How to smelt?

[Sheeba789 0]

I have watched tons of videos but with the new 0.78.17 update, no video can show me how to properly smelt any metals. Please help!

[Kittychanley 1,002]

http://wiki.terrafirmacraft.com/Metalworking_Industry

[AllenWL 186]

bloomery for iron, clay vessels for everything else

[Secretpro 0]

bloomery for iron, clay vessels for everything else

Blast Furnace for steel too, and you could use a Crucible instead of Clay Vessels

[munin295 18]

… you could use a Crucible instead of Clay Vessels …

 

I've been thinking about this. A pit kiln can fire 4 clay vessels which can each contain up to 64 ore which each might have 35 units of metal. That's up to 8,960 metal for 89 ingots in a single pit kiln, but averaging 6,400 metal for 64 ingots. It takes 8 in-game hours (6m40s), but it uses only 8 straw and 8 logs and it's light and forget. The ceramic vessels will keep the fired metal liquid for, what, 12 in-game hours? So you should have time to cast all those ingots/tools/whatever, even if you're welding too.

 

With a crucible, you have to feed each ore in individually (we were just talking about 256 ores) and each one takes a few seconds to melt, as well as keep the forge supplied with coal or charcoal (which means switching back and forth between interfaces).

 

It seems like the pit kiln might be better for large batches, while the crucible is faster for small batches (as well as for alloys requiring higher temperatures), which wasn't my first intuition.

[theubie 19]

The upside of the crucible is that you can pour and work ingots directly while waiting for it to heat again to melting/pouring point.  It can be a more streamlined process if you work it right.  Also by the time you get to a crucible you mostly are working alloys, so it's way more useful in that mode.