Completed Cast Pump Part

[Ornea]

Cast Pump Part
Timestamp: Day 8 of Fall 514 AV
Location: Lucis and Lucis, the pump, big machinery and labouring building
Contuinues from Checking the Touch

The second work thread Fall 514 AV. The previous day they started to heat up the furnace and got mold and materials and other preparations done. Now Ornea and Edward Luci continues the metalsmithing they started at. Ornea goes on working at getting the furnace hot enough, weighs all the materials they are going to use and make corrections, makes steel and casts the pump part.

“So ... fortunately we bought some iron bars they had in store at Touch of Fire...this means we’ll be able to go on straight to the melting and casting without needing to cast bars first. “

Edward Luci was obviously pleased with the outcome of Orneas visit to Touch of Fire the day before. The iron bars had been delivered this morning as agreed and the foundry was heated and ready. The new metalsmith Ornea had so far proved herself as competent as she had said she was, which was good too.

Edward felt pleased with his employee. The Inarta was small but fit, had really high work moral and seemed sincerely interested in everything he told her. He appreciated this. But it was maybe still a bit early for him to decide on a permanent employment ? He must admit he was tempted to take the decision at once, but his love of safety and quality told him he must at least wait until the end of this workday until he could strike the deal.

Ornea continued with the metalsmith work. She added coal to the fire. A lot of coke, that she shuffled into the furnace from the side. Iron required high heat to melt. She explained to Edward that she found it better to get the temperature a bit higher than needed, than the opposite. With a temperature that barely was enough to melt the iron it would take forever, but it could also affect the quality badly. She’d rather not take that risk, she said.

Edward Luci nodded in agreement. “Good. Let’s proceed”.

Ornea nodded. She made a braid of her long hair to keep it out of the way and tied a thin cotton band around it. Then she grabbed a leather apron and donned in, looked around, found a pair of leather working gloves and put them on. It was important to protect the hands. She was also a little bit nervous, as she wasn’t used to jobs the size of this metal detail to the pumps. She had been casting smaller things at Wind Reach, tools and other things to use in households and crafting, small statues and other art, buckles and jewellery details, boxes and flasks...many things, but never machinery parts. But the job was basically the same, she told herself. She hoped she was right.

...

[Ornea]

After yet another batch of coal added to the fire she felt the heat in the air increase to a level that told her the furnace was definitely hot enough. Ornea could say exactly how she could know this. It was experience.

Together with Edward she put the iron bars from Touch of Fire in the melting pot and she took care to arrange them in an efficient way. As Edward tested her knowledge by asking her to tell him about the exact steps to make the steel she told him the plan. “When the iron has melted we will add the coke in the correct proportions. Nine and a half bars worth of iron and half a bars worth of weight in choke. Do you have a pan balance here somewhere, so I can make sure to get this as exact as possible? I’m sure they know what they are doing at The Touch or Fire and the bars should be of the right dimensions, but there can always be small variations.”

Edward smiled at her. This was the right way of thinking, in his opinion. Exactness. Quality. Leaving nothing to chance. Eliminating risks by being preemptive and think before acting. “Over here” he said, and pulled a cover off of the big pan balance to the side of them. “This balance is the best one I have crafted so far. It’s a high precision balance and it took very long time to complete. So be careful with it. I always keep it covered when it’s not used.” He picked a half bar weight from a shelf. “This one is exact. You can compare them with this one.”

Ornea inspected the balance and put the exact weigh in place in one of the pans. Now she could see that in addition to the pans there was a curved metal bow etched with a scale of many small lines on the balance and a thin arrow that moved over the metal bow when the pans moved. She looked at it, surprised.
“What is this” she asked. “I haven’t seen this before.”

Edward explained it to her. He’d had the idea to try to make the balance give more exact information than he could get from just watching the pans. They would still watch the pans, but in addition, they would be able to see very small deviations in weight with the help of the arrow and the scale. The exact meaning of every line wasn’t defined but they would be able to measure deviations in terms of number of lines to the right or the left.

...

[Ornea]

“Do you have parchment and a quill and ink?” Ornea asked after studying the pan balance some more and looking closer at the scale. She thought she had understood how to use it. The balance was advanced in terms of exactness, but it wasn’t hard to use it or understand the way it worked.

Edward got the parchment and writing tools from a drawer in a table nearby.
It was only a balance, but Ornea could see that metal parts of it were looking very fine indeed. An expert job, she thought.

She listened to Edwards instructions again, as he repeated them and settled for working at a moderate pace. It didn’t seem important to be speedy, the focus was instead on doing everything exactly right. So she took her time. First she put nineteen of the newly bought iron half bars in a heap on the floor to one side of the balance. Then she put one of them in one of the pans of the balance and the balance moves as then other pan with the exact weight went up.

