Primitive Technology

Floating Pulley Blower Smelt
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About This Video:
I tested the floating pulley blower I made last time in an iron smelt. I started by re-building the blower housing from the last project which had broken after getting wet. Then I set up the blower and tested a fixed pulley wheel that was held in place with a different configuration to the pulley wheels from the last project, where the pulley was outside of 2 stakes as opposed to between to stakes, in order to allow a crank handle to be attached directly to the wheel instead of to the rotor. But it had issues with durability so I decided to test the "floating" pulley wheel method I developed last time where the pulley has 2 handles and is held in the hands only with no support frame, spokes or hub of the fixed wheel design. The great reduction in parts makes it simpler and less likely to fail. It worked satisfactorily pushing about the same air as the "one way spinning rope stick blower" method and the "2 way spinning blower method" but with more even air flow. It gave a slightly above average yield of 21 g of cast iron prills from 1200g of ore as opposed to the normal 15 g from 1200g. This is despite the wood preheat phase of the furnace only being 25 minutes as opposed to 1 hour, preheating the furnace may be important to get the furnace to temperature before adding the charcoal and in future I'll do it for longer. Using the floating wheel isn't as tiring as I thought it might be and is comparable to the rope stick method and is much easier than the 2 way spinning method where a rope has to pulled outwards with two hands repeatedly. It is currently a good competitor to the rope stick method. However, if I want to scale up the wheel size and consequently rpm of the fan, I'll need to revisit the fixed wheel design as the floating wheel won't scale up. Overall, I see this method as a stepping stone to a better blower and better smelts in future.

00:00-05:18 New blower housing
05:18-06:51 Set up blower and furnace
06:51-08:50 Banana fibre belt & splicing
08:50-10:14 Little clay pulleys
10:14-11:33 Testing a fixed pulley design
11:33- 12:29 Making and testing floating pulley design
12:29-14:09 Replace clay pulleys with fibre wrapped rotor/test
14:09- 14:37 Smelt preparations
14:37- 17:39 Smelt
17:39- 19:09 Process bloom
19:09- 19:48 Result

About Primitive Technology:
Primitive technology is a hobby where you build things in the wild completely from scratch using no modern tools or materials. These are the strict rules: If you want a fire, use a fire stick - An axe, pick up a stone and shape it - A hut, build one from trees, mud, rocks etc. The challenge is seeing how far you can go without utilizing modern technology. I do not live in the wild, but enjoy building shelter, tools, and more, only utilizing natural materials. To find specific videos, visit my playlist tab for building videos focused on pyrotechnology, shelter, weapons, food & agriculture, tools & machines, and weaving & fiber.

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