I am going into another busy year. House projects are underway, but also nearing completion. I am really hoping I don’t spend the whole year being busy like I did last year, but I am also really bad at being idle. As such, it should come as no surprise that I came up with new ways to keep myself occupied. At least there is more time for the fun things I want to do, and less of the things I have to do. The struggle of modern life, am I right?
So let’s jump right into it shall we? As a blacksmith, and with an academic background and dabbling interest in experimental archaeology, I am often in need of charcoal. Not coal, but charcoal. Charcoal is made be burning wood (or other organic material) in the absence of oxygen, leaving the carbon mostly unburnt. In a previouspost,I talked about the process of how to make charcoal in pits. Pit charcoal is among the oldest ways that humans had made charcoal.
This post is an updated version of mostly the same process, with some added tools. It starts out the same, with small pieces of wood. But instead of this pit, this time around we are using barrels.
The Design
To build my charcoal kilns, I needed a 55 gallon metal drum. The ideal would be with a removable snap ring lid, but I wasn’t that wasn’t available to me. So I made due with a closed lid barrel, and made my own sealing method. It is a 12″x12″ iron plate, a 1″ flange, pipe, and cap. I used self tapping screws to secure the flange to the plate. Voila! Small smoke stack.
The smoke stack assembly
After that I used my angle grinder to cut a hole in the top of the barrels, and my drill to create 8 1″ holes around the bottom. The hole cut out of the barrel is less than 12×12″, so that the plate fits on top instead of falling down into the barrel.
The barrel with top hole and lower holes visible
I set these barrels into shallow pits, because it makes closing the lower holes easier. More on that in a moment.
The Process
After the barrels are all cut out and set up, the process is much the same as making pit fired charcoal. You load up the barrel with cut/split wood, and light it up from the top. This make take a few tries and some patience, and I find that using some charcoal under your kindling can really help get things going. I use mostly dried pine and spruce bits. They take fire real easy, and then also stay burning for a while.
Kindling fire
Once it is burning, give it some time to light the wood underneath and deeper in the barrel. When I have a good bed of burning charcoal underneath the fire, I put a poker down into the barrel and get the embers to drop down. This opens up the fire to air from the lower holes, and also knocks down the burning embers so the barrel starts burning from the bottom.
Once the embers have fallen down the bottom, they will ignite and start to take oxygen from the 1″ holes at the bottom of the barrel. When this happens, my barrels start to make an audible hum that I think sounds a bit like a rocket engine. This means it is time to start thinking about choking off the oxygen. If it goes on too long, you won’t have anything left but ash.
Bottom holes burning *huuuuuum*
At this stage I start by putting the chimney setup on the barrel, and leaving the cap off. I seal the smoke stack assembly with dirt so smoke doesn’t get out. This starts to choke off the oxygen at the top, while still allow water vapor and smoke to vent.
Stacked barrel (bottom holes open)
After a while, I will use a shovel and some dirt to cover up the holes at the bottom of the barrel. This is where the small pit comes in handy, because it makes this easier. You can do it on the ground too, but I like 1) having a small pile from the pit, and 2) it makes burying the holes easier and uses less dirt.
Bottom holes buried
This step removes all oxygen from the fire in the barrel, and so it will start to go out. I let it burn until the chimney isn’t smoking much, and then cap that off too. There should be residual heat in the barrel that will continue to cook what is left in the barrel.
Two capped kilns.
Then I leave the barrels to cool overnight, and the next day I get to see what I got. If I do everything right, I will get about 40% volume charcoal compared to the amount of wood I put in. It is not unusual for there to be some pieces that have not fully charred, and I just set those aside for the next batch. They catch fire a lot easier, and will burn to charcoal in the next batch.
Fresh batchLeftover biochar for gardenCharcoal. Good.
Once I get the charcoal out of the barrels, I sift it (about 1/4″ mesh) over a wheelbarrow and send it to storage. The larger pieces will make great fuel for the forge. The small pieces get spread and tilled into my garden as biochar, and a ready carbon source for the soil and plants.
There is not much to it beyond that. It will take some trial and error to get good charcoal, and heck I’m still making adjustments. But it is a pretty inexpensive way to make a kiln for charcoal.
This is another ‘just for fun post’, because sometimes you need a break from the very serious writing. My brain needs a break sometimes, so you get to read about the weird and wild things that I find fascinating. The animism book is coming along well, and we are probably in the last quarter of re-writes. Home stretch!
In many ways, this post is a follow up to my last post about Armor, and a post about Space Engineers. Short version, I really love Space Engineers, and I gave it an honorable mention in my last post. This game is a sandbox game dated to the later half of this century. I love the games focus on exploration and creativity, as well as the fairly realistic science aspects. I can make space ships from start to finish, what isn’t to love?
You can build ships, stations, and pretty much anything else you can dream up. You mine for raw materials, process them, and lay down your designs using a block-based system. One of the key blocks for your vehicles is of course armor; light and heavy block built of steel and alloys. You might be wondering, why this obsession with armor, what’s the point? I explained some of that in my last post, and frankly, I want to give this game more love. Also, as a blacksmith, I find the metallurgy of steel and metal fascinating, in both game and the real world. So let’s get to the fun part.
Aloy, master smith! Yeah, I’m playing Horizon Forbidden West currently. Not strictly part of this post, but still a cool cover image.
‘Green’ Steel
The real world process that inspired this post is called ‘fossil fuel-free’, or ‘green’ steel. Now, in short steel is just an alloy of iron and carbon (in very controlled percentages, lots of technical details omitted), sometimes with other metals in the mix for corrosion resistance (stainless steel) or hardness (say, armor plating.)
The primary way we make steel today is via the blast furnace. Large amounts of iron ore and coke (cooked coal, basically) is combined in a vessel where it is blasted with air and smelted down into iron. This iron is then transferred to another process, in modern times usually an electric arc furnace (often with scrap steel) or basic oxygen furnace. Here the iron is mixed with carbon and other elements to make the final alloy, which is then finished to plates, wires, bars, beams or any other steel product.
The kicker with this whole process is the carbon emissions. It’s not what we would call a ‘clean’ process, and steel production is about 7-8% of total global emissions. Much of that comes from the fossil fuel necessary for steel making – coal. To regular readers of this blog, you know this hurts the environmentalist parts of my soul. I firmly think that we need to end our reliance on fossil fuels to have a real chance at a truly sustainable future.
Yet, steel is so ubiquitous and foundational to the modern world, and as a blacksmith I would be sad without steel. That begs the question, is there a way we could create a cleaner and more sustainable method of creating steel? The answer is absolutely, and for this I’d like to introduce you to the HYBRIT project.
This video above explains many of the basics I have just laid out, as well as what HYBRIT is doing differently. It’s 2 minutes of your time, and entirely worth it. The basic idea is to replace blast furnace coal with green hydrogen (produced from water via electrolysis) and electricity from renewable energy sources. Hydrogen, instead of coal, becomes the source of heat in the blast furnace, eliminating carbon dioxide emissions. And this isn’t just wishful thinking, HYBRIT has actually produced steel with this process. (2 minutes)
Then, they delivered this steel to Volvo, and produced a electric, autonomous dump vehicle. (1 minute)
The blacksmith in me desperately wants to work a piece of this steel. It probably wouldn’t work any different than traditional steel, but realize I am also an animist, and have written about the Spirits of Iron, and frankly to me it’s more than how the steel works, but the spirit of the steel. A steel produced with sustainability in mind, well that could be something special.
Space Engineers
Okay, now it’s time for another love letter to Space Engineers. The reason is because ‘green’ steel is in fact possible in the game world as well. You see, one of the main sources of electricity and thruster fuel in Space Engineers is in fact, hydrogen. I think hydrogen is one of the many ‘keys’ to a truly sustainable energy system for our civilization; along with things like wind/solar/batteries. All of which are available in the game as well.
You can see the water-ice in the background.
My hydrogen facility above makes hydrogen and oxygen from water-ice.. In addition, it is largely powered by solar panels, and hydrogen generators. This is the principal behind green hydrogen electrolysis, where electricity is used to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen. You can see the panels, electrolytic stacks, and the large hydrogen generators in picture above.
The next part of the process is the blast furnace. In the game, these refineries are ran by electricity. In the real world HYBRIT uses hydrogen for the heat needed to smelt the iron. So the SE refineries combine both the heat of the blast furnace, and the electricity that is often used in electric arcs furnace. Mined iron ores are turned into iron ingots, that then get fed into assemblers to be turned into parts. For armor, the key components are steel plates and metal grids.
