Practicum #1- Production Processes.docx
Entry about Week #3 Practicum:
I greatly enjoyed the in-class week #3 practicum. In the practicum we used computer-based research to determine where in the Tupper Lake region to place a small bloomery operation. We looked the geological surveys, topographical maps, satellite imagery, and historical documentation to learn more about the region, were to put our bloomery furnace, how we were going to extract resources, and how we were going to transport resources. This exercise helped expose the complexity involved in choosing a location for a bloomery and forced us to consider the multitude variables involved for a successful smelt. Our group choose to place our bloomery far from the town were our product could be sold mainly because of the superior resources we found up river but also, based on the clustering of other groups bloomery furnaces, because this would also help to keep us at a distance from competition giving us proprietary accesses and greater control to our raw materials. This location also has two large iron and timber filled mountains with a valley and river in-between, which could provide waterpower as well as access to Tupper Lake where our raw iron would be sold. With these resources at our disposal and the proper utilization of the landscape we think we would be able to set up a successful bloomery operation in this location.
