Main Discussion Area > Flintknapping
Rock ID please!
caveman2533:
are you anywhere near iron or steel industries.
Knotty:
Yes I actually am caveman2533 , there´s a huge Steel Industry named USIMINAS here. Why the question?
Dakota Kid:
I would assume caveman shares my opinion that your rock is slag of some type. Slag is a byproduct of smelting steel or iron. It's what floats to the top after the iron ore becomes molten. Typically it's skimmed off and discarded into the nearest river. Depending on what impurities are present in the ore, slag can range from solid hunks of glass of any color to bubbly hunks of what looks like coal and everything in between. Often there are little balls of steel in the slag and the bubbles usually contain a sulfur gas and stinks like rotten eggs when you break it. You should do some investigating and ask around to see if anyone has found any slag glass. Occasionally you can find some high quality glass in fist sized chunks sometimes larger. That type of slag is comparable to obsidian and is excellent for knapping.
caveman2533:
because it looks not like slag but the furnace lining which is often made of a fire brick material and will fuse together when it is heated to melting temperatures that melt steel. It will be laden with cracks that oxidize and will have thin layers of black oxidation on it, that is the interface surface where molten metal and liner surfaces meet. It looks like the furnace liner, and it is torn out and relined every so often. It is dumped by the truck load where ever they can get away with it. It is furnace liner, not gonna be knappable. The slag itself can be knappable, much more glass like.
Knotty:
Awesome! Thanks for the great explanation, always good to learn something new 😊
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