Author: Wojciech Sławiński

The steel as we have it today and associate with crude iron draining from a blast furnace and casting of cleaned off metal billets weighing a couple of tons, are actually effects of the work of a metallurgist. The role of a blacksmith is nowadays limited to shaping the ingots in a way to make it easier for further processing.

Such a method of obtaining steel is an almost modern invention. The first liquid steel was obtained only after the development of a converter used for cleaning off and decarburisation of the crude iron (1855 r. Henry Bessemer, England). At the end of 19th century crude iron was refined in the so-called puddling proccess, developed in 1784 by Henry Cont (England), allowing to obtain metal billets weighing several kilos at the most. For almost 3 000 years steel, iron to be more precise, was obtained in a doughy, porous mass polluted with slag and charcoal - an iron sponge. It had to be heated again to the temperature of white heat and by forging it with wooden hammers the excessive amount of slag and charcoal was removed from the pores. The finishing stages of this process were carried out with the use of iron hammers on a metal or stone anvil as the porous piece had to be welded into one. The workshop of a metallurgist had to remain in close co-operation with the workshop of a blacksmith, therefore it is not by chance that during our presentation the blacksmith's stand is located right beside metallurgical furnaces.


FRAGMENT OF AN IRON SPONGE OBTAINED IN AN EXPERIMENTAL PIT FURNACE


SECTION OF AN IRON SPONGE.
1 - Slag
2 - Cut of a hole of an agglomerated iron.
3 - Charcoal