Completed [The Ironworks]Tools for the Mines

[Ethan Ironhorse]

20th Bell 37th of Winter 513AV The Ironworks Ethan felt the heat of the blast furnace seemed good and excessive at the same time. Ethan had just come from outside and felt the bitter cold of the evening air. For some reason the cold seemed to take more out of him than just the normal getting up late and going into work. Yet, somehow he still went into work to do his job. It was nice to know that soon he would be going back to days for a little while. He had checked the customer orders the previous night and besides a large request for mining tools for the spring, the orders were relatively small and Ros with his armorsmiths could concentrate on fulfilling the plate armor requests. Ethan took the time to warm himself close to the blast furnace. The heat was almost painful compared to his cold limbs, but as they started to warm up Ethan realized that there were several stone molds out. The molds that were out required ten men to move as they were several hundred pounds and used for molten iron. Ros had broken out the firebox molds for mining camps. Ethan never understood the use of a firebox, it was a dangerous tool and often caused more damage than not, but he did understand the principal. The fire box was a set of five heavy iron plates that could be setup in an open box fashion. Miners would fill the box with coal and start a fire in it. The back of the box had a small opening to all for a bellows to be used. Some miners like to coat the outside of the box with mud or clay to keep the heat focused forward on the rock they were trying to break. To Ethan the fireboxes were great tools in breaking rock up on the surface. There was plenty of fresh air so that the smoke won’t accumulate, miners usually had access to barrels of cool water that they could throw on the heated rock making it break up faster. However, some miners used the fireboxes down in the deep shafts that weren’t airy or could lead to gas pockets. Ethan had heard of several large mine fires that had started because a miner setting a firebox up in a shaft and when the rock finally cracked under the heat stress the gas escaped and killing the miner and several others. There had to be a better and safer way then using the fireboxes. Still Ethan was paid to come up with new ways to get ore out of the ground. He was paid to produce what the customer wanted, and that meant fireboxes. He had to admit that Ros had been very smart when he had the molds created. Normally each side of a firebox had to be forged by hand and then the corners wielded or hinged together. The time it took to make firebox was several weeks and usually required four to five apprentices. Ros on the other hand had come up for a way to create a slotted box so the plates interconnected into one another, this way a team of metal smiths could make a firebox in a day or two instead of a week. The only problem with Ros’ design was that the miners had to put mud or clay about the side of it to pug holes. Still Ethan thought the design was solid and the miners liked it because instead of carrying a small fifty pound box through the mines, they could carry fifty pound plates and assemble the box at the point of use, giving them a larger box in hard to reach places. Ethan knew that tonight he would be feeding the furnace, and eventually pouring the molds. Under direction of a senior apprentice, Ethan went over to the iron scrap pile and started filling a smelting pot with iron stock. Ethan sorted through the mess of broken hinges, old horse shoes, and excess or twisted workings from the forge. Putting on thick leather gloves Ethan handled the rusty and sometimes sharp scrap. His job was to fill the smelting pot with as much scrap as possible, which sounded easy, but required a great deal of time. Ethan was able to find some large pieces that fit the smelting pot easily, but after that he had to sort through the scrap finding smaller and smaller pieces to fill the pot with. It would have been easier for Ethan to place the scrap into the chute of the blast furnace and let it melt down again, but Ros and several of the senior apprentices had told him that was how the metal regained impurities and the iron would become uncontrolled mild steel. So Ethan did his best to sort through the mess and fill the smelting pot. Once he was done, he picked up several of the large pieces and told the senior apprentice that he would use a forge to bend the pieces down to fit inside the pot. The apprentice told him when he needed to rotate with the bellows crew, but otherwise he was ok to do so. Ethan took several old candle holders to the forge to begin softening the iron enough to bend. Ethan smiled at the candle holders, a few seasons ago he had helped design a new set for Syliras. It seemed that now the old sets were finally coming back in for the metal to be repurposed. Looking over the large stands Ethan found several weak points that he set over the forge fire. Ethan had to be careful with the forge, because he didn’t want to have a large fire that would heat up the entire object. So first he began organizing the coals to make sure the flame was no bigger than a bucket, while he scooped out fresh coal that would have been used to increase the flame and heat. Ethan placed the candle holder on the fire where the weak spots that he identified were located. It was time now to work the bellows, driving the little flame hotter and hotter with each whoosh of fresh air. For fifteen chimes Ethan worked the bellows and added one or two pieces of coal. The candle holder stem became hotter and hotter till it almost glowed orange. It was then that Ethan could tell from the color of the metal that it was ready to be broken. As Ethan picked up the cool end of the candle holder almost three feet away from the heated spot the size of his fist, Ethan saw the stem nearly bend from the heat. A smile crept on Ethan’s face, normally a smith would never work metal this hot as it wouldn’t hold its shape against the blows very well, but when one was destroying instead of creating, the normal rules didn’t apply. Ethan placed the long candle holder against the edge formed from the face of the anvil. Picking up a large heavy hammer, Ethan struck the candle holder weak point with all his might. The sound of metal striking metal filled the air as Ethan needed several hard hits to finally break the piece off and let it fall to the ground. This first cut had been made and now it was time for Ethan to start again at a different joint.

