I am curious how people smelt iron.
Ok.you need a decent grade iron ore, something with at least 10% iron in it (whatever else its bonded to, usually oxygen, will get freed up in the smelting process). Crush it up so you increase the ratio of surface area to volume-in the old days this means hitting it with other rocks, sledgehammers etc. Nowdays it means a big mill. Cook it it the hottest fire you can get. You need a lot of wood to get the ore hot enough for the iron to melt. Most cultures found that charcoal gives you a lot hotter fire, so its perfect for smelting. To make charcoal, you burn wood in a low oxygen environment. The iron beads up and flows out of the non melting ore. Collect up the beads and you've got iron. Do it again with just the iron and you can make tools. Some great evidence of this process can be found on the ancient coasts of Tuscany (Ancient Etruscan culture). They had hundreds of little pits dug along the beaches, each one a little iron smelter fueld by charcoal. Later, people found mixing some carbon in with the melted iron made it stronger (ie less brittle) This mix of iron and carbon is called steel.
You heat it up the rock melts and floats, the iron melts and sinks then depending you either break the rock away after or have a tube near the bottom from which the iron pours out
