Here it is!

truckinbutch said:
Ki ,
I'm in confusion here . My impression has been that Swift's and Sol Mullen's coins were die struck , not cast .
Casting ingots of molton metal into any container with outward sloping sides does not require destroying the mold to recover the metal once it has cooled . Then you take the ingot and do what you will with it .
Click to expand...

Ok i was meaning castings pigs and igots from the ore, then from that point coining........hope this helps, didn't mean to confuse
 

-Ki- said:
truckinbutch said:
Ki ,
I'm in confusion here . My impression has been that Swift's and Sol Mullen's coins were die struck , not cast .
Casting ingots of molton metal into any container with outward sloping sides does not require destroying the mold to recover the metal once it has cooled . Then you take the ingot and do what you will with it .
Click to expand...

Ok i was meaning castings pigs and igots from the ore, then from that point coining........hope this helps, didn't mean to confuse
Click to expand...
:icon_thumright: ;D
 

swiftsearcher said:
Ki, I am well aware of the "Honey Holes" you are referring to. This was different. The set-up in the rockhouse was so that a large rock had this one hole in it, with a larger rock above it, so something could have been poured into it. Plus, my "contact" found silver here years ago. Too bad he sifted the entire rockhouse and didn't leave any "evidence" for me to find however!
Click to expand...
Truckinbutch this is what we were discussing.......SS mentions a hole in a rock ...... and the debate went on from there........ I don't know if SS was talking about pouring the molten metal in the hole strait from the furnace or not.......I was just describing the basic operation of a smelter.....

(Swiftsearchers book) I haven't heard any up dates on the book as of yet........ I would very much like to read it as well, seems i have read every book wrote on swift, and even read all of the internet story's too, Ive run out of things to read and swiftsearchers book sound s like it would be a great read as well........ I am also waiting........
 

What we must remember is that Swift had TWO furnaces and furnace rockhouses. The big one, where the coins were minted was three miles away. This is the one near the Buffalo and Table Top Rocks, which is closer to the Rich Mine. From my research, I believe Montgomery worked his magic (making coins) at the one three miles away and the closer one was used to make pigs.

When I have time, I will go through my pics and post a pic of this rock in this furnace rockhouse with the mystery "hole" in it and get everyone's thoughts. I know for a FACT that silver was found in this rockhouse. However, I don't know for certain that this "hole" might have been used for the pigs. It will be nice to get opinions on it. :thumbsup:

As for the book, I am not even thinking about it now, as I still have the "vault" to take care of and some more work at the Rich Mine. Plus, I have to eventually look for the Indian Cave (Swift's storehouse) as well, if it was not transferred to the "vault" by Sue Mundy and Q.
 

Truckinbutch, we're "on the same page". Making ingots is done with molten metal, making coins is done with cold metal.
Years ago, I worked in a factory making engine bearings. These aren't ball shaped ball bearings, but rod and main bearings in a semi-circle. One of the machines I operated was called a "coining press" and it die struck (just as you said) stock metal, and coins are now made in the same way, in a huge press.
I wish I could find an image online of the process of making coins back in Swift's day. It was a similar process, as you know, except it was done by hand. Mike Steely's book might have images of this process, but I can't remember. For those who saren't familiar, you have two dies, one engraved with a reverse image of the face of the coin and the other with the reverse. The metal is placed in between and the dies are struck with a sledge hammer. That's overly simplified, but the point is coins weren't poured into molds.
Ingots were though, and you said you had poured metal into rock molds with no problems. Can I ask why you didn't use sand?
 

Sure you can ask . I had about a half ton of tire weights to reduce to manageable dimensions and abundant sandstone on hand . No casting sand and no need for precision . Short time with an air chisel produced self releasing molds in sandstone that could be used over and over again to make pigs . Also used some beer cans , of which I had an abundance , that worked quite well .
In answer to the unasked question about soft pine : I made a flywheel/crank arm for a 100#power forging hammer with the crank arm attached to the outer rim of a 20"dia x 1 1/4" steel disc . Bandsawed a mold of soft pine to fit the curve of the rim , poured it full of molton lead . Once cooled ,
I bolted the rough casting to the rim and by trial and error trimming balanced the wheel to run like a sewing machine from 0 to 1200 rpm .
Jim
 

That's very interesting! I am surprised there was no sticking especially with a surface like sandstone. You must be a Dave Gingery fan...
 

vamelungeon said:
That's very interesting! I am surprised there was no sticking especially with a surface like sandstone. You must be a Dave Gingery fan...
Click to expand...
Just a igorant country boy that follows his finger to read the Machineries Guide from time to time .
You can get a glimpse of part of my shop on Timberwolf's page under wolfpack mugshots .
Jim
 

swiftsearcher said:
What we must remember is that Swift had TWO furnaces and furnace rockhouses. The big one, where the coins were minted was three miles away. This is the one near the Buffalo and Table Top Rocks, which is closer to the Rich Mine. From my research, I believe Montgomery worked his magic (making coins) at the one three miles away and the closer one was used to make pigs.

