If you really want to go down this road, you won’t get much usable metal. This YouTube channel has done it multiple times and shows the full process in several of his videos.
My favorite YT channel. This guy is really fascinating. He has no soundtrack, music, narration, anything, other than the natural forest sounds. He never even looks at the camera. He wears a pair of shorts, and nothing else. It is as minimalist as it gets. There are captions that explain what’s going on, so make sure to turn those on.
He started by making a stone cutting implement, chipping the edge to make it sharp, then put it on a handle, and started chopping down saplings to build shelters, getting more and more elaborate as time went on. Then he started making pottery, and needed to fire the pots, so he needed to make a kiln, and get it hot enough. That led to making and firing bricks, roofing tiles, and inventing various apparatuses (apparati?) to make the fire hotter, which he starts by spinning a stick between his palms in almost every video.
Eventually he figured out how to make his fire hot enough to smelt the iron bacteria from the stream into tiny iron pellets, then he got the fire even hotter, to melt the pellets, and forge them into a tiny, rough, triangular knife. It wasn’t pretty, but it’s a lot sharper than a sharp rock.
Incredible channel, and the only one that I drop everything to watch when a new video is released. When the apocalypse comes, I’ll be prepared.
PT is also using a method that doesn’t really get high yields of iron by collecting iron bacteria from a nearby river. You’ll probably find a higher concentration of iron in an ore, but this much will still not yield too much if it is iron bearing. It looks kinda like limonite which is iron bearing but I’m no geologist so I can’t be the one to verify.
If you really want to go down this road, you won’t get much usable metal. This YouTube channel has done it multiple times and shows the full process in several of his videos.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_Technology
My favorite YT channel. This guy is really fascinating. He has no soundtrack, music, narration, anything, other than the natural forest sounds. He never even looks at the camera. He wears a pair of shorts, and nothing else. It is as minimalist as it gets. There are captions that explain what’s going on, so make sure to turn those on.
He started by making a stone cutting implement, chipping the edge to make it sharp, then put it on a handle, and started chopping down saplings to build shelters, getting more and more elaborate as time went on. Then he started making pottery, and needed to fire the pots, so he needed to make a kiln, and get it hot enough. That led to making and firing bricks, roofing tiles, and inventing various apparatuses (apparati?) to make the fire hotter, which he starts by spinning a stick between his palms in almost every video.
Eventually he figured out how to make his fire hot enough to smelt the iron bacteria from the stream into tiny iron pellets, then he got the fire even hotter, to melt the pellets, and forge them into a tiny, rough, triangular knife. It wasn’t pretty, but it’s a lot sharper than a sharp rock.
Incredible channel, and the only one that I drop everything to watch when a new video is released. When the apocalypse comes, I’ll be prepared.
When he disappeared for a while and all the copycats were in full swing, I was worried he’d quit or pivot to something else.
I love that it’s the same channel it was a few years ago. It’s beautiful, educational, and very peaceful. Highly recommend as well.
First time I see someone sharing a YouTube channel through its wikipedia page.
Thanks for sharing.
Anything to avoid my fellow lemmings from being tracked ;)
That’s a lovely thought.
PT is also using a method that doesn’t really get high yields of iron by collecting iron bacteria from a nearby river. You’ll probably find a higher concentration of iron in an ore, but this much will still not yield too much if it is iron bearing. It looks kinda like limonite which is iron bearing but I’m no geologist so I can’t be the one to verify.
TIL iron bacteria can be collected for iron
real life stromatolite farming