Bronze Casting - Butser Ancient Farm

We started with a hands-on demonstration of copper smelting, using crushed Malachite to produce a small amount of copper. Each of us taking a turn at powering the hand bellows so that the furnace could reach its working temperature. As the copper smelted from the ore – the flame of the fire turned green.

The ore naturally pooled to a ball in the crucible and was subsequently quenched and given a quick polish.

On completing our own individual cast moulds, we added a mixture of 90% copper and 10% tin to the crucible and worked the bellows to produce molten bronze. Filling our cast with the molten metal, the copper token was then extracted and quenched.

We used the short amount of time at the end of the day cleaning up our pieces. They will need further finishing - a task perhaps for a long winter's evening.