Solo Learning how to make armor

[Kaili]

--Spring 39th 513AV--

It was early morning, and was one of the few days that Kaili enjoyed the most. Every 10 days, her parents would give her a private lesson. She was already quite good at most things, and all she needed was practice. Finding it pointless to continue teaching the girl on a full-time basis, her mother changed it to this schedule. The rest of the days she was left to work and practice her smithing alone. Kaili enjoyed this solitary time, but also loved to learn more complicated styles of smithing. Today, her mother had promised something especially new. Because of this, the Kaili sat in the forge at a quite early time, tending to the flames while she waited. She worked and sat in silence, feeling calm in the familiar place of her forge.

“Morning Kaili”Her mother said, walking into the large room. They stood across from each other, the younger feeling excited, but with a straight face, and the elder with a small smile on her’s. “Today I’m going to spend all day teaching you the basics of a new trade: armor smithing. There are many styles of armor, of varying kinds of complexities, but we will start with the basics. The first item I am going to show you how to make today is a round helm. You will be making these to fit yourself, as keepsakes almost. Are you ready to start?” Hamela (her mother) said, clasping her hands behind her back. This prospect of practically starting a new trade made Kaili happy, since it had been a long time since they’d actually tried a whole other range of smithing. She nodded, and waited for more instructions.

”Good. The first thing, since you’re making this for yourself, is to take measurements of your head. So...” Kaili knew what this meant, having done the same thing herself with her student. So.. measurements first, which meant a measuring tape. She quickly walked (you never ran in a forge) over to the tool wall, and removed one of their many measuring tapes. They were quite useful when smithing anything, since you always wanted to get lengths and widths correct, or you could completely mess up. She came back, and looked expectantly at her mother. The elder simply nodded, telling the younger to continue on her own with the measurements.

Taking the measuring tape to her head, she measured the width, length, and height of her head. She listed the measurements to her mother, who nodded. ”Remember those, all right?” This was pretty easy for Kaili, since she had a good memory of numbers. She nodded again, and waited for further instructions.

”Ok. Grab some sheets of metal, and your hammer... for the style you’re making today, a simple round helm, you won’t need anything else untill the finish.” Kaili grabbed what she asked, fetching three of the 3 feet by 3 feet sheets of metal they kept in a stack in a corner with the rest of the metal. The way the family set up their smithing was about 10 days of creating as much material to be used as possible (so the sheets, wire, and other smaller pieces) so that they could create complex pieces easily without having to forge all the parts during the creation. They generally didn’t make anymore base parts until they ran out, which took possible another 30 days. After she returned with the materials, and placed them on the anvil, her mother went over to the wall as well. She rummaged through one of the boxes for a moment, and pulled out a few stencils. These were not the things you used for drawing and cooking, made out of flimsy metal and such. They were thick, strangely shaped, and their edges were not hugely sharp. They were shaped more like a chisel, angling in one direction for most of the length, then turning in sharply for the last millimeter or so. The tops were flat, so easy to smack with a hammer. They were some of the easiest tools to use, since if you were an Isur at least, you didn’t have to heat the metal. You just placed the stamp where you wanted on the sheets of metal, and hit it with the hammer to cut out the shape you wanted. It was a simple, effective procedure, and one Kaili had learnt early on. They had a large collection of the stencils, so they kept them... organized in a way, for ease of finding.

”All right, here are the stencils you are going to be using. J20 is for the main base, and J17 for the nose piece. B1 and two are for strength. They go on top of the main section, afterwards. ” Hamalea held up each of the stencils in turn, then handed them to her daughter. The last two were basically long rectangle shapes of varying lengths, intending to make strips. J17 was shortish, and a slightly curved shape. Beckoning the young woman to the desk, she grabbed a sheet of paper and charcoal, and quickly sketched what the helmet was intended to look like. It was labeled, showing each of the different parts. The main base made a simple coneish shape, while B1 wrapped around the bottom of that. B2 occurred on the sides and the front and back, and ran from under B1 to the top, where they connected. J17 was also slightly under B1, and stuck out below one of the four strips on the ‘corners’. It looked like a sturdy structure, though only covered the top of the head, and the nose.

