 | |
  Location within Argyll and Bute | |
| Established | 1753 |
|---|---|
| Location | Taynuilt, Argyll |
The Bonawe Iron Furnace (also called the Lorn Furnace), [1] was an industrial complex located in Bonawe, Lorn District, Scotland. It operated in the middle of the eighteenth century, with the aim of producing pig iron. Central to this complex was a charcoal fired blast furnace.
The industrial complex was built in 1753 [2] by Richard Ford's small business, [3] the Newland Company. The site was chosen because there was enough wood in the area for the production of charcoal, as well as the fact that there was enough water pressure in the river to drive a water wheel. As the company itself was established in Cumbria, the blast furnace was managed by a local representative of the firm. During construction, most of the building materials were brought in from Cumbria. For the furnace to produce pig iron, it first had to be brought up to temperature, which took about one week. The oven was used almost continuously for nine months at a time.
The complex employed as many as 600 people at the height of its operation. The majority of the staff were needed for the collection of timber and the manufacture of charcoal. The daily output could reach up to 2500 kilograms of pig iron and the annual production was about 700,000 kilograms. As the complex did not include a forge, finished iron products could not be manufactured, with the exception of simple objects such as cannonballs. The majority of pig iron was taken to offices of the Newland Company in Cumbria to be shipped for further processing.
As of 1750, the use of coke as fuel was becoming common. The first blast furnace in Scotland which made use of coke was built in 1759 near Falkirk. This new development in the production of iron in the complex made Bonawe less profitable. In the nineteenth century, production fell sharply and the complex was closed in 1876.
The remains of Bonawe Iron Furnace are currently managed by Historic Scotland.
The part of the complex that was needed for the production of the pig iron consisted of four separate buildings. Two of these buildings were used for the storage of charcoal, one for the storage of iron ore, and one for the housing of the actual smelting furnace. In addition to these four buildings that had a central role, there were other buildings that were associated with the complex, such as buildings for the accommodation of workers, a home for the local representative of the Newland Company, and an aqueduct. There was also a pier for the supply of raw materials and shipping of finished product.[ citation needed ]
There were two buildings for the storage of charcoal, but they also contained room for the storage of other products. The bark of felled trees was sold in turn to tanneries. The storehouses were dug into a bank, so that material could be brought in at the back of the building, at the top of the slope, and removed at a lower level at the front. The total storage capacity of these two buildings together was more than 2500 cubic meters.[ citation needed ]
This building was built on a slope to facilitate loading and unloading of materials. In the building were hematite and other minerals, including limestone. All of these minerals were needed in the preparation of pig iron.
The blast furnace was central to the function of the entire complex. The raw materials were placed in the oven from the southern wing of the building, known as the charging house. North of the smelter was the blowing house which, equipped with bellows, continuously supplied air to the furnace. On the eastern exterior wall of the house was a water wheel which kept the bellows in constant motion. The water for the wheel was brought from the river Awe via an aqueduct. On the west side of the furnace was the casting house where the molten iron was poured into moulds to form pig iron bars. The slag, a by-product, was taken outside.
Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate product of the iron industry in the production of steel which is obtained by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a very high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with silica and other constituents of dross, which makes it very brittle and not useful directly as a material except for limited applications.
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content in contrast to that of cast iron. It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions, which gives it a "grain" resembling wood that is visible when it is etched, rusted, or bent to the point of failure. Wrought iron is tough, malleable, ductile, corrosion resistant, and easily forge welded, but is more difficult to weld electrically.
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. Blast refers to the combustion air being "forced" or supplied above atmospheric pressure.
The Wealden iron industry was located in the Weald of south-eastern England. It was formerly an important industry, producing a large proportion of the bar iron made in England in the 16th century and most British cannon until about 1770. Ironmaking in the Weald used ironstone from various clay beds, and was fuelled by charcoal made from trees in the heavily wooded landscape. The industry in the Weald declined when ironmaking began to be fuelled by coke made from coal, which does not occur accessibly in the area.
A bloomery is a type of metallurgical furnace once used widely for smelting iron from its oxides. The bloomery was the earliest form of smelter capable of smelting iron. Bloomeries produce a porous mass of iron and slag called a bloom. The mix of slag and iron in the bloom, termed sponge iron, is usually consolidated and further forged into wrought iron. Blast furnaces, which produce pig iron, have largely superseded bloomeries.
Abraham Darby, in his later life called Abraham Darby the Elder, now sometimes known for convenience as Abraham Darby I, was the first and best known of several men of that name. Born into an English Quaker family that played an important role in the Industrial Revolution, Darby developed a method of producing pig iron in a blast furnace fuelled by coke rather than charcoal. This was a major step forward in the production of iron as a raw material for the Industrial Revolution.
Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site in southeastern Berks County, near Elverson, Pennsylvania, is an example of an American 19th century rural "iron plantation," whose operations were based around a charcoal-fired cold-blast iron blast furnace. The significant restored structures include the furnace group (blast furnace, water wheel, blast machinery, cast house and charcoal house), as well as the ironmaster's house, a company store, the blacksmith's shop, a barn and several worker's houses.
