I'm not brand new to home forging, but still pretty new. Built a small propane fueled blast furnace last year. Was my first. It was low tech and definitely not a beauty queen, but was a great way to learn the ropes. Right now I'm ramping up to build a more proper (but still small) oil fueled furnace. I'm most interested in smelting iron from magnetite pulled from back yard stream. Managed to make a small bit in my first furnace but it wasn't efficient enough to smelt more than a tiny bit of iron. Iron wasn't great quality. Had some impurities in magnetite such as chromite. Iron had a distinctive blue tint to it! Some of resultant iron had what appeared to be a little gold mixed into it. This first furnace used a plastic refractory rated to over 3000 F from a company named Plibrico. Just stuff refractory into a form and then start heat curing it immediately. Was super forgiving and durable but a bit pricy. Easily spent over $150 on refractory material. Burner was built from one of those weed burning torches. Used shop vac for air. I could get up to about 3000 F but couldn't maintain that temp for long. Getting proper fuel/air mix correct to reach 3000 F was challenging. My current build will use a castable refractory. Burner will use a Delavan .85 GPH waste oil nozzle. Should arrive in mail today! Not 100% sure how everything will come together in the end. Will certainly have many, many questions for experienced forum members.
Hello and welcome to the forum. What part of Maryland are you from?? I'm up here in Fair hill. If it is actually gold you are seeing then you would have to be from around the DC area at a guess...
Welcome Ben ( might as well keep it simple). There are a number of people using delevans here with diesel and waste oil. We're all willing to help. It will be interesting to follow your smelting adventures. Pete
@DavidF, I live in Catonsville. We have some gold here as well. Not enough to make any $$. Just a few flakes here and there. Having said that, not sure how any gold ended up in my magnetite without my seeing it! A little Internet research suggests that gold can end up bound to iron oxides in regions that have manganese, iron oxides, and gold. Manganese can dissolve gold under certain conditions. Iron oxides can be used to pull that gold out of solution. ...or something like that. Just a curiosity, really. Unless, of course, I start seeing more than trace amounts . Looks forward to learning from forum experts!
@Petee716 Happy to share the adventure! I'm sure that I'll have many questions for the forum delevan-ites.