”Now, go cut out each of the stencils, and we’ll talk again. Remember, one of everything except B2, which has four.” She stepped back and sat in a nearby chair, to wait until Kaili finished her work. The young Isur quickly started, since the task wasn’t that hard. She took her personal hammer, which was a favourite of hers. No one else used that tool, and it had been one of the first things she’d ever been given as a real present. She’d gotten as her 20 year old birthday present, and still treasured it. It was a multi-purpose thing, good for banging on metal to shape it, which happened a lot. She realized it could probably be used to bang on heads too, since it carried quite a bit of weight, but had never tried it.

Positioning the largest stencil on one of the sheets, it took up almost the entire thing, though that was possibly because the stamp was an awkward shape. It made the base of the helmet, which of course was the largest part. She methodically hit in a clockwise pattern all around the edge, slowly digging the chisel of sorts into the metal sheet. It only took a few rounds, and she quickly hit the anvil. Kaili lifted up the remaining metal with her dominant arm, careful not to bend it too much to be able to re-use it. She moved off the newly created helmet piece and put it to the side, then replaced the edges of that sheet. She got half of the B2 stencil out of the remainder, before having to scrap it. Taking the second sheet, she slowly and methodically cut out the last four sections needed.

Once she’d finished, Kaili noticed her mother had left, but the older woman quickly returned. She was carrying two small snacks in her hands, and tossed one to her daughter. Kaili munched on the slice of bread with her mother in silence, while she waited for further instructions.

[Kaili]

”Alright. Lets get started again” was the first thing Hamela said when they finished their snack. Understanding that their small break was over, Kaili hoisted herself up and looked at her mother for further instruction. The 7 pieces of metal she needed were sitting on the anvil, and though she understood their use, wasn’t quite sure how to form them into a helmet. She wasn’t even sure how hard it would be, since she’d never tried anything like this. She mentally shrugged, telling herself that if her mother was teaching it, she was ready for the challenge.

”Ok. So, right now you’re going to use the end of the anvil, the biggest piece, and your hammer.” Her mother continued, beginning the instruction again. The area of the anvil mentioned was the small, rounded bit that poked off the end. The largest section of metal, which would become the base of the helmet, was a slightly odd semi-circle shape. Kaili grabbed what she needed and waited by the indicated part of the anvil, not quite sure what to do next. ”Right. What you’re going to do is slowly hammer that into a curved conical shape, that is larger, but not by much, than the measurements you made of your head earlier.” There was a lot of emphasis on the word ‘slow’, since a single mistake was often annoying to fix. Working at a slower speed created few, if any mistakes, though Kaili doubted she would finish this project without a hitch.

Looking at the metal, then the end of the anvil, she understood the point of this. The top of the anvil part she was looking at was slightly rounded, so she could easily form a curved shape from that. But no matter what, this was going to be complicated, every hit doing something, but to get such a serious curve would require a lot of hits. It meant everything she did had to be spot on perfect, and she had to plan this in advance. Knowing this, the young woman stood there for several chimes, examining the metal, and the curve of the anvil, planning each and every thing she would do, so few mistakes would be made. Though it was unlikely, she wanted to form this without having to undo anything. She would have to make sure the edges met at the right angle, and that it formed the right shape... and another thing. She couldn’t hit the metal too much, or too hard, otherwise it would weaken, something you didn’t want in a helmet. Kaili sighed lightly, and began to work.

A hit there... another there... keep it fluid, you don’t want dents... these were some of the thoughts that ran through the Isur’s head as she worked. Everything had to be perfect... The metal slowly curved around the anvil, becoming more cone-like, but so far there didn’t seem to be too many problems. Once, she had hit too hard and created an awkward dent, but that was fixed easily by hitting it again from the other side. She always used her right arm, the one blessed by Izurdin, since it made the work much easier and it required less force. The forming was just as hard as she’d expected, but her careful planning had made the process much easier. The metal bent between the anvil and her hammer, creating the shape she wanted, becoming what she wanted it to become.

