Solo [The Ironworks] Every Sword Needs a Hilt!

[Terag]

66th of Spring 515AV Terag couldn’t help but smile as he made his way into The Ironworks this day. The more than aerage guards about the street didn’t even seem to bother him either, no worry about possibilities or eventualities couldn’t bring him down. Today he was going to be taught how to fit a wooden handle onto a sword tang and then hold it in place with the pommel. One of many techniques that he still needed to learn and was unforunately one of the few things that he had yet to fully get a hang of when he worked with the smiths at home. Bells could be heard in the distance, signaling that it had reached the eigth bell of the day. As they rang through The Ironworks, and were quickly muffled by the other sounds of clanging metal, Terag took the apron that hung by his tool rack and put it on before tying it in the back to hold it in place. Off the tool rack came the hammer, tongs, a file, and a medium sized punch. The hammer was set through a lip over his right hip, the tongs through a loop over his left, and the other two tools were set within the pouch in the front of the apron. As he passed by the front of his forge he took his left hand, the one given to him by his god, he reached in and adjusted the placement of a few coals and making room for the longsword that he was to make today. If the entire length of the blade didn’t receive the same amount of heat it could be disasterous in the long run. He was even lucky enough to pass by Ros Vizeran, to which Terag made sure to wave and smile as polietly as he could. Both his elder in age and in the profession, he had well earned the respect of everone that passed by and so at the very least Terag made sure he smiled and waved whenever he could. So far he had yet to been able to say hello, after all the owner and head master smith at The Ironworks Ros was sure to be busy most days. Maybe though, one of these days Terag would be able to get the man to teach him a few things, a man that experienced was sure to know a few tricks that weren’t that well known. Terag grabbed three pieces of steel. The first was for the blade of the longsword, and was by far the largest of the three, and the other two were to be used to make the quillons of the sword and the pommel. Both are very important for the creation of a sword, and while it wouldn’t be the first time he had made any of these parts of the sword it would be the first time putting them all together. ”And I will show you what I can do…”, he muttered in a sing-song tone under his breath as he walked back to his workstation, tossing the large bar of steel into the space he had previously made for the metal and he set the other pieces of steel into the front pocket of his apron for later.

[Terag]

After a while the steel bar was pulled from the forge and set ontop of the face of the anvil. With a soft hum Terag pulled the hammer from the loop to his right and quickly set to work. The loud clangs of his hammer falling onto the iron bar were lost within the melody of The Ironworks. To others it may be a cacophony, but to Terag it was music to his ears. The steady rhythm of ‘clangs’ as they echoed about only motivated him to work harder, and his humming sped up to match the rhythm. Gradually the iron bar began to change shape. Each blow from the hammer forced the metal to move a bit more. Several times the metal needed to be placed back into the forge, where Terag worked the bellows to heat the metal faster. After each he would pull the metal back out with his left hand, his already black hand glistening in the light of the flames within the forge. Themetal would be worked over and over until the rough shape of a blade could finally be seen. Further the metal was worked, lengthening the blade and broadening it slightly. When the blade was finally at the right size and shape, Terag began to work on the tang on the other end of the metal. The edge of the anvil was used to help pinch the metal down to a thinner rectangle that kept that same thickness as the middle of the blade. The tang was much easier to shape to start, but he had to be sure that the metal was either perfectly straight all the way down. A poorly shaped tang would not allow the handle to be applied correctly after all, and may create a poor sword. To a warrior, a poor sword could mean death. Terag would not let that happen, if a man was to fail it would not be because of his work. The tang was hammered again and again and he even went as far as to focus djed into his left arm so he could shape the warm metal with his own hand so he could smooth it out. When he was finally satisfied with his work on the tang he set the sword into the forge again after cleaning the blade with sandpaper until the metal looked like steel once more. The blade would need to be heated up two more times, and quenched both times. The first time he heated the blade to a much higher temperature and quenched it. ”First you harden it, hard like the stone beneath our feet. Then you make it flexible so it can survive in a fight. Don’t want it to shatter like the stone, just be as strong as it.”, he muttered ot himself as the blade quickly cooled in the water. He pulled the blade out, dried it with a cloth and cleaned it once more before setting it into the forge again. This time the blade was kept only until the metal began to change to the color of wheat and then Terag quickly moved it into the water again to quench the blade a second time. There had been a small spot of blue at the tang of the blade, but a small amount shouldn’t affect the blade too much at least. The blade was pulled from the water, dried, and set on the small table next to his tool rack. ”Now for the guard, then the pommel. Easy enough.”