Let me illustrate;
Space Engineers Process
Iron ore > Refinery (electric, from renewable and/or hydrogen sources) > Iron Ingot > Assembler > Parts
HYBRIT Process
Iron ore > Blast Furnace (hydrogen heat) > ingots/liquid metal > electric arc furnace (electric) > Parts (rolling mills, forging, etc)
Considering I power my refineries in game with solar and hydrogen generators, the two processes are really similar. Both processes use hydrogen and electricity to create a final steel product, and so it is easy to argue that ‘green’ steel is present in Space Engineers. My steel plant also has solar panels, and solar powered steel millsare coming online in the real world. The ideas behind green steel and renewable energy behind my in-game steel factory.
Inside one of my steel plants in game.
Composite and spaced armor is not all that different from modern tanks and battleships, or fictional vehicles like Battlemechs and the Normandy from Mass Effect. In fact, the spaced armor of the Normandy’s ‘scaffolding’ is the entire idea I used for my work in progress, an industrial frigate.
Industrial frigate, so much alloyed (nickel, cobalt, iron) steel. (plus spaced and scaffold armor)
Wrapping this all up, I think we can create a truly ecological sustainable civilization, and I love how this can be modeled in games like Space Engineers. No, I don’t think sustainable and space-faring are mutually exclusive. We can, and are, making steels in ways that nearly eliminate harmful emissions. We can create a civilization run on green technologies like wind, solar, and hydrogen, and we can use this technologies to chart a path to the stars. The Space Shuttle program used hydrogen fueled thrust after all. Plus, if we ever are to figure out fusion, a robust hydrogen production chain will be needed.
Or, there could be weird bug devices 3D printing parts from molten metal…
I will continue to believe that a better world is possible, and that green steel and hydrogen may well be parts of that future. Plus, it makes really sweet armor for space piracy… er… I mean completely legitimate salvage operations.
As many of you know, during the winter months this blog is on hiatus. That is usually because I spend the long, cold months working on longer writing projects. Currently I’m really trying to get the second draft of my animism book done. It’s been a special kind of challenge, but hopefully come spring it will be close enough to ‘good enough’ where I can start thinking about publication.
I’m also doing a little bit of mentoring, and working away on some other home projects. There is a lot of work in progress, and come this spring I’m going to be trying to make my own bricks, and my own iron and/or steel. What can I say, I’m a busy person, and I look forward to talking more about those projects in the future. Who knows, may I’ll have to make one of those YouTube things and show you.
All that aside, I want to get into the meat of what I want to talk about today; armor. As many of you know, I’m what they call a nerd. I get… really passionate and like do deep dives on many of my interests. As both an avid gamer, sci-fi reader/writer and a blacksmith (among many of things), I get really really involved in projects that involve things like metallurgy, costuming, and world building. Well… today is a ‘just for fun’ post about all those things.
In many ways, my metalworking journey started out with a small suit of ‘armor’. I had no idea what I was doing, all I knew was that I had some sheet metal, a hammer, and some spray paint. It ended up being an ugly little breast and back plate, but damn if I wasn’t proud of it. Suffice to say, I’ve come a long way, at least in the cosplay department. We’ll be talking about Horizon: Zero Dawn later in this piece, but for now, here’s the Aloy costume we built for my wife.
(Aloy Costume on the rack, aluminum, foam, canvas and leather build. No, the chainmail isn’t technically part of this build, but it looks cool.)
As a general outline for this post, I want to lay down some guidelines. I’m going to be talking about both fictional worlds as well as real worlds technology. I want to explore some of the overlaps in technology, and how those might play in more fictional settings. I’ll be reviewing three games and settings that are near and dear to my heart, and through each a little about real world armor and technologies. Buckle up, we are going for a ride.
Battletech – Mech Armor
First up, the Battletech universe. If you are unfamiliar with this setting, I’m sorry. I can’t express the joy this setting has brought me over the years. While I’ll confess to never really playing the tabletop games, I’ve been playing the video games since Mechwarrior 2. I’ve ran with Clan Wolf for years, and these days make my living as freelance, trying my best to get away from the eugenics-inspired psychosis of the Clanners.
Just for the record, I stomp Draconians and Capellans for funsies. Because they’re assholes.
The core of the Battletech universe is the battlemech. Think of giant stompy robots between about 20 and 100+ tons. Also, lots of lasers and missiles and other forms of kaboomite to make things fun. Obviously, to protect from all that kaboomite, ‘mechs are come with various weights, types, and styles of armor.
(Image from Sarna, mech armor composition)
Battlemechs broadly are composed of an internal metal skeleton (endo-skeleton), a fusion engine, electric ‘muscles’ called myomer, and finally the armor mounted on mount points attached to the skeleton. Plus various electronics, computers, motors, gyroscopes, heatsinks and everything else needed to make stompy robots go stomp stomp.
Going to the wonderful resource that is Sarna, the standard ‘mech armor is ablative, and what is called a composite armor. This is several layers of different materials that offer protection to the vital components and the pilot within. The standard composite armor is three layers of 1) steel/titanium alloy 2) cubic boron nitride ceramics and 3) a titanium alloy honeycomb to hold it all together. Plus as sealant on the back in case you want to go swimming or floating around in space.
Keeping things as brief as I can, there are a lot of variants on this basic recipe in the game universe. Decades worth of variants. In fact, it should come as no surprise there is a reason in game armor foundries and metalworks so often succumb to… explosive fates.
The fact I find interesting is that ‘mech armor in the Battletech universe is not all that different from some modern tank armor. Many contemporary main battle tanks use layers of different materials to protect themselves from damage. While these materials are limited by real world technology, main battle tanks often use combinations of steel and ceramics, as well as a wide range of other materials including depleted uranium.
Homogeneous steel armor, left, vs composite armor, right (Sources from Jackal Mountain video)
Why do we care about tank armor? Well, I for one think all the metallurgy and engineering that goes into it to be fascinating. Let’s just enjoy the technical aspects, okay? In addition, I think a little knowledge of composite materials is really useful for crafting projects, such as the Aloy cosplay above. That’s technically a composite armor, using different materials for strength and weight savings.
You’d definitely die in that Aloy armor, just saying. It’s cosplay, and fiction only takes us so far. Moving on!
Mass Effect, Personal and Ship Armor
Alright, the next armor I want to talk about is the Mass Effect series. Honestly one of my favorite sci-fi universes, just for being wonderful in so many different ways. Gushing over Mass Effect would make this post waaay too long, so let’s get into it. First up, the armor for most of the characters in the game.
N7 Armor – Mass Effect
Looks great doesn’t it? Straight out of the in-game Codex we get this discussion of the personal armor in the game;
Combat hard-suits use a dual-layer system to protect the wearer. The inner layer consists of fabric armor with kinetic padding. Areas that don’t need to be flexible, such as the chest or shins, are reinforced with sheets of lightweight ablative ceramic.(Mass Effect Wiki)
Now, the outer layer is the kinetic barriers, the ‘shields’ in the Mass Effect universe. We are glossing over that part as we don’t have anything comparable in real life. However kinetic padding, fabric armor, and hard ceramics plates are very similar to the construction of modern body armor. Modern armor often uses combinations of materials like kevlar and ceramic (boron carbide, silicon carbide, and others) for bullet resistance. In short, that N7 armor might actually offer good protection. Well, excepting things like Reaper weapons…
The Normandy (SR1)
The ship in the universe are also armored, and here is the description from the in-game Codex
A warship’s kinetic barriers reduce the damage from solid objects, but can do nothing to block GARDIAN lasers, particle beams, and other forms of Directed Energy Weapon (DEW). The inner layer of warship protection consists of ablative armor plate designed to “boil away” when heated. The vaporized armor material scatters a DEW beam, rendering it ineffectual.
A scaffold was built around the interior pressure hull, with sheets of ablative armor hung from the structure. Ships typically have multiple layers of armor separated by empty baffles, spaces often used for cargo storage.(Mass Effect Wiki)
The description of in-game ship armor most closely resembles modern day spaced armor schemes. It is armor with two or more plates with empty space in between. The idea being that any projectile, or directed energy weapon, has to get through several layers before reaching the important bits. Like tank and ‘mech armor above, these different layers can be composites and made up of different materials as well.
