Our Next Sand to Steel Meeting will be held at the Bull Run Powerhouse located just outside Sandy, Oregon on Saturday, January 27th from 11am to 4pm. Please RSVP to join this meeting by emailing webmaster@blacksmith.org
NWBA Members are welcome to participate in the Sand to Steel Challenge as individuals or by working in teams to collect their own iron ore, smelt it into a bloom, consolidate that bloom into an ingot, then forge that ingot into any object they want. The group based in Oregon is doing a modified Scrap to Steel Challenge, and will work on building an Aristotle Furnace at their next meeting. Items forged from the blooms smelted in this Challenge will be on display at our next Spring Conference in a “Sand to Steel” Gallery.
The Rules of this Challenge are as follows:
- Extract your own ore like bog iron or magnetite – so long as it’s gathered directly from the earth and not just recycled from the scrap bin (we do not endorse underground mining, but we do have info on mining regulations in Oregon and Washington!)
- Smelt your own bloom through the process of your choosing (which may require participants to design and build their own furnaces)
- Consolidate the bloom (depending on bloom size, this might be easier as a team)
- Forge any object you choose from the steel you smelted, and display it in our Sand to Steel Gallery at Spring Conference!
If you’d like to join the Challenge, email webmaster@blacksmith.org and we’ll send you the info we’ve collected so far and connect you with other participants.
I do not see a link to the zoom meeting for the first sand to steel. Is there a way we can get the link?
The link was included in the email newsletters that went out this month but can be found here too: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0qce-prTssE9H2S15YSoYXpmEyQQv8C0yO