Finally, it was finished. An almost-perfect conical shape had been formed, except for one problem. There was a small indent at the top point, and she had been unable to fix it because her hammer was too large. But there was a way to fix it... Using a finger of her right arm, she slowly and carefully poked out the indent with her finger. The indent had mostly disappeared, though if one looked closely there was still a slight mark. Well, there really wasn’t anything she could do with it. Kaili held up the helm for inspection, and showed it to her mother as well. The young woman was quite proud of her work, satisfied that she had done so well on a challenging project. By the smile on Hamela’s face, Kaili could tell that she approved too.

”Good, good. That’s excellent, much better than I’d expected. Are you ready to add the other parts? They’re much easier.” Her mother said, complementing the work. The young Isur’s heart soared, and she felt quite accomplished. She held the metal creation in her hands patiently, awaiting the instructions on how to add the other pieces. ”Ok. So, you want to start with the four side pieces. They require slight curving, but it’s something that you can do just with your arm. You want them to match the curve of the helmet, and they will go from top to bottom, evenly spaced. Next, you want to heat both the helmet and bar, and stick them together to form a tight bond. You really don’t want them to fall off.” The last was a slight joke, but, as expected, Kaili neither laughed nor smiled. She simply nodded, and began the next stage of her work. She didn’t know why, but it was nice to work with the heat of the forge again, since the rest of her work had been with room-temperature steel.

Kaili took the first of the bars, and using only her hands, attempted to bend it at the correct angle to fit snugly along the helmet. It took a few tries, since just using just her arm wasn’t particularly precise, but she finally got the correct curve. Then, she grabbed two pairs of large tongs from the tool wall. She used these tools to hold the metal into the flames of the forge, and waited patiently for them to heat. It took a while, maybe 10 chimes, but soon they had turned orange and she removed the metal from the fire. Still using the tongs, Kaili carefully stuck the metal strip onto the conical form, and held it there for another 5 chimes. The metal had cooled down, and the two pieces were firmly stuck together. She smiled, happy that this had worked, and repeated the process three more times, placing each stip at a 90 degree angle from the next, so the four were evenly spaced. When finished, the helmet itself looked much stronger already, even though it wasn’t finished. All that was left was to attach the nosepiece, then wrap the last strip around the base. Kaili was pretty sure she knew how to do that, but still glanced at her mother for confirmation.

”Excellent. Now attach the nosepiece in between two of the bands, just the end of it, then wrap the last section around the base, over the four strengtheners and the top of the nosepiece.” Her mother stated, answering Kaili’s unspoken question. This part was much simpler, repeating a process she had done many times before, and event wrapping the longest strip around the bottom of the helm wouldn’t be that hard. She just had to heat it more, then quite literally wrap it, letting it conform to the shape she wanted.

Kaili easily completed her mother’s instructions, heating just the end of the nosepiece and attaching it to the main part of the helmet. The idea was for it to stick just over the end, and protect her nose from harm. It was slightly useless, but she couldn’t complain. It wasn’t like she’d get into fights anyways...

The completed product looked slightly off, though the young smith couldn’t quite identify the problem. It still looked quite resilient to blows though, and could probably block a direct sword blow to the head. Probably. Kaili looked at her mother and held up the finished helmet for comments.

After a few moments, a grin appeared on Hamela’s face, and she started to clap. ”Magnificent! I’ve never seen anyone create it so perfectly on their first try! You really are a natural!” While Kaili stood standing there, smiling herself (which was saying a lot), her mother walked over and hugged her, then stepped back. ”That is amazing for a day’s work, just amazing. Come, have dinner. Your father was cooking it. You should be hungry after missing lunch...” The younger Isur looked at her mother in confusion. Dinner? But they’d started that morning. A glance at the clock though, told her that it was indeed time to eat. She must have been working for hours. How long had she spent on that framework? Slightly dazed, she followed her mother out of the forge and into their house, still carrying the newly-made helmet in her arms.