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Basically, assuming you have all of modern human knowledge about smelting iron/steel, and the technology level you have is approximately bronze age, what would be the most effective approach to turn iron ores into usable iron tools? Specifically, the approach that would result in the highest quality result, as well as be as easy as possible to do at a large scale (if these don't conflict).

You can assume the technology available includes clay or adobe bricks, pottery, copper and bronze tools, and anything else a later bronze age civilization could be expected to have, in addition to whatever knowledge is needed for the process (this is handwaved, there doesn't need to be a plausible reason they'd know how to do it).

From what I've read, bloomery furnaces with charcoal as fuel were almost always the first ones to be used when civilizations entered the iron age. However, since we now know about all sorts of methods of making iron and steel, I'm wondering if that knowledge could be exploited without today's existing infrastructure. For example, using coke instead of charcoal, or preheating the air used in the furnace, or even using a blast furnace immediately instead of starting out with bloomery furnaces.

I'm not too knowledgeable about this sort of thing, but it's important for a story I'm writing. Any ideas?

Radvylf Programs
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    The question cannot be answered unless you edit it to explain what is the intended meaning of the phrases "most effective approach", "highest quality result" and "large scale". You must clearly state whether this is intended to be an economically self-sustainable activity, or if the Pharaoh will dedicate all his riches to the purpose. You must describe the general setup of the society where this is to take place -- population, climate, fertility of the soil, availability of water and wood and coal and iron, size of the territory... (E.g., with all modern knowledge Egypt doesn't make any iron.) – AlexP Nov 03 '21 at 22:08
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    For example why all those items are important: Yes, a knowledgeable time traveller backed by a very rich sponsor could produce a certain amount of ordinary steel in 15th century BCE Asia Minor, let's say in Nesha (formerly known as Kanesh, later known as Caesarea and now called Kayseri). But then what? Does he intend to become a famous producer of splendid swords, or does he give up steel and just mass produce plain iron nails? Does he open a metallurgy school? Does the Hittite king have a fetish for tonnes of steel per capita? – AlexP Nov 03 '21 at 22:18
  • @AlexP The iron will be used for typical iron age purposes: tools, weapons, building materials (nails, hinges), etc. I'm not sure what's unclear about "highest quality result" or "large scale"..."highest quality" referring to most durable, "large scale" meaning something that takes a massive amount of effort for every unit of ore isn't going to be preferred over something which can achieve the same throughput with less time or manpower. I also don't see at all why the iron being produced for trade or for the ruler would matter. – Radvylf Programs Nov 03 '21 at 22:37
  • Effort effort. Are you interested in minimizing the initial investment of sweat and riches, or are you interested in the method with the least amount of marginal sweat and riches for an additional kilogram of iron? Do you consider wrought iron and cast iron to be interchangeable? (That would be strange. They are different materials with very different purposes.) Do you really want steel, or is wrought iron good enough? (They are very different materials.) Is durability something that is nice to have but not essential, or do you really want stainless steel, weathering steel, or even inconel? – AlexP Nov 03 '21 at 22:47
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    @AlexP That's part of the reason I'm asking this question: I don't really know that much about the subject. From what I can tell different methods lead to different types of iron (e.g., bloomery makes wrought iron I think?), so the advantages/disadvantages of wrought/cast iron might play into deciding what type of smelting is better. As for work required, surely I don't need to pick one specific type of work I mean. Presumably some types of smelting are easier than others, and whether that's at the outset or per-unit isn't something I want to decide upfront, because I don't know the options! – Radvylf Programs Nov 03 '21 at 22:54
  • @RedwolfPrograms the best approach would be spending some days to inform yourself enough, be it just for the purpose of asking well formed question. If you expect a set of answers to deliver the "handwaved knowledge the Bronze Age time traveler has, but I don't", WB is not the right place. – Adrian Colomitchi Nov 03 '21 at 23:15
