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Apr. 19th, 2006 01:36 pmWell that's my second Rowany festival. It was even better than the first one, and that's saying something. I find myself expecting that next year's will be better again...this is fun :) I did more stuff this year. I carved a spoon, made bellows, sang a bit, cooked a bit, wrested iron from the bowels of the earth, made a few new friends and learned quite a lot about varied and interesting things. Pictures are here, along with a little commentary.
Now...iron from the bowels of the earth. That was not something I'd really anticipated. A likable lunatic called Iarnulfr had acquired about 30-40kg of high grade iron ore and them brought it to festival to smelt it. I found myself involved with the process. We made double action Chinese box bellows, Iarnulfr made a short stack Norse bloom smelter and by bringing together one part ore, three parts charcoal, two parts swearing and seven parts cider we made iron. I was unbelieveably sore at the end of the day, but it was soooo worth it. Hopefully pics and/or video of the cracking open of the smelter to remove the bloom are floating around as it was nothing short of spectacular.
As for the rest of it, tenbears and I made some more conventional bellows. They looked a bit naff, being made out of MDF, but they were a prototype. We'll make proper ones out of something a bit nicer. I also finished a spoon, which was my first real effort at carving wood so I'm well satisfied. There is a rather staggering list of things I want to do this year and the notion that I might actually do them (last year was a bit of a wash in that respect) is one which I'll try to hold to.
Making stuff is fun.
Now...iron from the bowels of the earth. That was not something I'd really anticipated. A likable lunatic called Iarnulfr had acquired about 30-40kg of high grade iron ore and them brought it to festival to smelt it. I found myself involved with the process. We made double action Chinese box bellows, Iarnulfr made a short stack Norse bloom smelter and by bringing together one part ore, three parts charcoal, two parts swearing and seven parts cider we made iron. I was unbelieveably sore at the end of the day, but it was soooo worth it. Hopefully pics and/or video of the cracking open of the smelter to remove the bloom are floating around as it was nothing short of spectacular.
As for the rest of it, tenbears and I made some more conventional bellows. They looked a bit naff, being made out of MDF, but they were a prototype. We'll make proper ones out of something a bit nicer. I also finished a spoon, which was my first real effort at carving wood so I'm well satisfied. There is a rather staggering list of things I want to do this year and the notion that I might actually do them (last year was a bit of a wash in that respect) is one which I'll try to hold to.
Making stuff is fun.