When I have time, I will go through my pics and post a pic of this rock in this furnace rockhouse with the mystery "hole" in it and get everyone's thoughts. I know for a FACT that silver was found in this rockhouse. However, I don't know for certain that this "hole" might have been used for the pigs. It will be nice to get opinions on it. :thumbsup:

As for the book, I am not even thinking about it now, as I still have the "vault" to take care of and some more work at the Rich Mine. Plus, I have to eventually look for the Indian Cave (Swift's storehouse) as well, if it was not transferred to the "vault" by Sue Mundy and Q.
Click to expand...

Again both furnaces used for the same purpose, removing silver from ore.......they would have coined the silver around their open campfires, the campfires would not only give them light but could reheat and soften the silver bars and ingots if needed for their dies.....would take alot of work carrying ore over three miles, or even a mile to the furnace, all of that ore would of been heavy, and with the mines being connected to the furnaces a trail would have been cut after so much use.

Now comes the question... How big did Swift build his furnaces? I myself believe they built the furnaces almost head high, would be about right for the amount of ore Swift supposedly smelted, any bigger, and the ore would get harder to load in the top of the furnace as well as the wood, also take in to account they were weary of the Indians, the larger the furnace the louder the roar...The furnace i pictured above could be heard for miles.....

SS....a picture might help us understand what your meaning about the rock..........
 

what I'm wondering is how they removed the impurities out of the silver just after the smelting process, their would be "ash" and other trace elements........I'm thinking they made the igots just small enough to carry, and just big enough for each to be coined... they cast the bars to store and use later........ 8)
 

swiftsearcher said:
What we must remember is that Swift had TWO furnaces and furnace rockhouses. The big one, where the coins were minted was three miles away. This is the one near the Buffalo and Table Top Rocks, which is closer to the Rich Mine. From my research, I believe Montgomery worked his magic (making coins) at the one three miles away and the closer one was used to make pigs.

When I have time, I will go through my pics and post a pic of this rock in this furnace rockhouse with the mystery "hole" in it and get everyone's thoughts. I know for a FACT that silver was found in this rockhouse. However, I don't know for certain that this "hole" might have been used for the pigs. It will be nice to get opinions on it. :thumbsup:

As for the book, I am not even thinking about it now, as I still have the "vault" to take care of and some more work at the Rich Mine. Plus, I have to eventually look for the Indian Cave (Swift's storehouse) as well, if it was not transferred to the "vault" by Sue Mundy and Q.
Click to expand...

I'm in no way trying to dispute you, but you call it the "furnace rockhouse" ....if their was a furnace of any size in that rock house their would be a slag pile very close, with any furnace you'll have waste, which has to be removed or you'll freeze up the furnace.....If the furnace has been removed from the rock house finding the slag (waste) pile would be the only way of proving its in fact the furnace rock house swift spoke about..... a metal detector will not pick up slag, its glass form........and if swift and crew smelted as much silver as they say, their would be a good size pile of slag located very close.....The slag is the key to Swifts furnace rockhouse i would think, funny you never mentioned it.....
 

Melting out or what was called separating. In Kentucky in the old days, the Indian could melt lead out in a camp fire because of the low melting point. A lot of the minerals mined and worked in this area were in iron ore. The lowest melting point working up to the highest. the miner had to do this in stages. It took a lot of charcoal for this process. They would dump the ore and then regulate the heat, so it would melt out the metal that had the lowest melting point. then after this was done, they would make a hotter fire for the next metal and keep building the fire hotter and hotter till they had melted out most of the ore. they would fix up sand moulds and would use iron pots to catch the run off and then pour the hot metal in to the moulds to cool. They had to regulate the heat because if the fire was to hot they could burn up the metal and lose it. There was a lot of slag, 10 years of mining and don't forget the furnace, just like we use fire brick to line a furnace, it will only stand so much cooking before you have to replace the furnace or the brick. First we have a lot of iron pots, broken tools, slag, a lot of used furnace rock and all the extra metal, lead, copper, nickle and iron, where is all that. where???

here is the melting points: Lead 621F, Silver 1762F, Gold 1946F, Nickle 2646F and Iron 2786F and that's the reason iron pots were used. it was a long process.
 

-Ki- said:
swiftsearcher said:
What we must remember is that Swift had TWO furnaces and furnace rockhouses. The big one, where the coins were minted was three miles away. This is the one near the Buffalo and Table Top Rocks, which is closer to the Rich Mine. From my research, I believe Montgomery worked his magic (making coins) at the one three miles away and the closer one was used to make pigs.

