[The Ironworks] A Metalworkers Night

by **Ethan Ironhorse** on November 29th, 2013, 4:42 pm

40th of Fall 513 AV
Ironworks

Ethan felt a little tired as he woke up for the nightshift at the Ironworks. He had been working nights in order to train at the pits during the day, sadly it also meant that he caught his sleep in the afternoons and then did his best to work the long hours till dawn, in which he could grab a several hours of training with a blade, shield, or fists. Sadly, it had the additional effect of making less money. In his years as a farrier, he never really had to work as a metalsmith or at the foundry too much, and because of that he was pulling in money like a junior apprentice. It helped that he was able to go out and try his luck with the bounty earlier in the season, but it wasn’t enough for him to stop working and focus solely on training. As he walked to the Ironworks, Ethan though over the last few nights. Ros had brought one of the large blast furnaces down for cleaning and a general inspection. Due to the intense heat, if a smith wasn’t careful then stone, mortar, and clay that lined the inside of the blast furnace could develop cracks which could be dangerous if the crack broke continued to grow and the furnace collapsed with a big load in it. Additionally, Ros took to the time to go over the large bellows that were on the side of the furnace, heat was never good for leather and even though the bellows were several feet away from the furnace, cracks in the leather would develop. So it was up to the junior apprentices to consistently rub oils into the leather to make sure they were supple.

Thankfully, Ethan had been spared the chore, however, tonight he knew that he would be in charge of holding the ropes for a senior apprentice to go down and check the ceramic work that had been done on the inside of the furnace. The largest furnace Ros kept had been nicknamed by Ethan as Big Kate, the first lass he had petched. When he had told some of the other apprentices, they had asked why the name, he had simply stated that the furnace was large, heated to a roaring blaze, and melted all the iron put inside of her. They had laughed and some had even started calling the furnace by the nickname. Once, Big Kate had been inspected Ethan would end up starting the fire in her. Most junior apprentices didn’t get the privilege to starting furnace fires, but Ethan had been here long enough that a furnace fire for Big Kate was nothing more than starting a forge fire. Additionally, the senior apprentices had him working with two other juniors to sort and melt down copper and brass scrap as the furnace slowly came up to temperature to start iron.

Ethan opened up the doors to the foundry to see the day shift crew giving notes over to the senior apprentices for the night shift. Ethan always seemed early to the night shift, and thankfully one of the senior apprentices waved him over. For a while, they talked about orders and how much bars or what castings needed to be made. Finally, the day senior went over Big Kate’s inspection telling Ethan that they had found several some cracks that had started. They had repaired the old girl with a mixture of mortar and clay. The ceramic patch work would take time to dry out, so Ethan was in charge of priming the furnace with wood all the way to the top and running it for several bells like that. Ethan grunted, normally if the patch work wasn’t too bad Ethan could start the furnace half way with coal. But because the stack of the furnace had found cracks, it meant that they would have bake the whole stack as well.

Ethan stretched a little and headed back to the furnace with the Senior apprentice, the man lit a pitch torch and lowered his head as he stepped into the furnace. Big Kate’s opening gate was large enough for four men to lay down in, but only tall enough for someone to kneel down to enter. Ethan held the torch as the man kneeled down and entered the furnace. As the man got comfortable and ready, he reached out a hand for the torch. Since the walls of the furnace were several feet thick Ethan had to angle the torch to allow the apprentice to grab the handle. As he got in there was a few moments before Ethan heard, “Well Ethan you might as well see a patch job.”

Ethan sighed and got on his knees to crawl into the furnace. Small puffs of ash began to cover his hands and pants as he went into the cold furnace. Ethan knew no material how good intentioned the cleaner was that small residue amounts of ash would always be present. As he finally got to the chamber, Ethan was able to stand up, it was tight with the two men in it. Carefully, the Senior Apprentice pointed out the patch. From inside the furnace, the small patch appeared to be a wet light red clay. The smith that had done the patch had scraped the edges of the clay smooth several feet from what looked like a long line that went up three or four feet. “Probably got another four or five seasons in her, and then we are going to have to break her up. She nearly as twice old as you are Ethan, Ros has done a great job in keeping up with her maintenance but time seems to affect us all at some point.” The apprentice scooped up a loose chunk of patch and handled it off to Ethan. “Feel the texture, the clay is starting to harden but if you work it with your finger there is a tacky grit to it.” Ethan nodded as he worked it between his fingers. “Usually, the clay is a lot more damp, but the mix sand with it to create a glaze. See as the furnace heats up the sand will turn slightly to glass and run in the cracks, the clay will dry out and in the end you have a decent patch for the furnace. To create the patch you need roughly one half of nice glass work sand, fine as you can get it and wet clay that someone could turn into a bowl. It takes about an hour to work in the sand, and you have to use more water to make it look like a thick paste. If you scoop up the paste and it starts to spread or drip, you have too much water. You got that Ethan?” Ethan nodded, “Good after you start up the fire, I will have you patch the outside of the furnace. It’s not nearly as important as the inside, and I will go over your patches. Got it?”

Ethan nodded and started the crawl back out of the furnace.

by **Ethan Ironhorse** on November 29th, 2013, 4:43 pm

Ethan started work by going to a large wood pile at the back of the shop. Large tinder bundles had been stacked in preparation for restarting Big Kate. A total of eight bundles of dry grasses, twigs, and used straw had been piled together in twine. It was a chore to haul the light bundles over to the furnace, the true work came from having to place them in fire chamber. Having to crawl into the furnace over and over again was dirty and time consuming work. The stacks set nicely in the chamber and Ethan made sure that there was a small opening so that eventually the ash and wood would channel to the side of the furnace, while the molten metal would slowly channel down through the middle of the furnace. Once ready Ethan lit the same torch and used the scaffolding to toss the torch down the chute. Turning away, Ethan knew that either the torch had caught the tinder and started up, or Ethan would have to light another one.