  • @AdrianColomitchi That's definitely not what I'm aiming to ask, no. I think I just need to close or delete this for a few hours and do some rewording. I've done a few hours of reading through wikipedia articles and some papers linked from there, but I'm just not sure which approach would be the most optimal for this scenario (since it's not really a very realistic scenario, so I'd be surprised if anyone touched on it). It seems to be a fairly complicated subject, so I figured asking here would be a good idea since this is a place filled with people who have that sort of specific knowledge. – Radvylf Programs Nov 03 '21 at 23:20
  • @RedwolfPrograms editing it in place may be a good alternative. But if you think you need a bit of time to come with a well-formed question, deletion may be best. – Adrian Colomitchi Nov 03 '21 at 23:24
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    To be honest I'm a little confused why some of these comments are being made when this is a quite similar question to other that have been asked and well received before, like this or this. – Radvylf Programs Nov 03 '21 at 23:25
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    Brief mention of semantics - technically, as soon as you are able to make iron, you are now in the iron age. That aside, everything from How To Make Everything is really good, they go through the whole process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUn6LzakHsM There are additional videos in this series that go over specifics with using the iron to make useful tools. – WasatchWind Nov 03 '21 at 20:48
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    Re: "why some of these comments are being made", the comments any question gets just depend on who happens to be paying attention to the question queue that day. I wouldn't read too much into it. – GrumpyYoungMan Nov 04 '21 at 00:07
  • @RedwolfPrograms "I'm a little confused why some of these comments are being made when this is a quite similar question" As one of the grumblers: because those questions that you linked admit a straight technical answer ("how to make steel in medieval times" and "what metals a civilization would start with"). Your question asks now about "efficient ways to do iron tools" (and efficiency depends a lot on society) and, in previous incarnations, was asking something on the line of "most effective approach", "highest quality result" and "large scale" to produce steel for unspecified purposes. – Adrian Colomitchi Nov 04 '21 at 03:37
  • You might also look up how the ancient Persians were making steel 100 years ago. That technology could be used far earlier. – David R Nov 04 '21 at 14:36
  • Can you put the concretizations from the comments into your Q? And: What i am still missing is this: A clear purpose. Sure, tools, weapons, nails, but you do not need exceptional steel for those, unless you compete with other iron producers. So if this is the only game in town, why would they go the extra mile and lower their yield by, e.g. turning their coal into coke, etc? If, on the other hand, your story needs inexplicaple '304 used as household goods in 6kBCE , my god, was it aliens?' then we could discuss how, for handwaving reasons, bronze agers centered their whole society around 304 – bukwyrm Nov 09 '21 at 13:42
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    @RedwolfPrograms Getting the question right here it seems is more important that the actual answer to the question. Which if you think about it does make sense. I had to sit back and cool off a minute before realizing the task here is to answer questions in a n order environment. And most importantly not have the system fall apart over time in a tangled mess of a thousand answers for unasked questions and 10 thousand questions for 1 answer. Baffled why no one suggested starting your question on the meta though. https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/ – Gillgamesh Nov 12 '21 at 20:07
  • Because meta is for meta things. Do you mean the Sandbox? @Gillgamesh – Escaped dental patient. Nov 17 '21 at 05:28

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IIRC China went to blast furnaces with waterwheels and windmills to power bellows very, very early. I don't know much about metallurgy but I do know ceramics, and their high-T furnaces were hollowed out earth mounds or hillsides that generated really powerful draughts as well as having excellent efficiency and top temperatures. They were able to produce tens of thousands of items at a time in medieval times, something only matched by the Europeans in the late 19th century.

The Europeans basically only reinvented porcelain with solar furnaces using big lenses, and then had to figure out how to make furnaces for actual production. I expect the layout and scaling-up of your steelmaking facility will be important and I'd look to China for how you'd do it with premodern technology.

If a very limited amount of steel is all you need, e.g. for demonstration purposes, there's also the possibility of asking the locals about if they know of any places with crashed meteorites....