Even in the Codex, these empty spaces don’t always have to be empty. If you check out some of these resources below, there are many examples of cargo, fluids, air, or other materials placed in those spaces. Some of these materials can offer extra protection, such as water or other fluids as in World War II era battleships. Check out the New Jersey armor scheme.
Battleship NEw Jersey armor scheme
Know that in Mass Effect lore those empty baffles could also be filled with illicit alcohol distilleries. In case you ever wondered what to do with a drunken sailor….
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Eep! Thunderjaw!
Last but not least, and bringing us around full circle, is Horizon: Zero Dawn. We are less than a month away from the release of Forbidden West, and there are so many things I absolutely love about this world! Again, I don’t have the word count to gush as endlessly as I’d like, so let’s get right into it.
In the lore of HZD, the Metal World has ended, and Aloy now inhabits a world filled with machines. These machines have many different roles and duties, but the most dangerous ones are definitely heavily armed and armored. A chief part of the game is combat and hunting these machines. In fact, throughout the game many character armors include pieces from the machines.
I’ve hunted a lot of these machines, and I mean a lot, and in many ways they have a lot in common with ‘mechs, aside from parts of the skeletal structure. Going to the Fandom Wiki;
The machines of the terraforming system take inspiration from animal biology, primarily from vertebrate species . The typical machine design features a chassis composed of darker alloys, synthetic skins, and fiber-optic cables, with lighter alloys serving as armor plating for vital components and synthetic muscles (Horizon Zero Dawn wiki)
I love that these machines imitate biology, an idea known as biomimicry. It really hits home in the game that many of the animals that the machines imitate are in fact extinct. The chassis in game seem to be combinations of internal and external skeletons, with many of the softer ‘guts’ and ‘muscles’ attached these these structures. Much like the myomer of Battletech. There is a really cool video about the machine’s design in the resource below!
On top of all this is the armor, which like all the games above seems to ablative. That is probably why it flies off when hit with arrows or explosives. This armor also shows trait of spaced armor, generally with a gap between the plates and the important chassis components. We don’t know the exact composition of the armor plates, but they are presumed to be metallic and maybe steel. After all, the are formed in massive foundries and assembly areas within the Cauldrons.
One of the many foundries you see in various Cauldrons
In addition, I do think there is a case to be made for composite armor as well. When you look closely (after removing) at plates such as those from the Bellowback, they have honeycomb structures on the back. These could be evidence of ceramics, or over materials to help absorb damage or shock. If they are made up of combinations of metal and ceramics these machines certainly have a lot in common with ‘Mechs, and thus a lot in common with many real world combat vehicles as we’ve already covered.
I’d forgive you for mistaking the Thunderjaw for a battleship. Just saying.
However, when playing Horizon: Zero Dawn, you’re Aloy. She wears the best armor of them all, plot armor.
Thanks for reading!
Honorable Mentions
Space Engineers video game – because you can make your armor however you want. I look forward to creating more Mass Effect inspired spaced armor.
The Expanse – Another universe that broadly uses spaced armor and metal/ceramic composites for armor. Also, carbon silicate plating. Shhh, the Laconians might hear you…
Tex Talks Battletech on youtube, in case you need “whiskey soaked snark” with your Battletech. Second best resource in my opinion, second only to Sarna.net
I wanted to say that I do this writing free of charge. I don’t want to put this kind of writing behind a paywall. Much of this I learned free on the internet, and then experimented with it, and I want to offer it to you the same way. That being said, this kind of work is… well.. work. It takes a fair bit of labor to type this all out for you. So, if you want to donate $5 or whatever to help support me, my Paypal is here. Again, not required, but donations are appreciated!
Hello again folks!
Today I want to talk you through the process of making charcoal. Yes, it’s another how-to! Before we get started, I want to put a bit of a disclaimer/caveat on this post. The process I am about to show is works just fine, but this particular batch ended a bit undercooked because I misjudged it. Mistakes happen, that is a fact of life. Even though a little undercooked, I’ll use the pictures from the process anyways,as I didn’t really have any more need of another batch right away.
Anywho, up, up, up, and away!
Animism
As I will be showing you how to make charcoal from wood, it makes sense to talk a bit about the animism behind the process. In Finnish folklore, the forests as well as the trees had their own spirits that lived in the wood. These spirits are called the puun väki, the spirits of wood and the powers that dwell within. I have already talked about the Spirits of the Forestin another post, as well as the Spirits of Fire, which are both integral to this process.
Wood is the living ‘flesh’ of trees, the cellulose tissues that give trees their shape and great strength. It is one of the oldest building materials and fuel for our ancient ancestors, and as such working with wood is a rich and ancient tradition. From housing to fires, from decoration to boats, wood has been the foundation we built our lives around. Wood is a hydrocarbon, a biological material made up of mostly hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and water. The idea behind making charcoal is to ‘burn off’ the other elements, leaving just the carbon behind.
Carbon is an essential element for life on Earth, and we will be making carbon from the once living trees. The cycles of life and death are inherent in the making of charcoal, which can be used to return carbon to the soil, known as biochar, as well as to create fire and warmth. I use charcoal to both fuel my forge, as well as a soil supplement, and a pigment on occasion.
The Process
Alright, let’s jump into it! Making charcoal is a fairly straightforward process, and making charcoal in pits in one of the oldest methods. Charcoal is mostly carbon, and is derived by burning wood in the absence of oxygen. You see, wood is a hydrocarbon, made up of mostly ( 6%) hydrogen, (42%) oxygen, (50%)carbon, and other elements. What we want to do is drive off the other elements by pyrolysis (fancy word for burning with fire), and leaving behind just the carbon.
Materials Needed
Wood, lots of wood. Split thinly
A pit of decent size
A shovel/fire poker. You may need to adjust burning logs
A large steel plate.
A way to make fire.
Step One, chop wood and fill the pit
You want the wood you intend to burn to be split pretty thin. This makes it easier to stack in the pit without a lot of space, and also means that the heat of the fire can get into the wood easier and burn through. If the fire can’t reach the inside of your logs, they won’t turn into charcoal.
Next, you want to take all this wood to your pit, and stack it in pretty tight. Remember, we don’t want too much oxygen in the fire, otherwise all our charcoal will just burn up. We need some oxygen of course, especially in the beginning, otherwise the fire won’t actually do the burning thing. It’s a bit of a balancing act that comes with practice. Here, you can see how I stacked my own pit. It’s a pretty tight build, with a trench in the middle for starting my fire. I’ll throw tinder and kindling down in there to get things going, and then stack a little more split wood in as things get going.
(Wood Stacked in Pit)
Step Two, Burn Wood.
The next step is about as straight forward as they come, lighting up your tinder and kindling and letting the fire do it’s thing. Again, I used my magnifying glass to start the fire (fire is the child of the sun), and let thing catch nicely and throwing in some more wood as I saw fit.
(Fire!)
Now comes the part where you wait. Making good charcoal is a practice in patience and timing. You want the wood to cook through into charcoal, but you don’t want to burn it down into ash. My fire burned for over an hour, and I moved onto the next step as the logs started to turn white with ash along the edges.
(Larger logs on top)
When I see the ash on my first batch of logs, I threw in a larger set of logs to partly cover the whole pit. The reason I did this is to start the “smothering” process, knowing the larger logs wouldn’t burn down to charcoal completely. What the logs on top do is compact the lower levels, and deprive them of oxygen so they can “cook” more completely. I’ve seen videos of folks doing this in multiple layers, in much bigger pits.
(Big logs looking ashy, lower logs compacted)
After the layer of big logs burned down a bit, I smothered the pit.
Step Three, Smother
This is the part where we deprive the entire pit of oxygen. For this, I use a large steel (or in this case two) plate to cover the pit. You drop the plate over the fire, and then let the fire burn away without more oxygen turning your batch into ash. Then you use your shovel to put dirt over the “seams”, until there is only a small hole for smoke to come out.
(Plates in place, little smoke hole, showing a blue-ish white puff)
The reason I leave a small hole is so I can watch the smoke. It will change color as the different parts of the wood burn off.
The smoke hole helps me to judge how the wood is burning down. Really blue smoke means there is still water burning off, so give the batch more time (and oxygen) to cook a little longer. Gray and white smokes means the oxygen and hydrogen (and other trace elements), are still burning off. When the white smoke thins out, and you are seeing mostly just “shimmers” of heat, then your batch is mostly ready. Seal up your smoke hole, and watch thing for a while. You need to choke out the fire now, and as things settle it might start to smoke around the plate again. Drop some more dirt on those spots for the next hour or so.
