Completed [The Ironworks] Replacement Tools

[Ethan Ironhorse]

20th Bell 12th of Winter 513 AV The Ironworks Ethan felt a tired as he woke up for the nightshift at the Ironworks. His training was taking a toll on him, but thankfully he was going back to days soon because during winter Ros took the time to make sure that the plate armor for the knights and squires were repaired or created. The most of the blast furnaces had been let to cool and clean. Large patches of clay mortar had been applied and they had found a significant crack in one of the old furnaces, so much so that Ros had asked the night shift to demolish the furnace before he paid masons to begin construction of a new one. Ethan had been chosen to help break apart the furnace before starting work on replacement tools needed for The Leatherworks. Ethan stood near the medium size furnace and felt a little strange about destroying it. The furnace had been one of the older designs, a small stair way had been built to load coal, wood, or ore into the top of the furnace instead of using the second story walkway. Inside of the thickly patched furnace they had used large chunks of stone instead of clay brick, thinking that the stone would handle the heat better. Instead, the stone had only caused more problems as the cracks tended to develop close or over the mortar joints of the furnace. Additionally, Ros had develop new designs for furnaces that used alternating layers of clay and brick. The clay seemed to hold the heat in more than simple stone, and some of the layers of clay were worked so much as to be filled with small air holes. Ethan had always marveled at Ros’ designs, the new furnaces seemed to keep the heat in and were cool to the touch all except the top. In fact, Ros had said the only way to make it perfect was to use magic to stop all the heat from escaping through the material. There were times that Ethan wondered about whether he should have told Ros about his own curiosity with Shielding, but old habit and prejudices die hard. Ethan went up the small stair way with a claw chisel and hammer. Most people would have thought to just take a sledge hammer and start attacking the furnace, and for most people they would die when the furnace collapsed on top of them. No the chore of dismantling the furnace wasn’t supposed to be quick or easy for with that line of thinking Dira came calling. Ethan placed the claw chisel on the top of the furnace and using the wooden mallet came down on the tempered iron end with all his strength. Chips of clay sprayed away from Ethan’s face and three small grooves were left in the shell of the furnace. As soon as Ethan looked at the cuts in the glazed surface, Ethan realized that precision was more likely to finish this job quickly then brute force. So instead of swinging like some wild fool, Ethan placed the hammer in one of the grooves and instead of using his entire arm, used the weight of the head of the mallet to begin a rhythmic tapping. At first not a lot happened, the clay glaze broke a little here and there almost as flakes of dust were lazily drifting down the central chute of the furnace. Then after fifteen chimes of cutting deep grooves in the glaze appeared. Ethan smiled as he wiped ceramic dust and sweat from his brow. A crack in the seemingly foot thick ceramic glaze didn’t seem like a lot, but to Ethan it was the true start of destruction that was about to come. Ethan put away the dusty claw chisel into the pockets of his leather apron and came out with a thin straight blade chisel that was used in wood carving. The blade was thinner than any fighting blade because the chisel was to be used against soft wood instead of biting into a metal knife. Ethan wedged the thin edge into the crack of the glaze and readied his mallet. Ethan hit the crack with all the strength of his arm and a chuck of glaze broke off the size of his hand. The chuck popped and cracked as it went down the ten feet to the ground before shattering into more pieces. Ethan smiled as he watched, but when he turned back to start on the next piece, he realized that much like using all his strength to cut grooves into the glaze, he had broke the piece off with only the tiniest of cracks left in the glaze. Strength once again had failed to give him results. Signing Ethan went back to his soft tapping of the small factures in the ceramic covering, with time and patience Ethan was able to expand the crack in the glaze and had even expanded it from the size of his finger to the width of his arm. It was then that Ethan was about to take the wooden mallet and by hitting the outside of the glaze get large foot to two feet sections of glaze off. Ethan worked for bells clearing away the ceramic layers until he found the first layer of stone a foot and half below the starting layer. The chimney looked like a jagged forest of clay shards, but thanks to Ethan’s patience it had only take two bells to rid themselves of the first foot of the furnace. The stone was the same greyish blue commonly found in the Cobalt Mountains, and it was here that only four inches of clay had been applied to between the furnace and stone. However, now that Ethan had two different materials to work with he could set his chisel against the stone and swing as hard as he liked. The dull thud of the hammer hitting the chisel came, but it was cracking of the glaze down through the stone that made Ethan smile. Finally, he had found the right means for brute strength instead of working the smallest opening till he made a large flaw. Wham, the hammer went and large chunks of ceramic flew of the furnace. It took Ethan no more than a few chimes to clear around the stone, as he did he realized the stone was finally loose in its cradle of clay mortar. Ethan chiseled out the edges of the stones next to the one he was working on, before putting away his tools and stepping down a few step before he pulled out the stone that must have weighed ate least fifty pounds. Ethan granted and struggled as it came out and quickly he tried to bring it close to him as his arm shook and his feet were unsteady on the stairway. Ethan could feel himself perilously close to losing his balance and for a brief moment his boot began to slide close to the edge of the stair. The rush of adrenalin flooded Ethan’s muscles at the thought of tumbling over the side of the stairs and either landing on the stone base or hitting the gravel floor with a fifty pound block on top of him. Instead Ethan pushed hard against the bottom of the stone block and let it fly a few feet off to the side of the stairwell instead of falling. By luck of divine favor, the block missed the base of the furnace and another person to land hard on the gravel floor. Most people thought of the Ironworks as having paved stone floors, and for the forge and shops that made sense. But the furnace room was different, after all it was easier to shovel and rake gravel and sand when metal was spilled instead of trying to chisel or scrape up metal and slag spills on a stone floor. Apprentices looked up at Ethan as the stone sprayed gravel and sand two feet around where it hit, but from his unsteady footing and look of terror, they quickly went back to their work. Ethan took a chime to steady his racing heart before he went down to the floor and dragged the stone block away to pile it against the wall.