[Ethan Ironhorse]

Ethan worked at the forge for a time disassembling a lot of the broken and old rusted out iron. Ethan was careful to file and knock off as much rust as he could be putting it into the smelting pot. Once Iron became too corroded and the placed in a smelting pot it weakened the entire metal afterwards. Steel always seemed to be the better answer when it came to rust, but then again the intense heat of the fire box needed to be in heavy iron not steel as it would warp under the intense heat of the coal fire. So Ethan to a file to the red rust that was one a candle holder and began to hear the grating sound of metal on metal as rust flaked off and drifted to the floor. It was a full bell before another apprentice came to get Ethan for his turn at the bellows. Ethan stood next to the apprentice that was already working on the furnace bellows. Ethan counted in his head the downward stroke and upward stroke. See two apprentices were needed to work the blast furnace in unison. As one side went down the other went up supplying the large furnace with clean air all the time. Ethan placed his hands on the long lever that worked the bellows and synched up with the apprentice working it. As the apprentice felt lever require less pressure to go downward he looked over and nodded his head to Ethan. Up and down the lever went, though it wasn’t a heavy job, Ethan grew tired from the constant motion. Each stroke worked his shoulders and back, and though it was a large motion over a long period of time, it required endurance and stamina. So instead of focusing on his tired muscles and aching back Ethan focus his thoughts and turned them over the knowledge that Devandil had given him. Devandil had given Ethan two areas of magic to really study on his own. Shielding and Glyphing, sadly nether one of them was capable of interacting with the other. Shielding needed to be generated around something and attached to the very essence or soul it was protecting. It had surprised Ethan that the very realm of magic was based on changing the most basic things about oneself or the things around them. The idea of Reimancy was that by channeling your thoughts and part of your essence into the idea of effecting change, you could summon or create some of the most basic things around you. Shielding was the idea of somehow reinforce the idea of static or no change to the essence it protected. Granted it couldn’t protect oneself from aging or even every type of weapon. Shielding needed to know what it was protecting itself against, while a blank shield was about to protect against wild Djed. It made sense in a way, wild djed was like a river of change that came from one place and started that change till it was out of range of the source. Yet that was one thing that Ethan didn’t understand overly well, if Ethan wanted to affect change like a Djed storm what stopped him from doing so? As Ethan’s arms continued to work he felt like he was spread a new sheet across his bed, and the answer came to him. Could it be that the change was like a wave in a bed sheet? That depending on the effect and how far one wanted to go with it depended on the strength of the whip? Ethan chewed the inside of his mouth as the thought over his analogy. He had no idea how to even proof something like that, he supposed that he could create a shields of different strengths and see when they would break on how close he got to the source, but that assumed he knew were there were locations of wild djed, and those of course were always very dangerous places to visit. As Ethan thought and thought over his analogy on the subject of Wild Djed, he realized that he just needed more education on the matter, and in truth Syliras didn’t like new ideas that didn’t come from the knighthood. So that was another reason Ethan was leaving to head to Zeltiva, the university could teach him a great deal, he remembered learning his letters and numbers in Syliras from various teachers, but they never really gave Ethan information about anything other than the basics. It was strange, because it was almost like they didn’t want the populace to understand or learn about anything other then what would help them at their job. Ethan felt the strain of the bellow lever lessen and he looked over to see that someone was ready to take his place. The apprentice told him that they were ready for iron he had been working on, so before he could get his meal, Ethan needed to deliver the semi filled pot back over to them. Ethan took a moment to stretch as his body was sore from the long work out he had received at the bellows, but he knew that it he couldn’t rest till after he got the pot over to the senior apprentice. Walking back over to the forge he was working at, he looked at the pot. It was about three fourths full of iron that Ethan had worked on or was about to place in the pot. It would probably melt down to half a pot of iron, but as Ethan lifted the stone pot he felt his arms tremble at the weight. Normally a smelting pot was thirty to fifty pounds and could hold up to eighty pounds of metal. However from the work of the bellows Ethan’s arms were tired and the put that was only seventy pounds felt like it was at full weight. Slowly Ethan took a one step forward and then another one. It was about a hundred feet to the iron scrap pile that Ethan could take some pieces and fill it up with the rest. Each step felt like he was going to drop the pot on the ground, but as Ethan closed in on the scrap pile with the other apprentices loading scraps of iron, Ethan grew excited and told himself just one more step, just one more step. Placing the pot down, Ethan smiled and put on leather gloves to help sort through the rest of the pile. He was grateful that he stopped off here because he was able to pack the pot full of left over iron and tell the loading crew that one more pot was ready before going to take a break.