(All sealed up)
Once you have babysat things for a while, and the pit is fully sealed up and not smoking anymore, walk away for about 24 hours to give it time to cool. Check back once in a while to make sure your dirty “seams” aren’t smoking. We want to keep oxygen out of the pit now, and can only wait for things to cool down.
Check your pit the next day, and don’t open it up until the plates have cooled. If they are hot to touch don’t open the pit. Give it some more time.
End Result
(Charcoal batch, undercooked)
Once your plate(s) have cooled, you should have a nice batch of charcoal. As I said at the beginning, mine ended up undercooked, because I goofed up. The big logs on top I didn’t expect to fully carbonize (as I just use those for snuffing the layers below), but I was disappointed to see more “whole” logs than I wanted underneath. I still got some charcoal, but this is not an ideal batch. You want the charcoal to be crumbly, and the log pieces to break into chunks of charcoal. Only the lowest layers of this batch did that.*
But don’t fret! The good thing about undercooked batches is that you can just throw those logs into your next batch and cook them some more!
As always, thanks for reading!
*My forge can use solid wood, as well as charcoal and coal. I prefer charcoal over wood just because it burns cleaner and a bit hotter. The impurities in wood are cooked mostly out during the charcoal process.
It is great to have some room to write again. There are a lot of different irons in the fire (get it?), and I am working my way through them. There is upcoming work that pulls a lot of my recent work together, a how-to on how to make charcoal, and some other work as well. I’m moving forward, and that is the best I can hope for at the moment.
(Picture of elemental iron, Wikipedia)
Today, I want to talk about iron. This should come as no surprise, because I’m a blacksmith. Iron in many ways central to the work I do. More than that, iron is ubiquitous throughout the universe, and essential to human civilization. Cars, machines, ships, even the hemoglobin in our blood is dependent on the existence of iron.
In Finnish folklore, the spirits of iron are called raudan väki. These are spirits of the environment as much as they are they are spirits of civilization. Like many other spirits, their nature is complex and they can be be benevolent, harmful, as well as anywhere in between. Swords made of iron are designed to hurt people. An ambulance is meant to give people a fighting chance. Low iron in the blood can make us sick, but iron supplements can help heal that imbalance.
Much of Finnish folklore and animism is built around the idea of origins. In no small way, if you know how some spirit came to be, it gives you power over that spirit. Knowing the story of a being helps you to understand it, and understanding makes building a relationship with a spirit easier. Think about repairing a car, or forging a knife, it’s easier when you know what you are doing.
In no small way, knowledge is power. That is why Finnish folklore is full of origin stories for all kinds of spirits; wood, earth, stone, disease, water, even blood and iron. . But since we are talking about iron today, let’s dig into that a little more.
Origin of Iron
Air is its first of mothers, water the eldest of brothers
iron the youngest of brothers, fire in turn the middle one.
(Kalevala, Magoun Translation)
(Image of elemental star formation)
Iron came from the explosion of large and dense stars. It takes a lot of energy to fuse lighter elements into iron, and thus kaboom! The universe is seeded with iron over the long cycles of living and dying stars. As our own solar system condense from the solar furnance, iron was already abundant. As a heavier element, as our planet cooled in sank into the core, and all throughout the young planet. Our best science today says that the inner core of our planet is likely solid iron and nickel, suspended in a layer of liquid iron.
Today, iron is the fourth most common element in the Earth’s crust, and the most common by mass. It is rarely found in it’s elemental state, however, iron ores (rocks/minerals containing iron) are among the most commonly found. Hematite and magnetite are the two most common sources of iron ore, which is then processed, refined, and made into raw iron and steel. Probably, one of the most common materials we use in this project we call civilization.
According to the folklore, the origin story of the raudan väki is a little more complicated. Personally, I have strong preference for the celestial origin of iron. Yet, in the Kalevala there are two main themes that run through the Origins of Iron.
It must be noted here that Lonnrott, as he collected the folklore as he traveled around Finland, took a lot of liberties with his source material to make it ‘flow’ more cleanly as a single narrative. However, this means it’s strung together from a lot of smaller oral traditions; ones that weren’t necessarily part of the same narrative.
The first narrative is the story of the iron maidens, and they were heavy metal rockers… No wait, that’s not quite right. The iron maidens were women/nature spirits. They had heavy breasts filled with milk, and they wandered across the land pouring out the milk as they went. Where the red milk (uh…) landed, iron ore came into being. Where the white milk (a little more normal…) landed steel was brought forth. Where the black milk (seriously, go to the doctor) landed, bar-iron was born. This is the first narrative concerning origin of iron, and in case it doesn’t show, I’m not a huge fan of this narrative.
The second narrative follows the first, but is probably drawn from a separate set of oral tales.. Iron sat for a long time within the Earth, and eventually wanted to meets it’s brother, Fire. Iron sought out Fire for a long time, and eventually the two of them met. But Fire was in a terrible mood, and Iron was burnt badly. Iron went back into hiding under some birch trees for years on end. But then;
A wolf ran along the fen, a bear wandered in from the heath
The fen stirred where the wolf stepped, the heath where the bear set its paw
There bog-iron came to the surface, and a steel ingot grew
In the print’s of the wolf’s claws, in the marks of the bear’s heel.
(Kalevala, Magoun Translation)
Eventually, the great smith llmarinen comes wandering through, looking for a place to set up his forge. He finds the iron in the wolf and bear tracks, and that is where he decides to site his smithy. He eventually helps to mend the relationship between Fire and Iron, because he’s a master smith.
Honestly, I like this version a lot better. First, because wolf and bears, obviously. Second, and most importantly, because this really speaks to the actual facts of the nature of bog iron. Bog iron grows in waterways, swamps, and fens as a result of bacteria growth. Iron is what those organisms deposit as waste, and the iron builds up over time. It is something that could well be found in the tracks of a passing animal.
(Bog iron ore, and iron bearing water from a spring. Wikipedia)
Blood and Rust
When you (iron) were resting as ooze, standing as clear water
On the surface of a fen, on the top of rough bald hill
When you were changed there to earthy muck, began to become rusty soil.
At the time you were not big, neither big nor small
When the elks trampled you in the fen, when wild reindeer lashed you on the heath
A wolf trod on you with its claws, a bear with its paws
(Kalevala, Magoun Translation)
This post is already getting a bit on the long side, but this is something I want to mention briefly. As I have already mentioned, there is a connection between iron and blood. It is the hemoglobin, an iron based protein in our blood that carries oxygen, and gives red blood cells the characteristic color. That is a trait of iron, and it is often evident by the red color in soils and minerals. The orange-red of rusting iron is also the expression of this trait.
Rust is part of the ‘life cycle’ of iron; as it moves from the ground, to the forge (or factory), and then as it decays it returns to the ground once more. Same as we do, as we live, grow, and eventually pass away. The iron returns to the Earth, and so does the blood.
Just as importantly, in the Kalevala, the raudan väki are closely connected to the healing of wounds and stopping bleeding. The story goes that Väinämöinen is building himself a boat, when his axe slips, and leaves a gouge in his knee. In order to have this wound treated, he has to seek out a healer. In order to properly heal the wound, Väinämöinen has to tell the healer the Origin of Iron, which we have already covered. When this is done, the healer recites a charm against the abuses of iron, and then a healing charm to stop the blood, and Väinämöinen is healed and can continue on his journey.
As always, thanks for reading!
Sources/References;
Sarmela, Matti “The Finnish Folklore Atlas”
Lonrott, Elias. Maguon Jr, Francis Peabody trans. “The Kalevala”
I wanted to say that I do this writing free of charge. I don’t want to put this kind of writing behind a paywall or a Patreon. Much of this I learned free on the internet, and then experimented with it, and I want to offer it to you the same way. That being said, this kind of work is… well.. work. It takes a fair bit of labor to type this all out for you. So, if you want to donate $5 or whatever to help support me, my Paypal is here. Again, not required, but donations are appreciated!
Hello again folks!
This is another post in my on going series of practical skill-sharing. It gives me a small opportunity to share with you some of the things I’ve learned over the years, and pass on some hands-on knowledge to you all.