When she looked at the pans they seemed to be exactly at level. They had done a good job at The Touch of Fire. But when she looked at the arrow she saw that the halfbar was actually one small line heavier than the exact weight she was comparing it to. Marvelling at this higher level of precision in measurement, she took the quill, dipped it in ink and wrote a short note on the parchment. “Bar 1 : +1 line”. The she took the bar from the pan, taking care to do it carefully so the balance wouldn’t just bump down and be damaged. She put Bar 1 on the other side of the balance.

“I’m planning to do this will all nineteen bars and then sum up the figures” she told Edward. She found it best to tell him how she was planning to do, just so he would see that she was planning, and not just doing things without a plan.

Edward just nodded. It was basics to him.

...

[Ornea]

Ornea went on to Bar 2. She put it in the pan, waited for the balance to stop moving, studied the pans and checked where the arrow pointed at the scale. She saw that the bar was actually a little bit lighter than it should be. Then she took the quill again and wrote and new note : “Bar 2: -2 lines”.

Here she took a short break from the weighing of the iron, in order to check on the fire in the furnace. She added some more coal.

Returning to the balance she went on weighing the iron bars, and made a note about each one of them. When this was done, she did the mathematics. It was really easy mathematics, as it was about adding and subtraction of numbers between -3 to 3. She simply counted up and down along the row of figures and summed it up to -15.

“The difference is a bit bigger than I thought it would be” she said. “In terms of this scale, that is. I guess it’s a small difference. But still...” She was feeling a bit troubled.

“That’s what iron filings are for” said Edward calmly. He took a metal box and opened it. The box was fill of iron filings. “I save the filings I get when I do the finish at the items I cast. They can be used for situations like this one.”
Ornea got the idea. “We can just put one of the bars in the pan and then add fifteen lines of filings” she said enthusiastically. She picked up a bar again, put it in the pan and added filings. The amount of iron was now as perfect as it would be.

Then she put the iron on the melting pot and moved the pot into the heat. It would take some time for the iron to melt. After looking at it a bit to be sure teh process had started and looked alright, she shuffled in a final batch of coal and she and Edward went to have lunch.

...

[Ornea]

When Ornea and Edward returned after noon break and lunch, they waited until all the iron was molten, taking turns supervising the process and adding even more coal to the fire. Meanwhile, Ornea also weighed up the coke and made it ready.

It was very hot in the labouring areaby now, but she was used to heat and didn’t think so much about it. It had been even hotter near the magma furnaces of Wind Reach. Ornea had grown up near those furnaces, first watching her mother and other glass smiths work with glass and later working as a metalsmith herself. So she was used to working conditions and though the heat affected her she didn't feel it as an obstacle.

“Now” she said. She pulled the melting pot to a position where she could easily add the coke and proceeded to make the alloy; the steel. Edward had been away, checking up other things in the building, but came back just in time to see her move the mold in place near the melting pot and make ready to cast. He watched while she slowly and carefully made the melting put tip a bit and started to pour the hot, glowing, molten metal into the mold.

Ornea was fully focused on the metal and her task. The molten metal was always beautiful to look at but she didn’t allow herself to forget that it was also deadly dangerous. The casting was when most metalsmithing accidents happened and she didn’t want to be injured. She thought of nothing else than the work while she did it. Her gaze didn’t stray from the metal and the mold for even a fraction of a tick.

When it was done she tipped the melting pot up again and stepped to the side. There was a small amount of steel left, but most of it had gone into the mold. They would take care of the residue and clean up in the foundry soon. The pan balance would be covered again and Ornea would take off her apron and gloves and let her hair loose again.

“This looks promising” said Edward as they left for a break in the work. “You’re definitely on the way to being hired, though I think it best to wait the full trial time, just to be on the safe side. Now, let’s go out and get some fresh air, then I’ll show you some new things I have been...”

Ornea followed him out, saying thanks in her straightforward Inarta style. She was grateful that Edward Luci seemed to be content and her chances at becoming permanently employed here seemed to have increased. But most of all she was sincerely interested, exited and oddly content. She liked this job, in this place, together with this rare and ingenious old inventor. It felt like this was what she had been waiting for her whole life, without knowing it.

Not since the initiation to reimancy, long ago, had she felt so exited and anticipative. She knew she had something unknown and new at her fingertips, full of possibilities. Exactly what it would turn out to mean in her life was still too early to know, but she though it would mean something good.

...

[Brandon Blackwing]

ORNEA

XP:

• Metalsmithing +3
• Writing +2
• Observation +2
• Socialization +3

Lore:

• Using higher temperatures of flames to speed up the melting process
• It's best to check everything before starting, lest something go wrong
• Edward Luci's balance
• The usefulness of iron fillings
• Edward Luci: Content of Ornea's skill

Notes:
While your solos are short, I find them rather packed with small details and accuracy, which I like a lot. The creativity of these rather ordinary tasks is astounding. Keep it up

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If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding your grade, please do not hesitate to send me a PM.

credit goes to Adelaide Sitai