Iron plantations were rural localities emergent in the late-18th century and predominant in the early-19th century that specialized in the production of pig iron and bar iron from crude iron ore. Such plantations derive their name from two sources: first, because they were nearly self-sufficient communities despite an almost singular focus on the production of iron to be sold on the market, and second, because of the large swaths of forest and land necessary to provide charcoal fuel and ore for their operations. The first plantations stretched across the Northeast, Midwest, and Southern United States, “the chief charcoal iron producing states [being] Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Virginia, Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky." Many produced raw materials used in the American Revolution or to be exported to England. Throughout the remainder of the 19th century, however, only locations that adopted new technologies first introduced by competing coal- and coke-powered smelters in the rapidly industrializing field persisted.
Bonawe is a village in Ardchattan Parish Argyll and Bute, Scotland opposite Taynuilt on the north shore of Loch Etive, most famous for the shipping firm J & A Gardener's Bonawe Quarry - now owned by Breedon Aggregates Scotland Ltd. Bonawe is primarily a linear settlement along on the B845 road and the coast. The iron furnace is at Bonawe in Glenorchy & Inishail Parish across Loch Etive nr Taynuilt in Muckairn Parish.
Taynuilt is a large village in Argyll and Bute, Scotland located at the western entrance to the narrow Pass of Brander.
A blowing house or blowing mill was a building used for smelting tin in Cornwall and on Dartmoor in Devon, in South West England. Blowing houses contained a furnace and a pair of bellows that were powered by an adjacent water wheel, and they were in use from the early 14th century until they were gradually replaced by reverberatory furnaces in the 18th century. The remains of over 40 blowing houses have been identified on Dartmoor.
Ferrous metallurgy, the metallurgy of iron and its alloys, began in prehistory. The earliest surviving iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made from meteoritic iron-nickel. It is not known when or where the smelting of iron from ores began, but by the end of the 2nd millennium BC iron was being produced from iron ores from at least Greece to India, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The use of wrought iron was known by the 1st millennium BC, and its spread defined the Iron Age. During the medieval period, smiths in Europe found a way of producing wrought iron from cast iron using finery forges. All these processes required charcoal as fuel.
In metallurgy, refining consists of purifying an impure metal. It is to be distinguished from other processes such as smelting and calcining in that those two involve a chemical change to the raw material, whereas in refining, the final material is usually identical chemically to the original one, only it is purer. The processes used are of many types, including pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical techniques.
Cornwall Iron Furnace is a designated National Historic Landmark that is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in Cornwall, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The furnace was a leading Pennsylvania iron producer from 1742 until it was shut down in 1883. The furnaces, support buildings and surrounding community have been preserved as a historical site and museum, providing a glimpse into Lebanon County's industrial past. The site is the only intact charcoal-burning iron blast furnace in its original plantation in the western hemisphere. Established by Peter Grubb in 1742, Cornwall Furnace was operated during the Revolution by his sons Curtis and Peter Jr. who were major arms providers to George Washington. Robert Coleman acquired Cornwall Furnace after the Revolution and became Pennsylvania's first millionaire. Ownership of the furnace and its surroundings was transferred to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1932.
The firm of Harrison Ainslie & Co. was a British firm of ironmasters and iron ore merchants, selling high quality haematite from their mines on Lindal Moor to smelters in Glasgow, Scotland, South Wales and the Midlands. From a 21st-century perspective, they are more interesting as the last operators of charcoal-fired blast furnaces in Great Britain. Their furnaces were stone-built, water-powered, and much smaller than the coke-fired furnaces of the same era.
The Lancashire hearth was used to fine pig iron, removing carbon to produce wrought iron.
The US iron and steel industry has paralleled the industry in other countries in technological developments. In the 1800s, the US switched from charcoal to coke in ore smelting, adopted the Bessemer process, and saw the rise of very large integrated steel mills. In the 20th century, the US industry successively adopted the open hearth furnace, then the basic oxygen steelmaking process. Since the American industry peaked in the 1940s and 1950s, the US industry has shifted to small mini-mills and specialty mills, using iron and steel scrap as feedstock, rather than iron ore.
The Yokodaidō Steel Production Site is an archaeological site in the city of Minamisōma, Fukushima Prefecture, in the southern Tōhoku region of northern Japan containing the ruins of a large-scale a late-Nara period to early Heian period bloomery (ironworks). The site was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 2011 by the Japanese government.
Lal Lal Iron Mine and Smelting Works were located close to the western branch of the Moorabool River, near the town of Lal Lal, Victoria, Australia, which lies on the Geelong-Ballarat railway line about 19 km from Ballarat. From 1875 to 1884, pig iron was made there in a blast furnace using iron ore mined at the site, locally produced charcoal, and limestone from a nearby deposit. The works ultimately proved to be uneconomic. It remains the only attempt to establish an iron smelting industry in Victoria.
The Wundowie charcoal iron and wood distillation plant manufactured pig iron between 1948 and 1981 and wood distillation products between 1950 and 1977, at Wundowie, Western Australia.