Last time, I talked about Making Clay from Dirt, and also explored a quick way to learn more about your own soil. Alright, so we’ve made some clay, and we’ve made something out of it. The pottery for this for this how-to is made via slip casting, which is a skill I will touch on later on in another post. For now, I’m kinda glossing over that part. Let’s just assume you’ve made some awesome pottery, and now it’s time to fire it.
Pit firing is exactly what it sounds like. You put some pottery in a pit, and you start a fire around it. The pottery inside the pit then goes through a chemical process that turns the raw clay into a ceramic. A ceramic is a fired clay, that has at least partially gone through the process of vitrification, that makes the piece (at least partially) impermeable to water. That’s just a fancy way of saying that the fired ceramic will no longer melt back into mud if it gets wet. The amount of vitrification varies a lot, depending on process, clay, and temperature.
Earthenware, Stoneware, and Porcelain
Ceramics pieces such as bricks, pottery, and ceramic tiles are commonly classed in three different types; earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. Earthenware is the most common type, and it is made from many different kinds of clay, is porous, (won’t retain liquids), usually non-vitreous, and is fired at a lower temperature than the other two types. It can be glazed (and thus can hold liquids), or unglazed, and is the oldest type of ceramic in human history. Examples of earthenware date back as far as 29,000 BC.
Most clays won’t survive very high temperatures during firing, so stoneware didn’t show up until about 5,000 years ago. Stoneware can only be made of specific clays, and is fired at a higher temperature than earthenware. It goes further into the vitrification process, and as such loses the porousness of earthenware. Stoneware is usually glazed as well, and as such is commonly used for liquids.
Porcelain is fired at the highest temperature of the three types, and therefore porcelain can only be made with very specific (usually kaolin) clays. Porcelain requires great skill and craft to produce, and so is the latest of the three to be invented. Porcelain, for that reason, is often found in “prestigious” items throughout history.
Modern ceramic manufacturing covers the spectrum of all three types, with a variety of glazes and materials. Ceramic tiles, bricks, terracotta flower pots, spark plugs, electrical insulation, and tableware are all made of fired clay.
Animism and Ceramic
As I don’t want this piece to be too long, I will only touch on this briefly here. There is a great deal of animism of working with earth spirits, and clay and ceramics. Just like my first piece on pottery, ceramics are a way of building relationship to the earth as well as to the ancestors. In fact, pottery is one of the key ways working archaeologists differentiate one culture from another. Every people, every culture throughout time has inscribed their own ideas, beliefs, and worldviews into their pottery. In addition, they embodied they working skills and practical experience of their people as well, in working clay and firing ceramics. Moving forward!
How-To
Let’s start with materials. For this one, we are going to make pit-fired earthenware, which is the oldest type of ceramic we know of. In short, unfired pottery is put into a pit, and lit on fire. That means the temperatures are low (usually below 800 degrees Celsius, or below 1470 Fahrenheit). It also means there are not many materials needed. For this how-to, I used the following;
A pit
Two cinder blocks
A piece of metal mesh
Wood
Fire
Pottery pieces to be fired
An oven (optional)
That’s it, so lets get started.
Step 1 – Pre-baking (Optional)
Before I get to firing the pottery in the pit, I throw them the pieces to be fired into the oven. First, an hour or so at 400 F, and then I turn up the oven to 500 F for another hour. Even though the pottery is air dried when it hits the oven, the reason I do this is to drive a little more water from the pieces before firing. This is an optional step, but I find it helps a lot with survival of the pieces. In addition, any really bad pieces won’t survive this step, so it helps weed out those pieces too without wasting wood and effort.
(Pottery after pre-baking, ready for the pit!)
Step 2 – Digging the pit, chopping the wood
(Gettin’ wood)
This is the most straightforward part of pit firing. You need yourself a pit, which is basically just a hole in the ground. Site this away from dry flammable stuff, and find yourself a shovel. For this demonstration I used a pit about the width and depth of a five gallon bucket. It doesn’t have to be huge, as long as you aren’t firing too many pieces. If you already dug a pit for my first tutorial, congratulations, you don’t have to duplicate the effort.
You will also need wood. Not too much since we are starting small, but larger pits = more fuel. Chop chop! Smaller pieces work better in smaller pits.
Step 3 – Prep the pit
(Pit, ready to go)
Once the pit is dug, you have to prepare it for firing. As you’ve might notice, I put two cinder blocks on either side of my tinder and kindling. The reason for this is important. You want the heat to hit the bottom of your pottery. Trust me on this, otherwise you will get only partially fired bottoms. The point of the cinder blocks is to have something to put my pottery rack on top of, so the fire is all around the pieces, and thus heating them from all sides. I didn’t start with a lot of wood in my pit, because you want the temperature to raise somewhat slowly. If you go right to a big, raging fire, some pottery might explode due to unequal heat. It’s a marathon not a sprint.
Step 4 – Fire!
(Lighting fire with the power of the sun! Animism at work… Or play? )
Alright, so now it’s time to light the fire. I like to light my fires with a little convex lens and a box of tinder. If you read my previous post on The Spirits of Fireyou might be able to guess why that is. If not, in short in Finnish animism, fire is a child of the sun. There’s practical spirituality there.
Also, once I lit the fire, I had to quickly (yet, carefully) place my rack of pottery onto the fire. That way, the fire was underneath my pottery. Then, over the next couple of hours, I built up the fire and maintained it. There is some finesse here, because you want to maintain a constant temperature, without crushing your pottery. Build the fire up gradually, maintain it at a peak, and then let it cool down slowly. I probably used bigger wood than I should of this time around, though thankfully I didn’t crush anything. Knocked one piece over once or twice though.
Pit fires only get so hot, so overheating isn’t too much of a risk. Once you’ve burned around your pottery for an hour or two, feel free to let the fire die down. Then let the pottery cool for several more hours. It will take a while, so don’t rush it. Pottery likes to explode under unequal heat conditions, which means it warms up too fast, or cools too fast. Be patient. I know, it’s hard. When your pottery is cool to the touch, feel free to remove it.
Step 5 – Pit Fired Pottery, hopefully
Once my pottery is cooled, it’s time to give it a look over. 50% loss rate is about normal, so don’t be surprised if you lose about half your pottery. This is good to keep in mind when you are making and shaping it from clay, not to get attached to any one piece. It may well be the one that blows up. If you really like a particular design or specific pot, make a few of them. That helps to ensure you will get at least one on the other side of the fire.
This is where I tend to ‘test’ my pieces, and give them a good look over. Sometimes there will be broken pieces, sometimes small hairline cracks. I will tend take at least one piece from each batch and get it wet. A little at first, then a full submersion. If it turns back into mud, it didn’t fire completely. If not, congratulations, you have pit fired ceramic! Also, bubbling is totally normal for earthenware, they’re porous after all. Water will drain through them, albeit slowly.
I also want to draw your attention to a couple of details throughout this process. This is where the real artistry of pit firing comes in! Pit firing creates unique ceramic pieces that vary a LOT in color and patterning. The nature of the fire, and the clay, makes each piece one of a kind. Iron minerals in the clay make the rich reds you see in my pieces above. Burning wood and charcoal creates black colors. You noticed I added green grass to my fire, creating more grays/blacks/browns. Minerals, salts, metals, all kinds of materials can be added to the fire to create different colors, especially on white clays.
Some of my pieces have small cracks, or broken bits. I hope to add an extra layer of artistry; by fixing some of those cracks with colored resin. In the tradition of kintsugi, except I’m not using gold… Paints and other things can be added for extra artistry!
I wanted to say that I do this writing free of charge. I don’t want to put this kind of writing behind a paywall or a Patreon. Much of this I learned free on the internet, and then experimented with it, and I want to offer it to you the same way. That being said, this kind of work is… well.. work. It takes a fair bit of labor to type this all out for you. So, if you want to donate $5 or whatever to help support me, my Paypal is here. Again, not required, but donations are appreciated! Thank you for those that have already donated!
Hello again folks!
Now this one isn’t a full how-to, but more information that you may find useful about my previous post about Making Clay from Dirt. That is why this one is called a supplemental!
(Captain’s Log, Supplemental. You’re welcome.)
Maybe you don’t know diddly squat about dirt, or the land your reside on. Maybe this is the first time you have ever held a shovel in your life. Hey, there was a first time for all of it. I’ve been digging holes since I was a kid (much to my parent’s dismay, at times), but there was a time when I had no idea what I was doing, and we all start somewhere. So, for today I want to share with you a quick an easy way to learn a little more about the soil, especially if you want to make clay from it.