[Terag]

Terag pulled the metal that was destined to be the quillons into the forge for a long moment. At first he only needed it to be warm enough to mark with his fingernail, and once the metal was of the appropriate temperature he pulled it back from the forge. Again, he used his bare left hand to grab the metal and bring it to the face of the anvil. There he began to work it, using the hammer in his right hand while he held it in place with his left. The loud resulting ‘Clang!’ could be heard through the Ironworks, at least until it was masked by the sound of another hammer coming down and hitting its target. Over and over he brought the metal down, turning the metal after every few swings so that it would slowly begin to form a cylinder that was growing out wards, becoming thinner with every hit of the hammer. In the end he had what he needed: a thin cylinder that stood several inches longer on each side than the width of the blade he had worked on earlier. It was once more tossed into the forge, heated up, and then pulled back out so Terag could slightly angle the ends, to form the quillons. Using the horn of the anvil he bent the ends of the cylinder, using his hammer in small hits to gently turn the metal. The resulting angle was a curved bend in both ends of the metal, both turning up, at about a forty five degree angle. Enough to catch a blade if it were to come swinging down, and if it tried to slide off it would first have to go back before continuing on its path. After switching his hammer for his tongs and setting the metal within the grip, he compared the metal against his blade, where the tang turned towards the edge. Here he was able to mark into the metal with his fingernail on his left hand, peeling off a small sliver of metal to mark where he would need to punch it through so that it could slide over the tang and stop at the blade. Once more the hilt was placed into the forge as Terag put the tongs back into their loop, pulling both the hammer back and a punch from his pouch. Using his left hand he both held the metal in place over the hardy hole and held the punch with his forefinger and thumb. Once more the hammer was raised and fell down onto the punch, creating a deep indent in the hot metal. The action was repeated a few times until the punch broke through to the hardy hole. The process was repeated several times to widen the hold until the tang of the blade would fit through, and then a bit more to create an indent for the bottom of the blade to rest in. Once done he turned the metal over, smoothing out the slight expansion that had occurred from the force of the punch and hammer. After he made sure the tang and blade would fit just right he dipped the metal into the water, dried it off, and set it beside its counter-part: the blade. He only had one more piece to make himself now.

[Terag]

The final small piece of steel was pulled from his pouch before it was set into the forge. Turning to the tool rack he grabbed two more punches, both smaller than the one in his pouch and one smaller than the other. The tang got smaller towards its end for the purpose of the pommel. He was going to hammer the pommel on when it was ready, and then flatten the part of the tang that poked through the other end of the pommel. However, first he would have to make it before he could use it. He hummed a few lame notes of a song before giving up; he couldn’t get into it today. His mind was constantly floating back to what he would learn once he was finished with this piece. Also, to the possibilities after learning a new technique and using it for anything else. While the thoughts continued to run through his head, Terag reached into the forge with his hand and pulled the glowing metal hunk that was to be the pommel. First was to shape it, which took much longer than he remembered it taking. After every hit the metal had to be adjusted, and more than once it slipped form his grip, the rounder form was a bit harder to hold in to place even though it was just many more flat surfaces rather than one continuous round surface. Either way, Terag kept at it until it resembled as much of a sphere as he could manage. In his opinion this was always the hardest part, making a sphere just took too much and even now it was a little lopsided. It would have to do though, he figured as he tossed it back into the forge. One last time he pulled the pommel from the flames of the forge and set it on the anvil, this time over the hardy hole just as he had the guard. First taking the largest punch, he began to use it to pierce into the hot metal. After a short amount of time he switched to the next one down, and then finally the smallest as he was about to completely pierce through the metal and push into the hardy hole. Also with the smallest punch, he tried to smooth out the inside of the hole he had made before putting all of the punches away, and slightly reshaping the pommel with his hammer. Once finished it was also dunked into the water for cooling and then set the pommel on the table. He had all the pieces, now all he had to do was get a smith who could teach him how to burn the handle into place and fit it all together. With that in mind he turned from his work to go find someone who could help.