When I have time, I will go through my pics and post a pic of this rock in this furnace rockhouse with the mystery "hole" in it and get everyone's thoughts. I know for a FACT that silver was found in this rockhouse. However, I don't know for certain that this "hole" might have been used for the pigs. It will be nice to get opinions on it. :thumbsup:

As for the book, I am not even thinking about it now, as I still have the "vault" to take care of and some more work at the Rich Mine. Plus, I have to eventually look for the Indian Cave (Swift's storehouse) as well, if it was not transferred to the "vault" by Sue Mundy and Q.
Click to expand...

Again both furnaces used for the same purpose, removing silver from ore.......they would have coined the silver around their open campfires, the campfires would not only give them light but could reheat and soften the silver bars and ingots if needed for their dies.....would take alot of work carrying ore over three miles, or even a mile to the furnace, all of that ore would of been heavy, and with the mines being connected to the furnaces a trail would have been cut after so much use.

Now comes the question... How big did Swift build his furnaces? I myself believe they built the furnaces almost head high, would be about right for the amount of ore Swift supposedly smelted, any bigger, and the ore would get harder to load in the top of the furnace as well as the wood, also take in to account they were weary of the Indians, the larger the furnace the louder the roar...The furnace i pictured above could be heard for miles.....

SS....a picture might help us understand what your meaning about the rock..........
Click to expand...

I will get the pic on here when I go through them again.

You mention that the furnace could be heard for miles. THIS, I believe, is why Swift and Co. mostly used the furnace located nearly three miles away from the Rich Mine (and very close to the West Mine), as it was directly beside a large waterfall, which drowned out most of the sound.

As for slag, there is some, not as much as one would expect (still a large amount however), b/c the Silver was suppose to be mostly pure, according to Swift. Also, the big blockade in the way of reaching the pile at the main furnace (as well as the load of silver buried by the waterfall) is that SEVERAL HUGE ROCKS are now there - from the earthquake of 1811/12. One can still get inside the rockhouse however.
 

boomer said:
Melting out or what was called separating. In Kentucky in the old days, the Indian could melt lead out in a camp fire because of the low melting point. A lot of the minerals mined and worked in this area were in iron ore. The lowest melting point working up to the highest. the miner had to do this in stages. It took a lot of charcoal for this process. They would dump the ore and then regulate the heat, so it would melt out the metal that had the lowest melting point. then after this was done, they would make a hotter fire for the next metal and keep building the fire hotter and hotter till they had melted out most of the ore. they would fix up sand moulds and would use iron pots to catch the run off and then pour the hot metal in to the moulds to cool. They had to regulate the heat because if the fire was to hot they could burn up the metal and lose it. There was a lot of slag, 10 years of mining and don't forget the furnace, just like we use fire brick to line a furnace, it will only stand so much cooking before you have to replace the furnace or the brick. First we have a lot of iron pots, broken tools, slag, a lot of used furnace rock and all the extra metal, lead, copper, nickle and iron, where is all that. where???

here is the melting points: Lead 621F, Silver 1762F, Gold 1946F, Nickle 2646F and Iron 2786F and that's the reason iron pots were used. it was a long process.
Click to expand...

In my area, the tools, iron pots, etc. were found! There were at least two people I know of whom also tried to hide evidence (destroying most of the large furnace, taking pots, tools, etc.). One of these persons even helped direct me to the large furnace rockhouse (the one by the waterfall with the large rockhouse 100 yards above it that Swift and Co. lived in). I, in return, had to metal detect and make sure he did not leave behind any silver (that he had found near where the furnaces were) or other metals. I did find his old sifter he used to sift through the rockhouses and slag for silver and other metals. He mostly found spilled silver however, as the silver viens were very pure!
 

Ralph and I have discuss this. We would guess that Swift and Co. only fired up their furnaces at convenient times - when there was no chance of the smoke being seen by Indians (or others, such as Boone, who was following them on some trips). One would assume that the furnaces were working at night and when one could not see very well at night (not during a full moon or other visible times).
 

smoke is not a problem, if you know the type of wood to use for heat transfer to the charcoal. once the charcoal is fully ignited the amount of air flow and flux is whats critical. the more air flow the hotter the charcoal will be. they would run test samples of ore. they would start with a vary low heat and slowly raise the temperature until they started getting metal flow and keep going like that, until they had no more metal flow. a sliding piece of sandstone over the air intake with notches would give them a rough idea where to set the stone for each pour. Flux is vary critical, they probably used crushed limestone. think about this, when a camp fire burns down and you have nothing but embers there is no smoke, but if a wind comes up the embers get brighter and of course hotter.
 

You still need large amounts of timber to produce the charcoal . Large amounts of smoke in the initial stages of charcoal mfg and the raw signs of timbering .
 

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