more industrial
than it needs to be like yeah this is
pretty thick pretty high-quality tanned
hide and this is really a lot nicer than
we need but if it’s super robust and
that means we can use it for a long time
yeah this is artificial sinew in the old
days they would take tendons from a dead
animal but like the cow we didn’t want
to do that so this is a replicated stuff
made of just some very fine fibers and
coated with wax we’ll probably use this
for most of the sewing so what’s gonna
be our first step first step we need to
measure out exactly what we want
the bellows to look like and that’s
going to be dependent on how much
leather we have we’re gonna do four side
panels and two bottom panels the goal is
to make two bellows yes and I think
that’s because that way as you’re
pumping air you can always have one
pushing air in while the other one is
refilling yes and one does two things it
regulates the air flow and it also
prevents the air from the bellows from
sucking air in from the fire which would
burn it and cause problems alright we’re
gonna use this very authentic primitive
technology chalk marker so let’s make
four rectangles four rectangles asides
and you are saying we want them about
one cubit young and not quite a cubit
tall cubit if you don’t know is the
distance from your elbow to the tips of
your fingers I don’t know the exact
scale but of course as you get taller
your arms also get a little bit longer
so let’s instead of the full cubit let’s
just take it down by a few inches maybe
the top of the top of the first nipples
very precise commands
measuring here to save time hover we’re
going to use this pair of industrially
large sharp scissors
[Music]
we’ve got four rectangle ish pieces of
leather cut out yes so now we want a
bottom piece that’s kind of flat I’m
thinking just kind of like almond shaped
yes all the shape would be just about
right eyeball almond that goes out when
football you take the marker okay I’m
just gonna take this piece of leather
and hold it sort of up in this curved
shape and then you’ve also sort draw
along that curve and then we’ll know
[Music]
so we’ve got a bunch of pieces we now
need to sew them together so the order
to do that in I figured we’ll just sew
along the sides to make kind of a
envelope shape and then put the bottom
on Joseph is going to harvest a thorn he
just slapped me with this
fortunately the part that hit me did not
seem to have any thorns on it yeah how
are we doing on stabbing a hole in
leather with it
well I’ve broken three or four points
off of this thorn now I actually did
stab a hole in this leather with one of
these thorns before but I’m now
struggling to do so it’s just the the
leather is winning there are lots of
primitive ways of making meals that you
even get through leather there are other
types of natural thorn that are harder
that are sharper we’ve got a piece of
antler that we can get through it’s very
wide very quickly though so in that rich
tradition of cheating we’ve also got
some metal needles which even have eye
holes in them to stab right through the
leather and we’re gonna use those
because I love metal tools they’re great
poke a hole through both layers that
stab through fairly easily
and then you’re the first one again it
pulls the sinew through but now well we
still have this loop we take the other
end this long end and poke it through
that hole and pull it all the way and
now when we pull that loop down tight we
have a stitch right in place and we have
one on the other side as well so I just
need to keep doing that and go down the
line poking a hole creating a loop
feeding the seen you through that and
and my second side I am going to leave a
gap just a couple inches so that we can
either just tie the pipe right on to
that or at our little pipe sleeve
[Music]
alright this bag has one side two sides
and the bottom stone on when I’ve left
this gap here this is where we’re gonna
try and attach our pipe but for the
moment we’re just gonna make a mess by
putting some sawdust there and showing
that if I have this bag and then I
pinched the top closed we get a good
amount of air flying out of ax it there
so messes everywhere
Joseph’s gonna keep stitching up the
bottom of that one I am going to start
adding some sticks onto the top and
bottom of this and we’re just gonna make
it so they fit pretty nicely in there
and just have a few stitches we don’t
need to stitch all the way along we’ll
probably have three to five bind points
whatever seems like it’s necessary to
really hold it in place open it pulls an
air from the top close it pushes air out
the bottom
[Applause]
[Music]
okay update this first bellows is I
believe complete and in working order
Joseph is getting really good progress
he’s got one more seam to finish on his
and then a couple sticks and handles but
we did want to show you where this one
is handles up at the top we’ve got these
sticks in here
those are rigid so when we squeeze that
it holds the whole bag top shut in the
event that that’s not quite enough
pressure although it seems to work
pretty well you can also sort of roll it
over as you press down that keeps the
seal even better these handles are there
so as I lift it up I can hold it open
that way it doesn’t draw the heat back
up through the pipe into the bellows so
you’d fill it up with ash and if it
burned it just takes in the air from the
top so you lift close and squeeze and it
just blows a whole bunch of air right
out this piece of PVC is just fit into a
hole that I left at the bottom I then
wrapped a lot of this sinew down around
it it’s in there pretty nice and tight
holds onto the bag and this size PVC
just happens to be the right size you
might you might be able to get some
marshmallows shooting out of this let’s
give this a try I’m gonna see if I can
all right update time we’ve got two
completed bellows bags how’s yours
working very cool you’re using bamboo so
more realistic in terms of things you
might find in the wilderness although
it’s kind of depends on what wilderness
you have but there’s lots of different
ways you can get a pipe shaped thing my
way is PVC which grows on the PVC trees
of course very cool so now I think the
next step is to test these out with
actual fire I think that’s the next
thing and we are going to be doing an
iron smelt we’re gonna be taking the
iron ore running through the furnace and
trying to extract the iron out of that
ore and these what we’re gonna use to
keep that fire hot enough for hours and
hours on end so let’s take these out and
test them out yeah in an iron our bags
are made and we’ve switched out the
bamboo and PVC that we had before for
this cool little bamboo forked shape
that way we get both of the bags going
into one spot in the furnace
this stake is here to keep it from
sliding out backwards so it always keeps
directing the air right where we want it
so Joseph tell us about our little
furnace here so this furnace is called a
blue Murray stack furnace and the
purpose of it is to transform rock into
metal what we’re gonna be doing is
stuffing it full of charcoal and then
layering it with charcoal and Orr and
Orr is just a stone that contains
basically rust and so as those burn down
to the level of the air they’re gonna
slowly transform chemically into iron
and then collect in the bottom and then
we’re gonna collect a big lump of it
which is called a bloom compensatory so
we’ve got our bags and I think we can do
a nice demonstration we’ve already got
stuff burning in here you can see just a
thick white smoke coming out of it I’m
probably half of that is steam as well
but what we can do now is we can pump
with our bellows and we’ll watch as this
just gets hotter and hotter and I think
pretty quickly will start having flames
coming out of the top instead of smoke
now we basically just smothered all that
hot fire we got smoke is thick as any
smoke bomb we’ve ever made our back
bells are up and running they’re
focusing a lot of concentrated air into
our bloom furnace very cool so Joseph
the next step is to actually try and
extract iron ore right yes and for that
we need iron ore alright our next video
we do with Joseph is going to be
extracting iron from iron ore using our
bloom furnace and the bellows look for
that coming soon guys that’s it for
today but we’ve always got more for you
to see that box up at the top will
transport you directly to our last video
you should go check that out the other
box will show you what YouTube thinks
you should be watching next and if
you’re not a subscriber yet just hit
this bomb to get in the club and that
way you never miss out on the fun don’t
forget to ring the bell and we will see you in the next one talk to you then
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