Materials:
This one is real easy.
You will need an empty jar, I used a mason jar
Something to dig some dirt with. A shovel is probably your best bet, because we have to dig down into the “banking” layer of the soil to have the best chance to find some clay.
A water source, a sink worker well for me
A spoon, or stick, or something to stir mud
Sifter, optional, but it helps.
Soil Horizon.
(A quick refresher)
Just a quick reminder, layer B is the layer we are after. Clay minerals leach out (because of water weathering) of the upper layers and move down into the B soil layer. There is usually a noticeable color change, (my soil turns tannish after the darker brown of the upper layers.) But in some ways each soil is unique, and there can be a lot of variety based on both the cultural and natural history of the land we are digging. My home land is an old onion farm, so it’s been turned over, and over, and over. Wet soils (river beds, swamps) may have clays a lot closer to the surface, others may be deeper down.
The cool part of what I am about to show you is that you can do it more than once, and really get a good feel for the clay (sand, and silt) content of your soil. This is really good information to have on hand.
The Process
Take your shovel and go out to wherever you are wanting to dig clay from. Make a small hole that gets you down into the banking layer. It helps me to make the hole wide enough were I can clearly see the layers in the wall of the hole. You can scrap the wall with your shovel or a trowel if you really want to see the layer changes.
Once you have your hole, you need to fill your jar around half full with dirt. Do you best to avoid lots of organic matter (roots, twigs, debris), gravel, and stones. You don’t want these in your sample. You can sift your soil quickly if that helps, but this part is optional if you are careful.
Now that you have your jar of dirt, take it inside and add some water to it. Don’t overfill it, but you need enough to be able to liquefy your dirt. Grab yourself a spoon or fancy stick, and stir that dirt up real good. You want a dirt cloud when you are done.
Now set it aside for a few hours or a couple days and let the dirt settle. This is going to allow the dirt to settle, and the particles are generally going to do this by density. Sand and gravel will settle towards the bottom, followed by silt, and on top.. Clay!
That’s the process, but now we explore the why.
The Soil Texture Chart
(My sample, clay is the smoothest layer on top. Followed by silt, and then a buttload of sand.)
The information we get from this short process is really valuable. Look at my sample above after a few days, and tell me what you see? Alright, I’ll tell you. This short little process gives you an idea of the proportional makeup of your soil. Ignore the water, and just focus on the layered soil. Mine is about 10% clay, 20% silt, and the rest is sand.
With that information in hand, let me introduce you to the Soil Texture Chart. It’s a triangle that covers most of the soil types you will encounter.
(Soil Texture Chart)
Also, there is handy online toolfrom the USDAthat is super helpful here. Once you have your proportions, you can enter them into the tool, and it spits out your soil type. You only need fill in the percantages for sand and clay, and it will highlight your soil type on the chart above.
My soil type is called “Sandy Loam” in the bottom left, which means I get a little bit of clay, and a mountain of sand when I make clay. Your soil may be different, from really clay rich soils at the top of chart, to really silty soils at the bottom right. And that’s it, that’s the whole process. Now you know a little bit more about your soil, and this has wide implications beyond just making clay. It is also important for things like gardening (plants like minerals), agriculture, and even things like carbon sequestration.But I don’t have the space to go into all that here.
Future Posts
As this was a slightly shorter post, it gives me a little bit of space of what I am working on right now. I think my next skill sharing post will be about making charcoal, as that is another important building block for future projects. I also want to cover traditional pit firing of clay, and there will also be a little bit about slip casting (poured clay) in the near future. Ideally this is building towards a few posts on blacksmithing and metal work. (clay and charcoal are both components.) There are a few other things I may talk about along the way, woodwork, forestry and some other stuff too. I also have more folklore and animism I want to tie in too.
I hope you are all doing well! I am still in quarantine until the end of April, so I have found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. I would tell you I have been getting a lot of writing done, but that isn’t really true. Getting a little done around the house, but not much to tell beyond that.
Which I why I wanted to start posting about practical skills. It gives me something to write about, and I get to share with you all things I have learned over the year. It’s a way for me to teach and share, without having to leave the house. It also keeps me busy, and keeps me from going stir crazy.
Before we jump into the deep end here, I wanted to say that I do this writing free of charge. I don’t want to put this kind of writing behind a paywall or a Patreon. Much of this I learned free on the internet, and then experimented with it, and I want to offer it to you the same way. That being said, this kind of work is… well.. work. It takes a fair bit of labor to type this all out for you. So, if you want to donate $5 or whatever to help support me, my Paypal is here. Again, not required, but donations are appreciated!
About Clay and Soil
Now, for a little bit of background. Soil varies a lot, and can come with all kinds of different compositions, textures, and mineral content. The soil outside your door may be very different than mine, and it helps to have a familiarity with that. You may have a clay rich soil, and this could be an easy process. Or you can have real sandy soil like mine, and so for every bit of clay you produce, you are guaranteed to have more sand than you know what to do with…
Without going into too much detail (I’m trying to keep this short, so I may expand on this in another post), clays are the result of mineral weathering, when certain rocks and minerals break down and leach into the soil. One of the chief producers of clay is water. Specifically, low energy water. (Low energy deposition is the technical term.) Think slow moving rivers, lakes, and especially wetlands. Some of the best clay I have ever dug came from a swamp! So if you have a river or a lake nearby, those will probably yield the best clays. But you may be able to get it out of your backyard as well!
Faster waters tend to flush clay minerals downstream, and into river deltas and things like that. Clay has been easier for me to find in low energy water bodies, and so the clays are all deposited on site, in river banks and such.
Clay is formed when water breaks apart rocks, minerals, and soil; and separates out the clay minerals. This are tiny particles that are smaller than gravel, sand, or even silt. It’s the very fine nature of the clay minerals that gives clay their distinct plasticity. That is why our ancestors learned to cast, shape, and mold clay into all kinds of cermamics and pottery!
A Little Animism
Again, without going too much in depth, as a practicing animist, it goes without saying that working with the earth and with clay has a deep spiritual component for me. The Earth is the planet from which all life we know shares a common heritage and ancestry. Digging into the soil is creating a close relationship with the Earth, and deepening that connection. As a former archaeology student, the land beneath our feet is in a very real the living memory of the Earth, the layers of geology and human prehistory are like memories of the planet. More than this, clays and ceramics are one of the oldest materials that our ancestors learned, and for me the process is a deep way of connecting with them as well. This could also be a whole other article in itself, but I wanted to briefly touch on it.
Materials
Alright, let’s begin! One of the best parts of digging clay is that is pretty straightforward, and doesn’t have a lot of material needed;
Approximately 3 – 5 gallon buckets. (I tend to use about three buckets, but the number varies based on how much you dig.)
A shovel. Preferably one with a long handle, for your back and because the hole you dig may get deep.
Water. You’ll need water, and a fair bit of it. I use a hose at the back of my house. You can also use an extra bucket or two filled with water.
A fine screen. Something with about 1/8 inch holes or so. I literally just have a roll of fine-ish metal mesh from Home Depot. This is for sifting out organic material, rocks, and other debris.
A stick. For stirring up mud in a bucket. I use an old shovel handle.
2 or 3 pillow cases. Cheap ones from like Big Lots, or old ones. Nothing too fancy. They will be filled with mud.
Now it’s time to dig some dirt. You notice I’ve included a picture for this section. This is a soil horizon, and this is important context for HOW to dig dirt for clay. You don’t really want the first two layers (O & A “topsoil” layers) , as you don’t want all the organic stuff, and at least in my soil, there isn’t much clay in these layers. What you typically want is the B layer, the subsoil. As clay minerals weather, they move down deeper into the soil. The B layer is sometimes called the “banking” layer, because it stores a lot of minerals that can be “withdrawn” later by the plants above. But we are interested in the clay in this layer, so this is what you want to dig. In my own soil, this is a really sandy layer, and pretty easy to dig through. Your mileage may vary.
To start out with, I typically will fill one of my 5 gallon buckets about half way with dirt. You need room for water, afterall. So now, you have a bucket of dirt! Hurray!
(Alright, I have two…)
Step 2 – Make Dirt Slurry
Now that you have your bucket of dirt, it is now time to make a mud shake. Carry your dirt to wherever your water supply is (outside preferably, your housemates will thank you). You want to pour water on top of your dirt, and generally you want more water than dirt. Take your stick and stir it all up! Make yourself a runny mud-shake… The boys won’t show up in your yard for this one. Probably.
