ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Tatara (furnace)

Alright kiddo, I'll do my best to explain what a tatara furnace is in a way that you can understand!

So first of all, a tatara furnace is a special kind of furnace that is used to make something called steel. Have you ever heard of steel before? It's a very strong and durable metal that is used to make all sorts of things like cars, buildings, and even toys!

Now, the tatara furnace was invented a long, long time ago in Japan. It's made out of a bunch of rocks and clay mixed together, kind of like making a really big mud pie! The furnace is shaped like a giant bowl, with a small hole in the bottom for air to come in.

To make steel in a tatara furnace, you first have to get some special kind of sand called iron sand. This sand has tiny particles of iron mixed in with it. You pour the iron sand into the furnace and light a fire underneath it, using wood as fuel.

As the fire burns, it heats up the iron sand and turns it into a really hot liquid called molten iron. This molten iron is really bright and glowy, kind of like lava!

But that's not enough to make steel. You also need to add something called "tamahagane," which is a special kind of iron that has been heated and folded over many times. It's like when you fold a piece of paper over and over again to make it strong.

Once you add the tamahagane to the molten iron, you stir it all together with special tools made out of bamboo or metal. This mixes the two kinds of iron together and creates steel!

Making steel in a tatara furnace takes a really long time, sometimes a week or more. But people in Japan used to use tatara furnaces all the time, because they didn't have machines to make steel like we do now. It was a lot of hard work, but they were able to make some of the best steel in the world using these special furnaces.

So there you have it, kiddo! A tatara furnace is a special kind of furnace used to make steel, by heating up iron sand and adding in special iron called tamahagane. It's like making a really big mud pie that can turn into one of the strongest metals in the world!
Related topics others have asked about: