Oh Edward. Can It be true? That I hold here, in my mortal hands; a nugget of purest green
-Lord Percy
Recently, after sorting through boxes of stuff that hadn’t seen the light of day for years, I came across a very heavy one containing a load of green rocks - copper ore. I had gathered them over the previous years during travels to various old mines in South West Ireland; with the aim of smelting them.
Now, according to those out in the webaverse the smelting of copper is as basic as you can get. Copper Ore, Charcoal, a hole in the ground. Set it on fire and blow air through with some bellows to get it to 1500c. No reason not to give it a go!
I intend to separate the ore that I have and then test to find the richest type. I started looking at a few videos on Youtube and came across one particular method for smelting small amounts of ore using small clay cylinders made from unfired clay. Making copper the ancient way. Its perfect for what I want to do.