The idea here is to completely liquefy your dirt sample. The reason why will become apparent in our next step.
Soup is ready! (Do not eat.)
Step 3 – Screen and Filter
The reason we wanted to make a mud slurry is because it will separate your dirt into all it’s various components. Clay will suspend into the water, organic debris will float, and sand and rocks will sink to the bottom. Now we have to do the work of separating it all out.
This part can get heavy, so heads up. Don’t hurt yourself alright, as buckets of water and dirty aren’t light. Lay your screen/mesh over top of an empty bucket, near to where you made your slurry. Stir it up real good the first time, and then strain the bucket of slurry through the screen and into the empty bucket underneath. The screen will catch a lot of organics, rocks, and even some of the sand. Once you’ve strained it, take the screen somewhere and shake it off, and maybe give it a good rinse.
(Bucket with screen.)
In my experience, you will probably do this step a couple of times. Stir, strain, repeat. If you are using the same bucket over again, be sure to rinse it out before you strain the slurry back into it. Otherwise you’re just putting it back in.
While you are straining, you may notice that the sand settles to the bottom. Getting that out is our next step. The straining will get some of it out, but not all of it. Here, we take advantage of the fact that sand sinks. Stir up your freshly strained slurry, and let it sit a couple of minutes this time. Now pour it back into a clean empty bucket, slowly. The sand will be stuck at the bottom, so don’t pour that into your clean bucket. Dump the sand out, and do it again. Rinse, and repeat as needed, until all you have is mostly clay suspended in water. Again, you may have to do this a few times to get all the sand out.
Typically, I will strain at least twice, and separate the sand out at least twice. As I said before, this can get heavy, so take your time and save your back! If you need to take a break, do so. Stuff may settle, but you can always stir it back up if it settles too much.
(Screening out debris, and leaving behind the sand.)
Step 4 – Pour into Pillow Cases, and hang to dry
When you are all done, you should have a bucket of mostly dirty water. No rocks, debris, or sand should be evident. Depending on the clay content of your soil, this could be a thicker or thinner slurry. Either way, the density isn’t a big deal right now. What matters is you have some amount of clay suspended in water, and free of stuff you don’t want. Now, we have to get the clay separated from the water.
Into the bucket with you!
In a clean empty bucket (likely one you already used, and cleaned. It doesn’t have to be dry, just clean), take one of your pillow cases and use it like you would a trash bag. Line the bucket with it, and pull it over the edges. Pour some of your slurry into this pillow case/bucket combo. Some will leak out into the bucket, and that’s okay. The idea here is most of your clay-water is contained in a filtering pillow case. Now, just hang up that pillow case and allow it to drip out the water.
It is okay if you use more than one pillowcase during this process. In fact, it’s best to not dump a bucket full of clay slurry into one case, break it up. It will dry out faster, and you won’t have to hang up one heavy case full of water!
What will happen is that the clay will settle in a corner of the pillow case, and act as a filter for the water. This works better on warmer days, as the water can evaporate too, leaving just the clay behind in a pillow case.
Mud on a line, wasting all my time…
Also, it’s best not to let it completely dry out. (You can, but then you have to crush up the dried clay into powder, and add water again.) Grab the pillowcase on occasion, and you can tell by touch when the clay is ready. This drying period can take a few days depending on temperature. Also, don’t leave it out in the rain, as that defeats the purpose.
Step 5 – Clay!
Ball of clay!
When your pillow case has filtered out most of the water, all you have to do is turn it inside out and extract the ball of the clay inside. Congratulations, you have made clay from soil! Or maybe not, sometimes it takes a little trial and error to get it right. Sometimes you get clay, sometimes you don’t. I’ve gotten sandy balls of kinda-clay, and things that are best just tossed back into the hole. Soils vary a lot in color, minerals, and clay content. While the backyard is a great place to start, I dig soil from all over the place, and each result is a little bit different.
Each clay can be different too. They can vary a lot in color, plasticity, and how the clay responds to later steps such as throwing, casting, and firing. Some clays will cast great, but throw poorly. Some will throw and coil like a dream, but cast like hell on wheels. Some will fire fantastically (to all kinds of temperature ranges), others will blow up dramatically. There is a lot of trial and error to this, so don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t go right the first time.
Please feel free to ask questions or ask for clarification as needed. This is my first how-to, and again, that trial and error thing. At the end of this post is a short list of additional resources and Youtube videos, so you can go above and beyond what I have explained here. Google is also a fantastic tool!
There is a lot going on in my own life and in the world at large right now. I’ll be honest, this post is a little more stream of consciousness than anything. There is just some things I want to talk about. I have took a voluntary furlough from work, and so have had a lot of free time on my hands. Hopefully that only lasts a couple of weeks or so. We are all in the midst of a global pandemic, which is causing all kinds of chaos. So I’ll start there, since it is in the title after all.
Pandemics
Alright, so we have the Covid-19 virus spreading across the globe. In my home state of Michigan we are under a “stay at home” order. This means that non-essential businesses are closed by the order of the governor, and most of us need to stay home unless it is for work or groceries. It prevents the virus from spreading to other people, and especially vulnerable populations. Short version, stay the fuck home and don’t be like Ash.
In addition, especially for those of those of us in the United States, this virus is making the flaws and problems in our system real obvious. In short (as I have a LOT of thoughts about this), the need for universal healthcare and paid time off is apparent as it’s ever going to be. Heck, I think it’s time to talk about working less hours as a society, as well as things like UBI as well.* We are the only major industrial country in the world that doesn’t provide those things, and we sure as hell can afford it. I mean, Congress just passed a 2 trillion dollar spending bill, with at least half of it as a give away to large corporations. Same kind of thing we did in 2008 when the last recession hit.
In line with this opinion piece, I think this pandemic and crisis is an opportunity to address the failings and flaw in our society. We can start the process of building a more just future by prioritizing people over profit. This is the path I hope we take as a society. In addition, how we handle the Covid-19 pandemic could teach us a lot about how to handle the climate crisis, as they are both global problems.
I think it could also go the other way, such as the Patriot Act in 2001 and the recession in 2008. The trend towards authoritarianism could increase, and big banks and companies get handouts while the working class and the poor go hungry. That’s not desirable, and I much prefer the former to the latter.
In addition, I think this change should ideally come from the bottom up. I’m not going to hold my breath and hope the Trump administration suddenly develops a conscience. That ain’t gonna happen. If we want change, it will have to come from the roots.
Permaculture
“The first idea is that every organism on the earth is intimately and irrevocably connected to every other and to the nonliving elements of the planet. We unite with our environment to form communities and ecosystems, whether we know it or not.” – Edible Forest Gardens, Volume 1
I’ve been thinking a lot about that, about building alternative systems to the one we have now. To building a more just and ecological future. One that places people over profit, and we all enjoy our lives a little more. I’m a bit of a dreamer, I know, but I think it could happen if we are willing to do the work. If you are interested, I’ve been talking a bit about what that looks like over at my Facebook page, Solarpunk Animism. (Plug, plug, check it out!)
We have to entirely transform our society to mitigate climate change; food, land use, energy, transportation, buildings, cities, and materials. We desperately need models to show what that future could look like. Real world practical systems we can copy, paste, modify, and scale to fit our needs. I think permaculture, and especially agroforestry, gives us some examples we can use to redesign our food and land-use systems. I’ve been reading a lot, and making some plans and projects in light of that reading. Here are just a few books that will, some day, be added to my list of recommendations;
There will be a lot more for me to talk about the deeper I get into this, and these books are really animistic in their material. Ultimately, there will be a lot more to explore, especially the interconnections between permaculture, ecology, and animism.
Projects
Leaving that where it is, I wanted to talk a little bit about all the plans and projects I MIGHT get to this year. I say might because, well the pandemic has thrown a lot of uncertainty over it all. That said, I still get to plan for these things, and someday, I hope to get to them. I am the steward of a few acres of land, including my household. Much of it is forests, but some of it was once old farmland. My long term goal is to create a forest on the farmland, and to be a responsible steward of the forest land in my keeping. Again, we are back to the agroforestry thing. Did I ever say forestry was my first love, and originally what I wanted to major in? Alas, transfer credits and finances got in the way…
Anyways, a lot of the projects I’m exploring are somewhat permacultural in nature, and definitely ecologically based. I want to do my part to do better for the planet, and for me that starts with the local natural communities, and the land literally beneath my feet. The expanded goals are manifold, and cover the gamut from food production, to fuel, self-sufficiency, resilience, and carbon sequestration. I won’t have the space to lay out all the details in this post, so I created a fancy flow chart to perhaps illustrate how this is shaping up for me. Some of these projects are already underway (phase 1), others are planned or dependent on earlier projects. (Phase 2, ect). Ha! I made a tech tree!
