The CTMIners are going to locate and photo document any blast furnaces! in the tri-state area to go along with the mines we research. I can't say that blast furnaces! are any more exciting than mines even though I cant help but put an exclaimation mark after it every time. They are however, very unique in design and construction as they still serve the same purpose.

This is the place to say and ask anything relating to blast furnaces!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/games/blast/blast.shtml Check this link out it is an animation showing how simple a blast furnace! works. The slag is a tell-tail sign of a blast furnace just like tailings are to a mine but not in such quantity of course. The calcium silicate generated is easy to spot in that it has a marbled glass look and comes in different colors. So far we have seen purples, blues, and greens.

We only know of a few blast furnaces! in CT and NY and we know there are many more.

Just remember that without mines there are no blast furnaces! and vice versa.

Today I had a woman come up to me and said, "hey look at these cool rocks I found with my kids". Sure enough they were chunks of slag. She said she didn't notice a furnace but said it was near bishbash falls, copas falls, and the taconic state parkway in NY (please mind my spelling I am only guessing from what she said).

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If exploring mines is wrong, then baby... I don't want to be right.

Very nice. Hope to visit some of the furnaces in Connecticut soon. You're definitely right, can't have mines without the furnaces. It's too bad there aren't any concerted efforts to preserve not only the furnace but the mine(s) that it served. Appreciating all of this history is spotty if you're not able to see the entire picture.

We will of course be adding furnaces to IronMiners and have a few more surprises up our mine dusted sleeves. But first we will premier a couple new mines to the site. We're very excited to show you what's coming!

Miner Mike

A re-visit to Bulls Bridge which is just south of kent reveiled something we never saw before: a 1/2 ton salamander. Just going off of some pictures form the "historic Iron mines" website http://www.historicironmines.com/ny/has ... clever.htm we noticed that this was indeed a good find. What CTmike and I picture is that there was some type of equiptment failure such as bellows or the steam engine, or there was an extremly cold winter (like what had happened in Roxbury one year). From some unknown event the furnace cooled resulting in the iron and slag to form a solid mass at the bottom of the furnace. This clogged up at least one of the two iron spickets, never being able to be opened again. The workers broke out the spicket from the brick constructed inner wall, which was still attached to a portion of the salamander. It was then just simply rolled down the hill into the river's edge. The remains of the furnace as they stand now have all four spickets intact, so it must had been replaced.

The slamander with spicket is about the size of a big block chevy engine and more than twice its weight. The pipe is 2 inches thick with an inside diameter of 6 inches. Intrestingly, the 2 inch wall is not solid but incompases another 11/2 inch diameter pipe coiled within it. This we guess is for cooling the molten iron just enough so as to not melt the iron pipe.

We had to wade across a fast section of the river to see this and so we didn't bring the camera. We will get a picture to post on the site when we go by it again.

I'm trying to find some information on the site. Kent furnaces and Roxbury furnaces (Shepaug Spathic Iron and Steel Company) are easy to find, but only very small traces of information can be found about the furnace south of Bull's Bridge. It is easily accessable and near a highly frequented area, yet just covered with enough flora to make it unnoticable to most people.

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If exploring mines is wrong, then baby... I don't want to be right.

Yeah, that does sound like a very good find. Would love to see those pictures! The only thing I don't know if they operated that furnace in the winter. Many mines did not operate in the winters in the old days because the canals were frozen and it was also just too cold to chop enough timber to keep the steam engine pumps running to dewater the mines. Equiptment failure, drought, or fuel supply problems would seem most likely to me.

Good questions you brought up, because now I have to find out. I found a few sources but they are all second hand. One source says 5-6 years of contiuous opperation as it talks about early blast furnaces. Another one says 4-10 years for modern furnaces. Another one at this site www.oldindustry.org says an Ohio furnace lasts for 9 months of the year. I believe that the first source is incorrect and got information mixed up with modern furnaces. It seems more realistic that the 9 months is a good comparison. Since there is so much that is needed to opperate a furnace like steady supplies of timber for coke, limestone, and ore, which would have been brought by wagon to "Bull's falls furnace". Like you said, the severe winter months that can happen in CT would have most likely halted opperation. None-the-less they probably worked as long as they could into the winter since whole towns would depend on the income. I don't wan't to rule it out just yet, even though equiptment faliure seems the most likely, but a cold spirt could come early in the year and the workers may not have been able to keep up with it.

It's funny that you mention a canal. Our last visit to bull's bridge we also discovered a canal we have never seen before. It ends right at the covered bridge just before the hydroelectric dam. The CTminers are going to have to walk down the canal edge to see where it goes. It could be one of three things: 1. It has a path along the side which a horse or mule could pull the barge along, so it could be a real canal. 2. It could have been a built up section to run track along. 3. It could have some use for the electic dam for overflow or a diversion away from the natural river.

