Iron Production in Ming China

Scott M. Rodell · Post by **Scott M. Rodell** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 8:19 am

Found this very interesting site:

Iron Production in three Ming Texts:
Tie ye zhi, Guangdong xinyu, and Tian gong kai wu
http://www.staff.hum.ku.dk/dbwagner/MingFe/MingFe.html

josh stout · Post by **josh stout** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:58 pm

Thank you for that paper. One thing I see as a long-term goal for those who are interested in Chinese swords is to develop reliable dates. I recently read about carbon dating techniques for steel that included the possibility of scraping a few mg or even less of iron oxide off a sword.

(http://radiocarbon.library.arizona.edu/ ... cation/pdf)

One of the key caveats is that the sword must be made from charcoal not coal. Finding that coal could not be used to make quality swords because of the high sulfur content, makes this technique much more plausible.
Josh

Kenneth, H. · Post by **Kenneth, H.** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 4:36 pm

Mr. Zhou has been talking about starting to make iron the traditional way in 2007. I am heading back to Long Quan next month, and I could take this up with Mr. Zhou.

When he has got his melting furnace all set up; I could provide some pictures and additional information on how 'we' do it, and compare with whatever historical material that may have showed up in this thread by that time....

Best regards, Kenneth A.H.