[Terag]

”It’s really a simple process, I’m surprised one of your kind doesn’t know already. All you do is heat up the tang of the sword, right? Then you take that piece of wood right there,”, the other smith pointed to the wooden handle that Terag was now holding. He had gotten it from the very same smith that was speaking to him now, ”and sorta force it onto the tang. That one is already cut, smoothed, and whatever else to be ready for it. So just go wildy, yeah?” Terag just sort of looked at him, confused for a long moment before speaking. ”And there’s no worry about the wood catching fire?” ”Not if you do it right. There’s no air inside there to feed a fire so you should be fine. Just don’t do it too close to the forge. And if you mess up, there’s always a barrel or bucket of water somewhere around to use. So go have fun with it.” Terag nodded and muttered his thanks before turning back and making his way back to the forge. It seems rather strange to be able to do something like this, but he was still learning. Right now he had no right to even question any of the senior smiths. True to the instructions, Terag shifted a few of the coals around before grabbing his blade and setting only the tang inside the forge. After it reached a higher temperature he pulled it from the flame, took a step back, and quickly put the quillon through and then forced the tang through the opening in the wood. He could hear it searing the wood inside, and it sounded more akin to putting metal in water than it did putting something red-hot against wood. Either way the handle was pushed farther and farther up, his right hand receiving a light burn due to how close it was to the hot metal as he held the handle in place. He shook the pain off his right hand before sticking the affected areas into his mouth, ”Owf! Ffat shmarts!” he muttered around his hand. He admired the handle. The oak wood shined in the light of the forge, and it seemed on well enough. The still red hot point of the tang was pointing out the bottom, and so before it could cool he set to work. The pommel was pushed on, and Terag made sure not to burn himself again on the tang. With the tip now only barely poking through the pommel, Terag picked up his hammer and hammered the point flat. The metal spread slightly over the pommel, holding it in place and ensuring that it wouldn’t fall off. One last time he looked the blade over before setting it down on the table and putting away his tools and apron. The sword was brought up to the head smith of the day, the man Terag had talked to earlier, and he looked it over. ”Eh, it’ll do for now. Now run off, I need to sharpen the blade. Good work though, do better next time though.” Terag smiled and nodded briefly, it was enough of a compliment for now. With that he turned and made his way back into the street and headed home, beginning to hum a tune as he walked with a bit more pep in his step.

[Dravite]

Terag

XP Award:

• Observation: 3
• Knot tying: 1
• Socialisation: 1
• Weaponsmithing: 4
• Mathematics: 1
• Organisation: 1
• Planning: 1
• Singing: 1
• Endurance: 2
• Bodybuilding: 1

Lore:

• Weaponsmithing: The metal must be heated evenly
• Planning: Thinking about the future
• Ros Vizeran: A experienced weapon-smith
• Weaponsmithing: Crafting a pommel
• Weaponsmithing: heating and cooling the metal
• Weaponsmithing: Joining the pommel to the sword
• Weaponsmithing: There is no air in the fire

Notes: Hi, Terag; nice little training thread you got here. The colour of your font, especially the blue on black is super hard to read; might want to play about with that or maybe use a dark grey for the background in future? Let me know if you think I have missed anything here and be sure to edit your grading request!

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