Michael Nissen of the Ribe Viking Centre worked with an 'Espevej' type furnace. This is a short shaft, 'slag room', set up with a front plate.

The first working day had light rain for a good part of it. Anyone involved in furnace construction pretty much got covered in clay.

I started working with Arne Espelund on a first test of a new theoretical version of the historic iron smelting process. This involved linking two individual furnace runs.

An older furnace constructed by host Jens Olesen was set up for the first part of the process.

The Tranamo Group from Sweden showed their experience with public demonstration smelts. They were highly organized, and prepared and smelted almost every day of the symposium.

The ore they brought from Sweden was a rich powdery yellow ochre that consistently gave good blooms.

The Esplund experiment undertook the first firing stage. The intent was to produce a quantity of high iron content slag, but not any actual iron. The furnace was ran extra rich (more ore than fuel).

Arne would extract samples for latter testing after the furnace cooled.

The day started pretty foul, with wind and rain. We spent the morning visiting a nearby archaeological excavation. The site was an Iron Age house complex (one of the most complex structures found to date). Related to the occupation was a burial mound, it is hoped with an untouched grave chamber (still to be opened).

Jan Jennisen constructing his short shaft, slag pit furnace. Jan was by far the most careful of all in the construction of his furnace. The result was certainly the most beautiful structure seen. The type is one found in the Netherlands, and he also brought his normal local source ore.

After Michael Nissen's second firing of his furnace, he discusses the results with Robin Davies (Tranamo) and archaeologist Martin Olesen.

Michael had both times gotten a crumbly high carbon bloom. He was a bit surprised at the result, and not certain why.

The second step of the Espelund experiment was undertaken. This firing used the broken slag as the charge with the hope of producing a bloom. In the end only a few small pieces of iron were created. As Arne said 'Even an negative result is valuable experimental data'.

Ole and his team fired their completed furnace. Although a large slag mass was created, little iron was produced on this first attempt.

After supper, we piled into cars and got a tour of the nearby North Sea shore with Heltborg Museum Curator Jette Neilsen. On the far point can be seen the 'Black Man' geographical feature. A nice break to clear our heads for Saturday

There were a total of three wood fired smelters in operation. This process involves first the conversion of the wood into charcoal - resulting in much smoke at the initial phase. Jens' furnace in the foreground, with Jake's seen dimly in the left rear.

Jan opening his smelter at the end of the day. Although not as successful in terms of bloom, the slag pit proved very interesting. The liquid slag had encased the carefully packed straw in the lower bowl. The effect was exactly like the archaeological remains Peter Mikkelsen had lectured on earlier in the week.

After my description of Skip Williams' Aristotle Furnace, our youngest participant Pelle (with help from his mom) built a version. MIchael Nissen and Robin were quite taken with the simple process and spent several hours operating it.

Although Jake and Michael had started their furnace early Saturday morning, it continued working well into the late night hours. Sunday afternoon they decided to kill the reaction - after some 300 kg of ore had been added. In the image, water is being directed down inside the furnace to cool it off. The process of dismantling the furnace extended well into the evening of this second day.

I had set up on Saturday, and on Sunday ran a smelt using the sequence normal to the North American experimenters. (Higher air and consumption rates). The ore was a blend of the Guldage, Heltborg and Tranemo types. The result was about 1.8 KG of spongy iron buried in the slag block.