The ingredients are assembled. Ric can be seen here crushing Heineken bottles as a source of green glass.
All of the ingredients. Clockwise from left: cast iron, the freshly crushed green glass, dandelions from the backyard, and iron powder.
The ingredients are carefully measured. The cast iron is the source of carbon and key impurity elements. It must be present in the right proportion to the iron powder.
The four crucibles loaded with ingredients. Here two are mixed to ~1 wt.% C and two are mixed to ~1.5 wt.% C.
The crucibles must be sealed air-tight. This is accomplished with a lid made of inswool and satenite paste.
A close up of two crucibles. The rims have been smeared with satenite paste.
The furnace used for "cooking" the crucibles. Propane, note tank on left, is used as the fuel and a fan supplies a flow of air for combustion.
A view of the inside of the furnace loaded with the four crucibles. The furnace is made from steel lined with inswool and satenite.
Ric slaps the roof into place. Inswool and satenite are again the materials of choice.
The furnace door while at a temperature of ~3000 F.
The crucibles must "cook" for over three hours so I kill time cutting some wood with Ric's 200 year-old Talwar.
Finally the crucibles are removed after a slow furnace cool.
Getting the newly-formed wootz ingots out of the crucibles can be tricky. Ric uses a chisel and hammer for persuasion.
Unfortunately, most of the crucibles broke in the removal process and could not be reused. Here the ingot can be seen in the bottom of the crucible.
The four wootz ingots.
In order fot the ingots to be forged, they must be contained. Ric accomplishes this by welding a cylinder around the ingot by wrapping it in sheet steel and then capping it.
The ingot is now inside this cylinder. A handle is also welded on.
The cylinder is then heated and forged on a hydraulic press.
Once Ric feels like the material is properly "moving" under the press, the box is removed and forging continues. Here the original ingot shape is compared with the shape at this stage.
The 1.5% C ingot cracked during forging and the cracks had to be ground down.
After grinding, the ingot is reheated and forging continues.
Power hammer forging is used at this stage to flatten the ingot further.
Hand forging with is also used to more accurately feel the way the material is flowing.
After forging is completed, Ric belt-polishes the forgings down to a 400 grit finish in preparation for etching.