[Ethan Ironhorse]

By middle of the night, Ethan was exhausted and tired but a small stack of stone blocks were off by the wall and the furnace was very close to being a third of the way done. Ethan took a break and allowed someone else to take a turn at breaking apart the furnace. So after his break Ethan began to pick up the quarter bar stock and went over to the forge. He began to heat up the bar stock in order to forge some new chisels. Ethan brought along some of the other apprentices showing them how he heated up the metal to an almost dull red. Placing the bar stock in the forge, Ethan began to heat up the iron so that he could lay the larger bar against the edge of the anvil and use it as a cutting plain. Ethan took out stock and began to work the folding process. The folding of the metal was to create a grain structure that would aligned with the operation of the tool. Ethan began to explain why the folding of the metal was needed. If a blacksmith chose to be lazy and fail to fold the metal the tool would easily break during the first few taps of the tool. Ethan had began thinning the bar stock and into a flat bar, using the edge of the anvil, Ethan created an edge into the plane of the iron. Ethan used the thongs to flip the iron onto its other edge and began blending the iron bar back onto itself. Once done Ethan placed the bar back into the forge and motioned for one of the apprentices to start on a different bar. It was nice working with a just a few apprentices, guiding the young man’s arm as he began to flatten the bar. Ethan commented on some of the small intricacies of working iron, as the apprentice asked questions Ethan smiled and answered them. Ethan never yelled or commented about a bad strike but waited till the man finished. He took time to give the man praises over the good things he did and then helped him by giving him helpful hints on some of the things he did wrong. Picking up another bar Ethan asked the apprentice to do it again. Slowly the man had better strikes, but it took more time. Yet, with realization that the shape wasn’t suppose to take shape with few strikes, he grew confident, and Ethan sent him off with his own bar stock help continue the process. Picking the next apprentice, Ethan acted just as patiently as he did with his first student letting the man fail and succeed on his own. It took Ethan several chimes to help go through the bar stock and while making sure the apprentices folded the iron without voids.

[Ethan Ironhorse]