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If exploring mines is wrong, then baby... I don't want to be right.

Miner Marc,

Let's all plan on visiting the intact furnace sites in the tri-state area together after the leaves have fallen for better photographs. We should probably map them out and determine a few routes to visit a number of them each day.

Overall they are all in different stages of ruin as there is little effort being made to preserve most of them. The Cobb Furnace for example has been in relatively good shape but is now being vandalized due to its proximity to a recently opened park. There is now graffiti on it. The Chester Furnace was taken down many years ago so that the stones could be reused to build a modern home. It goes to show that it doesn't matter how long something has stood in its place, it could be lost tomorrow. This is especially true with the mines.

Miner Mike

Great Idea Mike, perhaps since you would be coming up to CT we could combine it with the New Gate mine tour, even though it is in the middle of the state. we need to plan somthing right away and get reservations.

Like CTmikes "mine binder" I have started a binder relating to all the information I can gather on blast furnaces. That includes pre-blast furnaces, the essential 18th and 19th centuries, and modern blast furnaces.

I've got the blast furnace fever lately and the only perscription is more Iron!

I'm going to do some library visiting for the next week or so and see what I can dig up since my online resources are dieing out fast. There is one book titled "Echoes of Iron," by Ed Kirby, that I have to find somewhere. It has alot of iron history about New England and I believe focuses on CT. On the cover is a picture of a furnace.

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If exploring mines is wrong, then baby... I don't want to be right.

Library update:

There are books in here?!

I found "echos of iron" in my library. When I opened the book I almost fell out of my chair. It is all about CT furnaces. It has pictures of all the furnaces that still stand since 1998. The best part of the day was finding a picture of the Bull's falls furnace Salamander with tuyere (pipe) in it and reading the discription. Part of the book gives exact directions for a road trip from MA down to Kent to visit many of the furnaces. The worst part of the day was finding that the book is in the reference section agh, it's not a friggin encyclopedia.

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If exploring mines is wrong, then baby... I don't want to be right.

Very cool.. I guess the book didn't give you any new clues on the cause of the Salamander? Learn anything good from the book?

All of these books are always in reference, you need to find your own copy of everything to take it home. Some stuff is harder to find than other stuff...

Marc- That might be the book written by the guy that Mr. Cruson knows, he lives in new milford, do you remember the authors name? I think I'm getting blast furnace fever also, how much iron should I take?

For clearification, a tuyere is refering only to the pipe accociated with the forceing of air into a blast furnace or forge. There is some confusion right now because in "echoes of Iron" the salamander at bulls falls is said to have a tuyere encased in it. It has the 1" pipe coiled around it, just the same as both the slag pipes and pipes for the iron pouring have. Is it indeed a tuyere or one of the lower furnace pipes used for pouring? What really needs to be found out to clearify this issue is which pipes need to be cooled or heated.

Pronunciation of tuyere
"Tuy" sounds like the "twee" of tweety bird, the "ere" is like the "are" of care. Or like Twee-air. If you can't it say, try this: put on a beret, have a cigarette dangle from your lip, put on a tight fitting horizontally stripped black and white shirt, have a bottle of wine in your hand, and say "wee wee MONSIEUR" a few times. You'll have it in no time.

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If exploring mines is wrong, then baby... I don't want to be right.

WARNING!

Please note that a recent outbreak of what is informally being called "slag fever" is rapidly sweeping through Connecticut. It is highly contagious and can be caught from people who are suffering from "blast furnace fever". Symptoms include obsessive collecting of shiny slag and a tendency to frequent blast furnaces...

Miner Diana,

I think I too am now suffering from "slag fever". Perhaps it is because I do not have enough iron in my diet or worse, that I have not visited any blast furnaces yet in Connecticut. We should all plan a trip to visit Roxbury Furnace as well as any others in your neck of the woods. It is a matter of health!

Miner Mike

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"If you thought old, abandoned mines were only in the west, then you haven't been to IronMiners.com!"

A co-worker of mine goes to New Hampshire often and discovered this for me: The only standing bast furnace in New Hampshire is in Franconia, it is huge and Octagonal! Too bad it is way too far up to be on our blast furnace trail camping trip we will take in the Spring, unless of course we want to make it a few days.

Check it out:
http://www.allroutes.to/franconia/ironfurnace/
http://www.franconiaheritage.org/

It seems to have the same internal design as bulls bridge furnace has, with an internal passage-way leading all around the hearth.

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If exploring mines is wrong, then baby... I don't want to be right.

Very interesting architecture! I wonder why it is the only surviving blast furnace in New Hampshire. Why are the others gone? Your post is a reminder that we ought to document and research all the blast furnaces in the area. I still enjoyed the look of the Roxbury Furnace in Connecticut very much.

Mike

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"If you thought old, abandoned mines were only in the west, then you haven't been to IronMiners.com!"