Why does iron ore weight more than the ingot?

[❤Spyti❤]

I'm not some metal expert, but arent we removing all the trash when we melt the ores? Checked with copper and ores weight more than the ingots, as it should be...
Just something that I noticed yesterday when melting iron, what do you think?

[blprice61]

Trapped air bubbles. That's why it takes 200 of them to make anything.

[knighttemplar1960]

Iron ore and iron scrap both weigh 10. An iron ingot weighs 12. Copper ore weighs 10 and a cooper ingot weighs 12.

The real question you should be asking is why does a bronze ingot weigh 12 when its made of 2 copper ingots that weigh 12 each and 1 tin ingot that weighs 8.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Iron ore and iron scrap both weigh 10. An iron ingot weighs 12. Copper ore weighs 10 and a cooper ingot weighs 12.

The real question you should be asking is why does a bronze ingot weigh 12 when its made of 2 copper ingots that weigh 12 each and 1 tin ingot that weighs 8.

Air bubbles are heavy.

[Senitia]

Iron Ore should actually weigh more than the iron ingot that you melt out of it that is unless you actually use 2x iron ore to smelt 1 ingot. What do you think happens to the mass that the other trash 'added' to the ore? Does it magically become it's own weight in iron or does the game just 'silently' discard it?

[❤Spyti❤]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Iron ore and iron scrap both weigh 10. An iron ingot weighs 12. Copper ore weighs 10 and a cooper ingot weighs 12.

The real question you should be asking is why does a bronze ingot weigh 12 when its made of 2 copper ingots that weigh 12 each and 1 tin ingot that weighs 8.

Wait a second! Thats also true! My brain is not bnraining right now ...

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Senitia:

Iron Ore should actually weigh more than the iron ingot that you melt out of it that is unless you actually use 2x iron ore to smelt 1 ingot. What do you think happens to the mass that the other trash 'added' to the ore? Does it magically become it's own weight in iron or does the game just 'silently' discard it?

Depends on the starting composition of the ore and the final product. The purest iron ore deposits are ~60% iron. The iron ore used in the Viking age was likely more in the range of 30% or less iron or even lower from coluvial iron ore deposits filtered as iron and silica sand in a river that you panned for much like you panned for gold.

It also depends on what impurities are in the ore and the compound the ore is. Silica (stone) is lighter than iron that usually one of the main impurities. Iron ore can be one of several types of compound Fe2O3, FeO, Fe3O4, FeHO2, FeS2 etc.

The end product of low heat iron smelting are split into 3 grades. All finished pig iron is at least 92% iron. Basic pig iron is 3.5-4.5% carbon and 1.25% silicon or lower. it can also have as much as 1% manganese. Foundry pig iron is 3.5-4.1% carbon and 2.5-3.5% silicon. High purity pig iron is 3.7-4.7% carbon and 0.05 -1.5% silicon.

Steel is made by heating pig iron to even higher temperatures and then quenching the product. Steel (except alloys like stainless steel) is 99% iron. The more carbon in the final product the more flexible and less brittle it is. High tensile steel is about 0.6-0.8% carbon that is what would have been ideal for weapons. High ductile steel is 1.0% carbon. Mild steel, which is used for things like rebar, is 0.15-0.25% carbon.

Tldr retired engineer speak. - The impurities (provided they are not concentrated in one specific spot) in steel and iron products are what makes the end product flexible (malleable). 92% Fe for iron and 99% Fe for steel. Air bubbles are a defect known as a porosity which can lead to metal fatigue and cracking.

[Crimson]

Its a video game. It surprises me how many people say its not realistic or whatever but have no issue with you taking a tree and instantly turning it into a roofing piece or wall in half a second.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Crimson:

Its a video game. It surprises me how many people say its not realistic or whatever but have no issue with you taking a tree and instantly turning it into a roofing piece or wall in half a second.

A Valheim day is 30 minutes long. A person could make an early shelter (like the pioneers did) by cutting down and notching similar sized logs and using clay to plug the gaps. Thatch and wattle and daub for a roof if you don't have access to metal nails. Still standing dead trees can be cut down, chopped into usable sized chunks, and split down the grain to be used as shingles. With more time you could make a kiln and make bricks for walls and curved tiles (like in some Mexican villas) for a roof.

[M'Hael]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Iron ore and iron scrap both weigh 10. An iron ingot weighs 12. Copper ore weighs 10 and a cooper ingot weighs 12.

The real question you should be asking is why does a bronze ingot weigh 12 when its made of 2 copper ingots that weigh 12 each and 1 tin ingot that weighs 8.

The real real question is why do we only get 1 ingot of bronze for 2 ingots of copper and 1 ingot of tin? Bronze is roughly 80% copper 20% tin, we should be getting 3 ingots for 3 ingots

[2ooth]

If you want a real world answer, the impurities in the iron weigh less than the iron itself. So the end product is more dense. Now the real question is why does it only take 1 iron ore to make 1 iron ingot... not that I'm complaining.

[tyrael]

Originally posted by Crimson:

Its a video game. It surprises me how many people say its not realistic or whatever but have no issue with you taking a tree and instantly turning it into a roofing piece or wall in half a second.

Comes down to imagination. You can fill certain logical inconsitencies with imagination, others you cant, or some cant. You can imagine the building process being skipped as a form of QoL white it's hard to justify mass just vanishing.