Ethan lifted up the bars looking at the glowing dull red of the iron. The apprentices had flatten the bar to a greater width each time they folded the metal. To Ethan it looked as if the bars were slightly lopsided as the apprentices had folded the material unevenly. Motioning to the apprentices Ethan stoked the flames of the forge. “Alright Lads, I don’t see any bumps large enough that would show a significant void in the material. However, while you were folding the metal, the iron bunched up in one area more instead of keeping it even. It happens to the best of us, the secret is to use even pressure and strikes with the hammer. It’s a natural rhythm that each blacksmith develops and helps in keeping the metal smooth. See the common man believes that a blacksmith just hits the iron with as much strength as he or she can and makes the shape of what they want. The real truth as you lads are learning is that the blacksmith applies the correct amount of strength evenly across the piece.” Ethan picked up a set of tongs and grabbed the iron bar, turning the bar in his hand Ethan showed the wavy uneven edge. “See this comes from striking the bar in one spot to many times. Additionally see how it almost looks like a wave in the edge? The upset or upward material comes from the hammer blow. The first strike was heavy and dented the metal creating an edge. The next strike didn’t overlap the original blow and when that occurred the metal slowly started to climb into the peak between the hammer strikes.” Ethan placed the bar on the anvil and began to bang the iron with a consistent almost light tapping. The face of the bar began to even out but the other side began to gain a small bulge in them. “Each strike moves the material like one working with bread dough. Do you see how I am working from one side to the other? I am moving the excess material form the middle out to the ends of the bar. This is important to know because one day you might need to create a long wedge or flat plate for a shovel or axe head. So I want you both to work the remaining bells making one even bar for the experience.” The apprentices looked up and Ethan smiled, “Since we are making chisels there really isn’t anything to gain from making a perfectly straight bar, but it’s a skill that you need to develop and in truth the next time you began to fold metal you will keep this lesson in mind and make sure you don’t create uneven edge’s.” Sparks started to come off the iron as Ethan continued to work at it. He remembered the first day with a senior apprentice and asked why some bars had more sparks then others. The apprentice laughed and told him to stay focus on the job, but Ethan didn’t give up and it wasn’t till one day he asked Ros that he had finally gotten a good answer. The sparks coming out of the bar was impurities that were in the metal. When Ethan had seen the weaponsmiths of the Ironworks forge a sword with Ros’ weapons grade steel there was maybe three or four sparks that came out during a hammer strike. While working with first pass iron, there were twenty or thirty sparks that seemed to rain down from the each hammer blow. Thankfully, because the apprentices had folded the metal several times the sparks or slag from the iron was at a minimum. Ethan took his time making sure that the head of the chisel was have a stamping surface no more then the size of his smallest finger. In order to do that, he kept flipping the end of the bar back and forth tapering the edge to a fine point against the face of the anvil. The bar was beginning to look like some long pyramid with a flat top, but Ethan knew that the final product would look completely different. Right now he was just trying to get the stamping edge for the leather to the appropriate size. Slowly with even hits the bar tapered to the correct dimensions, even enough room for Ethan to chisel out the stamping edge. Now was the time to work the neck of the chisel. The neck was important because Ethan wanted to make sure that as he created a circular neck connecting the stamping edge to the handle that it had to be thick enough to withstand a solid blow, but during creation he didn’t force more metal into the stamping head. For Ethan it required a great deal of skill and concentration as he used the horn to start the circular shape of the neck but then went back to the face to help provide a directional blow to keep the shape of the stamping edge. Ethan had once seem Ros work the forge creating an almost delicate chisel for Armor engraving. No blow seemed to be wasted nor was the stamping head overly large. However, Ethan wasn’t a master of the forge like Ros and he kept the stamping head slightly large so that he could always work excess metal into a head or out of it should he make a mistake. The neck of the chisel began to take shape and elongating two inches before Ethan finally began to forge the handle. The handle was the most simple part of the chisel as it was a simple hexagon shaped cylinder with a slightly curved end to allow the leatherworker his own directional blows. Once again Ethan began using the face to elongate the remaining material into a cylinder about five inches. It was important that the handle fit the hand but was long enough so that the leather worker wouldn’t hit his hand with the mallet. As Ethan finished the blank chisel he placed the iron into a water trough to cool down. Tomorrow night he would start the sharpening process and the engraving of the design.

[Ethan Ironhorse]