Making it down to the opening Ethan saw that the he was in luck and that the tinder had finally caught. Ethan spend the next few chime using the bellows to blow in clean air to the starting fire to make it heat up even more. As the fire started up, Ethan went back to the wood pile and began picking out a large wheelbarrows worth of thin wood branches. The next few chimes were spent pouring wood down the stack and then working the bellows. Chimes turned into bells and Ethan had finally gotten the stack of Big Kate half full with logs the size of his arms. The fire was intense and he finally needed help of another junior apprentice to work the bellows while he got more fuel. Of course, he also took time at the bellows allowing the apprentice to rest by getting more fire wood.

It was a slow process stoking the fire, looking inside of Big Kate’s maul, Ethan saw that over the course of the night the fire had made everything at the chamber chucks of solid wood. Using a long flat head poker, Ethan began shoveling out ash and making sure that the chamber was clear enough for a channel. On top of all of it, Ethan saw that three smelting pots had been set to the side. The iron pots had the top sealed with a layer of clay to prevent wood ash from getting inside. The senior apprentice had placed some of the scrap materials in the pots and was remelting all of it down. Ethan looked up at the slate board and found out that the pots were copper, tin, and brass. Nodding, Ethan allowed some of the wood coals to fall slightly around the pots, briefly half burying them in ash and heat.

Ethan continued to work on the furnace till flames could be seen coming out of the top stack, by that time two apprentices had been working hard at the bellows. The senior apprentice came over and nodded at the work, “Alright, Ethan, go head and mix up a batch of the patching paste, and start working on the cracks on the outside. I will supervise the furnace.” The senior went ahead and had more apprentices began to gather wood and long tongs to grip the smelting pots out of the furnace.

Ethan went over to a small work table that contained a large bucket of water with clay and a bucket of sand to the side. Ethan began to pull clay and sand back and forth. The mixing of the patch material took a great deal of time, having to test the mixture with his hands as to find the right texture. In the end, Ethan had the senior apprentice check his work a total of three times before he was satisfied with its quality. Once done he sent Ethan with a large dull knife, a bucket of patch material and a ladder to go about the furnace and seal any cracks.

The work was strangely different, as Ethan worked on the furnace. The paste came up with the knife and like warm butter spread over the furnace’s surface. Initially found a few cracks but as the shift went on and the furnace heated up Ethan found more. It seemed the constant heating up and cooling down of the furnace brought cracks with it, then again, there was no helping it since the furnace had to be clean once every thirty days or so. It seemed strange that Ethan would finish up a patch and the senior apprentice would check over his work, but after the first ten or so patch jobs, the senior apprentice could find no fault with his work.

by **Ethan Ironhorse** on November 29th, 2013, 4:43 pm

Finally, the furnace was brought up to temperature and Ethan was allowed a break from his work. He had worked long past his normal break time and was famished. However, he wouldn’t be allowed the normal bell to eat and relax due to the large scrap pile off to the side. Syliras seemed to generate a lot of metal waste. Whether it was from, broken farming tools or dishware, metal scrap came into the ironworks to be repurposed as something new. Ethan had to admit that Ros and the Knighthood ran a good business. However, teamsters merely delivered the scrap in large wagon loads and generally dumped it in the yard. Ethan and mainly of the other apprentices had the honor of sorting through the scrap for various metals. Repurposed metal was always cheaper than having it mined. So after his break, Ethan joined a crew of four others filling large smelting pots with metals. Ethan knew that brass, copper, tin, and bronze were more priority with Big Kate not being able to smelt iron till tomorrow. After all the patches needed time to dry and bake into place.

So Ethan began to pull pieces of various metals from piles and sorted them into smaller piles by torch light. Some pieces of Iron were rest with rust, while copper or bronze bells were green. It took Ethan and his fellow apprentices about a bell to sort through a large pile into various smaller ones. Once completed him and the others began to work on placing them into smelting pots on the ground, Ethan made sure to check each pot for the proper metal, and caught several people mixing the green bronze in with the copper pots. The only way he was able to check was taking out a steel knife and scrapping off the green layer to see a more yellow toned color underneath. Showing the other apprentices the mistake with the copper, they took another bell to go through the pots and sort out the bronze, copper, and brass pots. Once a sufficient amount of material was done, the senior apprentice started asking for the pots to be brought in. Ethan long with other got poles with hooks and started to bring the puts into the Ironworks. The senior apprentice added flux to each pot to make sure that the metal would degas, and then sealed the pots lits with clay. Big Kate could handle ten smelting pots along with smelting fresh iron ore, and as soon as one was ready, the senior apprentice had them rotate one in and take another out. Each pour was different, but the iron bar molds made quick work of the softer metals. Tin, copper, bronze, brass, and lead bars began to pile up before finally Ethan was released to do his daily chores.

Ethan went about the Ironworks beginning to stoke forges along with other apprentices. It have been a long night and as he saw horizon lighten up Ethan knew that it was almost over.

~Fin

by **Radiant** on December 3rd, 2013, 3:59 pm

Ethan :

Notes :

My radiance is not bright enough?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, beam me a PM and we can work it out.

Skill	XP Earned
Observation	+2 XP
Body Building	+1 XP
Construction	+1 XP
Metalsmithing	+1 XP
Organization	+1 XP

Completed [The Ironworks] A Metalworkers Night