Also it's a matter of certain "laws" that established in the game and adhering to them. Inconsitencies bother people. For example i can accept wild rules of a world but if things are not even hinted at i default to what i am familiar with - real world.

Another thing. Players tend to fall into 2 groups generally: more gameplay driven and more plot (story) driven. If you are the 1st one, which i think you are, you dont read lore, you dont read flavor text, all you want is the interactive element and you pay attention to what is happening a lot more as to why or how.
If you're in the other group you play more for the story. That would be me. Obviously it's not strictly binary but imo one trait is generally a lot more dominant. For example i really enjoyed discovering all the runestones with lore on them or reading a boss/fish trophy talk but i find combat kinda so-so, mediocre tbh.
seeing the same old argument of "it's a video game" is ignorant at best imo. You shouldnt be dismissed for, i assume, being all about gameplay nor should others be looked down upon just cos they do care for logic and consistency and cos they like the fantasy of it all.
I honestly hope this helps you understand. Peace.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by M'Hael:

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Iron ore and iron scrap both weigh 10. An iron ingot weighs 12. Copper ore weighs 10 and a cooper ingot weighs 12.

The real question you should be asking is why does a bronze ingot weigh 12 when its made of 2 copper ingots that weigh 12 each and 1 tin ingot that weighs 8.

The real real question is why do we only get 1 ingot of bronze for 2 ingots of copper and 1 ingot of tin? Bronze is roughly 80% copper 20% tin, we should be getting 3 ingots for 3 ingots

Indeed. That and bronze isn't cold forged at an anvil. The billets are smelted together as an alloy. In the early bronze age the recipe was a mixture of 80% copper, 12% tin, 6% lead and 2% arsenic. Copper was plentiful all through the Med but there were only a couple of low quality tin mines. The vast majority of the tin used during the Roman bronze age came from Cornwall in the British islands. Its was (and still is) very high in quality. The Romans conquered southern Britain just to take control of the tin supply and at one point tin was more valuable than gold.

The Inca and Aztec smelted gold and silver but lacked copper. The people in the north east smelted poor quality copper in smudge pots to make jewelry. The people in the Wisconsin area had very pure copper weapons and tools but the people in the Americas never entered the bronze age. Even though the largest copper deposit in the world is near Salt Lake City, Utah the only source of tin in the Americas is in Alaska and there weren't enough deciduous trees for the indigenous people to learn how to smelt it. Nor was there a trade network that could move the tin to the copper or vice versa.

[TheBoot]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Iron ore and iron scrap both weigh 10. An iron ingot weighs 12. Copper ore weighs 10 and a cooper ingot weighs 12.

The real question you should be asking is why does a bronze ingot weigh 12 when its made of 2 copper ingots that weigh 12 each and 1 tin ingot that weighs 8.

No, the real question you should be asking is why does it take THREE ingots to make only ONE. At the very least it should be 3:2.

[Cooperal]

Originally posted by 2ooth!:

If you want a real world answer, the impurities in the iron weigh less than the iron itself. So the end product is more dense. Now the real question is why does it only take 1 iron ore to make 1 iron ingot... not that I'm complaining.

Density is one thing. But their is enough iron per 1 unit of iron ore to make 1 ingot. What they are asking is why an iron ingot weighs 20% more than the very same unit of iron when it was in its impure form?

The question gets even more confusing with scrap, when scrap iron would imply that the iron that is being fed into the smelter has already undergone whatever composition changes might occur during the smelting process in the past. I am no blacksmith but if it is already scrap, isn't the smelting process effectively just cleaning and reshaping some already smelted iron?

[tyrael]

Originally posted by Cooperal:

Originally posted by 2ooth!:

If you want a real world answer, the impurities in the iron weigh less than the iron itself. So the end product is more dense. Now the real question is why does it only take 1 iron ore to make 1 iron ingot... not that I'm complaining.

Density is one thing. But their is enough iron per 1 unit of iron ore to make 1 ingot. What they are asking is why an iron ingot weighs 20% more than the very same unit of iron when it was in its impure form?

The question gets even more confusing with scrap, when scrap iron would imply that the iron that is being fed into the smelter has already undergone whatever composition changes might occur during the smelting process in the past. I am no blacksmith but if it is already scrap, isn't the smelting process effectively just cleaning and reshaping some already smelted iron?

Um not exactly. smelting is an extraction method from ore. One logical issue there might is that to refine iron ores in a primitive setting you need around 300°C lower temperature than to melt actual metallic iron. That difference for a primitive technology might be a huge issue or an impossibility. I dont know exactly what is the uppermost limit for a primitive furnace. To reshape an existing metallic iron piece you dont smelt it you either melt it or heat it up to plasticity and forge it.
if your scrap is basically all rust and little to no metallic iron you'd probably call it smelting.

scrap iron (steel) is not all made equal, they have varing chemical compositions (some have more carbon, come have quite a lot of Ni, Cr and so on). so there is also the question of uniforming this composition to adhere to norms, removing what we consider impurities (elements which in excess are very detrimental to mechanical properties in a finished product, such as S, P, Cu etc) or sometimes adding a much purer iron source to effectively dilute impuries to concentration levels that are allowed. In reality you use electric arc furnaces to apply such a current that whatever metallic iron (not oxides, they are too inconductive) is left melts due to electric resistance.