The beginnings of the ironworking in Gorenjska date back to the 14th century, when they began to use a water source to power bellows, and gradually developed a blast furnace. With the immigration of the Italian ironworking masters in the 16th century, Slovene furnaces were replaced by Brescian furnaces, which were larger and more powerful, which led to the flourishing of the ironworks and consequently to greater consumption of ore and coal in Gorenjska and later to used mines and forests. In the 19th century, ironworking in Slovenian area developed also in Slovenian Carinthia and Styria.
In the diploma work we examined 12 semi-finished products from the collection of the National Museum of Slovenia, produced in the 19th century, in ironworks in Gorenjska, where they were involved in the extraction of iron ore and charcoal, smelting of iron ore and processing of pig iron. Six semi-finished products were produced in Dietrich's blacksmith shops in Tržič and its surroundings. Two semi-finished products were produced in the ironworks on the Sava near Jesenice, owned by Ruard. We don’t know the exact origin of the four semi-finished products, but they probably came to the museum in the same time period.
In the diploma work we did metallographic analysis with a light microscope, and made stereo images of samples, in this way we determined the flow of material during transformation. The composition of non-metallic inclusions was determined by scanning electron microscope. The hardness and chemical composition of the investigated samples were determined from the samples, and the quality of the investigated semiproducts was evaluated on the basis of the obtained results.
We found that the semiproducts, according to the technology available at that time, were of high quality. The results can not be directly compared between the samples themselves, as they were made for different purposes.
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