20th Bell 13th of Winter 513 AV The Ironworks Ethan came into the Ironworks knowing what lay ahead of him. The blast furnace he had been working on was a little over half way taken down. Large stone blocks were stacked neatly over to the side of the foundry and most of the clay glaze had been cleaned up. The problem was that the bottom of the furnace was much larger than the top. After all, the point to a blast furnace was to keep intense heat at the bottom of the furnace while the stack allowed the ore to slowly warm up and melt down. However, now that the inside of the furnace walls were exposed Ethan finally saw the internal damage that the intense heat had done. The clay mortar that masons had used to put the stone blocks in place was crumbling in place. Original while the clay outside was still moist a fire had been built in the furnace and as the heat gradually increased until the furnace was at full flame the stones expanded in place. Once the clay had set shape the constant cool down and heat up of the furnace made the neatly packed stones pulverize the internal clay joints causing cracks. Ros explained that it was the reason why he switched to clay bricks as support. The heating up and cool down of the brick was similar enough to the glaze that only minor cracks from intense heat would appear over time. At least now that breaking apart the furnace would be easier. So Ethan and a few other apprentices got to work with crowbars and mallets. The crowbars were used to wedge themselves in between the stone and the outer clay shell of the furnace. Using the mallet to wedge the crowbar down and then hitting the side of the bar, created enough force to easily break apart the outer shell. Once the shell had been broken enough to free the large stone block, Ethan set the tools aside and worked the block free. It was tough lifting and then carrying the hundred pound block. Muscles bulged and after Ethan’s third one, he went and got a hand cart to set them on and move them over to the growing pile. It took several bells of back breaking labor to finally move the last stone block off its base. Breathing heavy from all the lifting, Ethan took a moment to look at the base. It was said that every time Ros made a new furnace that he hired a Reimancer to mold a giant stone stab for it. The stone stab looked to have a channel cut into it, so that liquid metal could run down it and into a smelting pot. While a large section had been scoped out to set stone and mortar in to build the furnace. For once, Ethan saw how the basic design of the stab helped the metalsmiths in clearing slag from the melted down ore. Now all Ros had to do was get a medium size work crew to lift the stab and move it into the new location to safe space. Ethan on the other hand had leather working chisels to get to, so he rounded up the two apprentices he had been working with yesterday and asked them to come along with him. The three of them went over to forge part of the Ironworks and Ethan motioned for them to head over to a granite stab. Picking up a piece of chalk, Ethan began to draw the basic diagram of a chisel. “Alright lads this will be some of the more intricate work you have ever done. The stamping edge of the chisel is used to cut or stamp an impression into the leather. Since the Leatherworks has ordered closed to twenty new chisels each with a different type of stamp, I need you to form a head for the stamping edge. The head should be a rectangle the size of your thumb forged from the folding edge so that the edge is against the grain of the metal.” Ethan looked at the two apprentices and realized that he had lost them. Sighing, he picked up the chalk again. “Alright, yesterday we folded bars of Iron so that we could create the chisels right? I made sure that we all folded the bars the same way by folding the bar in the middle of the long side so that the skinny side of the bars touched. The reason why we did this was so that the grain would have layers along the edges of the rectangle. Those layers are called the grain and as the leather worker hits the chisel we want the working edge or stamp to be against it.” Ethan paused and made a drawing of a blade with multiple layers. “See as the leather worker or whoever hits the back of the chisel, the metal will not want to deform against the grain. That’s why when hitting the edges of the bar stock we had to use heat and small tapping motions to even out the whole bar. When it’s cold the metal will withstand the greatest amount of force. Allowing the chisel a longer working life.” “So I want you lads to take the bar taper down one of the skinny sides to a rectangle about the size of your thumb and then using the horn of the anvil bow the area right after the rectangle to form neck one to two inches long. Make sure that you are working downward from the rectangle. That way you preserve the shape of the stamping edge and help form the base. Additionally, to form the handle use a hexagon cylinder about inch to inch and half in diameter. That way the handle will be around four to five inches which will allow the user enough room to strike the chisel without fear.” Ethan finished the drawings showing the apprentices the work flow and what their final product should look like. In addition Ethan took out a bar and began demonstrating the techniques he described to them. Just like yesterday it was slow going in the beginning forming the stamping head, but once the work was done in forming the head and neck the handle was quick and easy. Sure that the apprentices couldn’t get into too much trouble. Ethan placed the two semi-finished chisels in the forge to warm up their stamping edges. Pulling out the first one, Ethan began hammering the rectangle into a crescent moon shape with made a quarter of an inch width using the horn of the anvil to round it. This was to be an embossing chisel which once the general shape was forged Ethan would sit down with engraving tools and cut out the general pattern on the head. The other was meant to be a hole punch which required Ethan to spend a great deal of time crafting a star like head and then using the file to sharpen the edges so that the leather worker could use the entire tapering point to make a hole one half the size of Ethan’s pinky. It was a long night crafting the chisels, at times Ethan would have to use the forge to repair the head or neck of the chisel from an apprentice’s mistake. However, he would always take the time to tell the apprentice what they did wrong and how to fix it. By the end of it Ethan was exhausted, but the order was fulfilled.

[Radiant]

Ethan :

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Observation	+2 XP
Body Building	+1 XP
Blacksmithing	+2 XP
Construction	+2 XP
Teaching	+2 XP
Leadership	+2 XP

Lores

Lore Earned

Construction: Dismantling A Blast Furnace

Blacksmithing: Crafting Chisels

Teaching: How To Be A Blackmith, The Basics

Loots

Notes :

A very nice descriptive job thread, Ethan. Enjoy your grades!

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.