I made a blower and some charcoal at the new area in order to create higher temperatures in for advancing my material technology. I took Fan palm leaves and fashioned them into an impellor (about 25 cm in diameter) held in a split stick as a rotor.
source/image: Primitive Technology
I then built a housing from clay (slightly more than 25 cm diameter with inlet and outlet openings about 8cm in diameter) and assembled the blower. I opted not to make a bow or cord mechanism as I’ve done before due to the complexity and lower portability of such a device.
source/image: Primitive Technology
The lighter impellor material (leaf instead of the previous bark) made it easier to spin by hand anyway as it has a lower momentum. Each stroke of the spindle with the hand produces 4 rotations, so about 2 strokes per second gives 480 rpm.
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The blower increases the heat of a fire when blowing into it and I would guess it’s more effective than a blow pipe and lungs but don’t how it would compare to a primitive pot or bag bellows for air supply. A small furnace was made and then fired with wood fuel. The wood was wet but managed to fuse and partially met sand in the furnace.
Iron bacteria was again used to test the furnace. Charcoal and ore was placed in the furnace and the blower utilised. After an hour of operation the furnace was left to cool.The next day the furnace was opened and only slag was found with no metallic iron this time.I think increasing the ratio of charcoal to ore might increase the temperature so that the slag flows better. Further experiments will be needed before I get used to the new materials here.