(Phase 1 – Green, Phase 2 – Yellow, Phase 3 – Red. Blue are land systems, ect.)
This is getting a bit long already, so I am going to end this post here. There will be a lot more material to come in the future that expands on all of this.
Thanks for reading!
*I only support UBI in ADDITION to a robust social welfare program. Universal healthcare, education, and public services should be part of the package in addition to a kind of universal basic income. That’s the only way it makes sense to me. Healthcare (including child and elderly care), education, and some extra money for food, shelter, and other basic items.
This looks like a good place for adventure. (Me, playing Space Engineers)
Hello again everyone!
This is kind of a ‘just for fun” post, but something I think is important to talk about all the same. It should come as no surprise to anyone here that aside from being a fiction writer, I’m also a gamer. I like games, and I make no apologies for that. Oregon Trail, Super Mario Brothers, SimCity, Minecraft… All of it. I have been gaming for a long time (and this includes tabletop). Games aren’t real life, but it has always struck me how informative games can be when it comes to thinking about real life. There are important lessons to be learned from games.
Games are designed to simulate some aspects of real life, and so can help us think about all sorts of issues. I really like sandbox, exploration, and building games; so games like Starmade, Minecraft, and Simcity have a lot to teach us about building, crafting, and even urban design and energy policy. It’s the last I really want to focus on today, through the lens of a game called Space Engineers.
I really enjoy Space Engineers, because it is a game built around creativity and exploration, using technology inspired by the real world, in a near future scenario. We see a lot of energy technology that we have at our disposal right now, such as wind turbines, solar panels, hydrogen engines, and even nuclear reactors. There are no fossil fuels in the game, so it is a really useful lens for thinking about energy policy, and the current state of our energy systems.
Michigan
As games and fiction are can be useful for imaging the future, I want to take you on a bit of thought experiment today. We are going to use my home state of Michigan as an example, with Space Engineers as a lens on our energy policy. So here is our current energy mix for electricity generation;
Alright, so we can from the chart above that Michigan has four main electrical power sources; coal, nuclear, natural gas, and renewable energy (wind, solar, and hydro; primarily.) By contrast, Space Engineers uses all clean sources (though not necessarily renewable) sources of power as I have already pointed out. So can we use Space Engineers to rebuild Michigan’s energy system? Release the army of engineers!
They took the scenic route in their solar/hydrogen powered vehicle.
According to the recent IPCC report, we have to drastically reduce our usage of fossil fuels, and they need to be zero by about 2050 if we are going to have any chance to mitigate climate change. So on the above pie chart, that means that coal and natural gas have to go, so we will start there.
Coal & Natural Gas
Coal and natural gas in Michigan make up about 63% of our total electrical energy supply. As such, well over half our energy system comes from fossil fuels, and would have to be phased out by 2050. Coal is definitely the worst of the two offenders, as natural gas is slightly ‘cleaner’, but in the long run it should go too.
Starting with coal then, and utilizing our full army of Space Engineers, we have to replace 37% of our energy sources. The most obvious sources (leaving nuclear aside for now) are renewable energy, especially wind and solar. Michigan has tremendous wind and solar resources, so our limited factor is energy storage more than production capacity. However, with increasing efficient battery technology, and local Michigan pumped hydro storage, our engineers have no problem replacing coal with renewable energy by 2050.
Which brings our renewable energy percentage up to 45%. Drawdown lists on-shore wind, solar farms, and rooftop solar in the top ten solutions to combat climate change. I don’t see 45% as an unreasonable number, as it may be technically possible to run Michigan on 100% renewables.
Unleash the wind and solar! (Yes, I’m flying. Big whoop.)
The next kicker in our energy mix is natural gas. Like coal, natural gas energy is a form of combustion. Basically, burning a fuel to turn a turbine, which creates electrical energy. There are a lot of variations and methods of this, so I’m not going to go into the technical details all that much. Natural gas is still a fossil fuel, produced primarily from oil wells. And while it is ‘cleaner’ than coal, it still produces quite a bit of carbon. Methane is it’s chief component, which is carbon with four hydrogen atoms. So how do we get natural gas out of the mix?
Well, our engineers are good at what they do, so we could just expand more renewables and bring our mix up to 71% renewable. That is possible too, and again the IPCC report says 70-80% renewable energy is about where we’d need to be. So that is one option. We will call that scenario one.
But our Space Engineers also give us another option. One of the big sources of energy in the game is hydrogen; which is used for everything from jetpacks, to rocket engines, to hydrogen engines. So this gives us another option, the hydrogen economy. By using clean renewable energy (as opposed to current techniques), for electrolysis, we could produce abundant amounts of hydrogen from water. If we built up the infrastructure for safe transport and storage of hydrogen gas (which is quite volatile), we could use hydrogen in everything from transportation to gas turbines. In short, it may be pretty easy to convert natural gas power plants to use hydrogen. If we use pure oxygen in addition to the hydrogen, the only waste would be water vapor. So 26% of our energy could also come from hydrogen plants. We will call that scenario two.
Now this is only a hypothetical situation, as there are several aspects of hydrogen and renewable energy that aren’t quite there yet. The only way to make hydrogen viable would be clean, renewable primary energy. That isn’t the case, as we still are mostly using coal and natural gas. Also, the infrastructure isn’t in place yet, though it is growing.
Nuclear
Moving on, the next big energy source in Space Engineers are nuclear reactors. I have used these in the game for a lot of different applications, from factory power to starship reactors. There are some things in the game that require quite a bit of power, and nuclear works nicely for this. In addition, in the real world Michigan gets 30% of it’s energy from nuclear power plants. We have three plants in total.
Drawdown ranks nuclear as #20 on it’s list. This power source has the potential to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, but it comes with a whole bunch of risks and drawbacks. Drawdown lists nuclear as a regrets solution, and has this to say on the topic;
“At Project Drawdown, we consider nuclear a regrets solution. It has potential to avoid emissions, but there are many reasons for concern: deadly meltdowns, tritium releases, abandoned uranium mines, mine-tailings pollution, radioactive waste, illicit plutonium trafficking, and thefts of missile material, among them.”
However, Drawdown goes to say that plausibly; “we assume its share of global electricity generation will grow to 13.6 percent by 2030, but slowly decline to 12 percent by 2050. ” It is important to note that this is global generation, and regional generation can vary a bit. For example, right now global energy production from nuclear is about 11%, whereas Michigan’s percentage is 29%.
With nuclear being both and option in the game, and in real life Michigan, I am going to assume our engineers use the resources we have, and upgrade them to newer, safer reactors. Maybe they even deploy some of those generation IV reactors we hear so much about? (Most reactors in existence are second generation, built in the 70-80’s)
The Scenarios
Alright, so our army of engineers have scoured the state of Michigan, and made huge improvements and refinements to our energy system. They also changed out our transportation system, which works mostly now on electricity and/or hydrogen. So where does all this leave us in our game inspired fantasy? With two unique scenarios for a possible sustainable energy future.
I like scenario 1 a little better, because it makes a few less assumptions and relies more on technology we know to work today. The hydrogen economy is a little more of a stretch, because there are a lot of technical details and infrastructure that just doesn’t exist right now. But this imagined scenario is 2050, so our wonderful engineers may have worked that out. It is also technically possible, that the grant us a third scenario that eliminates the nuclear.
Scenario 3: 100% renewable energy, or 100% hydrogen/renewable.
Could the last be possible? I think so, and our engineers are a brilliant sort. It would be the ideal scenario for sure, but engineers are also very pragmatic. That leaves nuclear an open question.
Even though Space Engineers is a game, again, I think it is a great tool to help us think about the future. A future where space travel is real, and our civilization is sustainable. So I leave you with this thought and image. A ship powered by hydrogen and electric thrusters, with energy supplied by a mix of solar, hydrogen and nuclear.
I am an animist, sci-fi geek, crafter, writer, hunter, and honestly, there are a lot of hats...
I am mainly here to develop my own ideas, to keep myself writing, and share my work with others.
The Thought Forge 