[Ethan Ironhorse]

Ethan felt like the cheese that he ate stuck well to his ribs. The almost hallowed and tired feeling had gone away, and now Ethan was ready for a little more work. Thankfully, besides the fireboxes the miners had requested picks as well. Ethan had reviewed their inventory and saw that they had iron bars ready for the forge and he went to pick up several of the quarter stock to do so. Picking up the ten pound bars, one in each hand, Ethan went back over to his forge feeling the strange that in less than sixty days would to be gone from Syliras. Everyday, since he was fourteen, he came to the Ironworks and worked. Placing the quarter bar stock into the flames with his tongs, Ethan began to wonder was Zeltiva was going to be like. He had heard tales from sailors and caravan teamsters about the city nestled in the mountains and something called Kelp Ale, but it has always been a dream till now. Ethan began to feed the forge fire, making the iron bars heat up. As the bars began to change their color to a dull red Ethan picked up a hammer and tongs. The hammers that Ethan had choose were a wide face with a heavy head. Quickly, he began pounding the bar in half with a wedge that had been setup. Each quarter bar was ten pounds and a pick head should never be more than ten for working. The first bar of iron began to flatten out Ethan formed a wedge in the middle of the bar. Quickly he folded the metal back on top of itself, and they began beating it again, this time the metal seemed less soft, and he had to put more muscle into hammering it back down. By the third fold, Ethan was grunting from the force he had to put into each blow realizing that only heating it back up would allow the work to continue. Ethan continued the folding process making the metal in the bar have several layers with different grain structures. The heating up and cooling was tempering the iron into a mild steel making each layer stronger as a whole. The sound of the metal began to change as layers and tempering of the metal occurred. When Ethan had started the bar had a low pitch to it, now the range of it had tighten to a high ring. As Ethan recognized the strengthening of the metal by the sound it made, he place the bar back in the forge. For now it was time to start work on the other bar. Ethan prepared to make the final fold of each bar. Taking out an Iron rod shaped like an pick handle, Ethan would fold the metal over the handle while it was hot as the metal cooled the head would fall off from shrinking in overall length. Ethan began hammering bar into a rectangle. Working with the edge of the anvil Ethan began to bend the bar. As the bar bent far enough so that Ethan could switch from tongs to the axe handle, he completed the fold by hitting the two ends together till they became one. Once done, Ethan pulled out the iron handle as the bar cooled and placed it off to the side. As each piece was folded with the shaped hole, Ethan prepared himself in making the pick. Ethan began by picking up the bar by the handle and elongating each side into a sweeping curved for the pickaxe. Slowly the blade began to take shape as Ethan began to work the other side of the bar into another sweeping curve. He made sure to make the point think enough so that it had strength stand up to hard rock, but thin enough so that he would be standing around all night at the whetstone trying to make a point on the metal. After finishing the pick heads, Ethan quenched the iron and went to the grinding stone. Grey almost black grit appeared on the stone as he moved the head back and forth. Until the pick each had a point but not a cutting edge.

[Ethan Ironhorse]

Ethan had spent the most of the night creating iron picks for the mines and helping with the iron firebox molds, but right at this moment Ethan sat near the cooling molds and felt like he could take a nap. Him and several others were sitting around waiting for metal to cool. This was the thing about winter, because farmers, miners, teamsters, millers, and all the other jobs needed warmth and good weather there weren’t many orders. The problem with it was there were not a lot of orders to keep everyone busy. An apprentice stood up and checked the temperature of the moulds with his hand. He was able to get it within a few inches of the rock before moving it back. Looking at the senior apprentice, the man finally agreed to let them try cooling the large mould. Ethan and the other apprentices got up and grabbed large metal bars to gently lift the mould and then slide the bars underneath. Lifting up the great mould required Ethan and another large apprentice, for including the iron in the mould it weighed close to four hundred pounds. Using the bars as a stretcher they moved the moulds out into the slag pit and smelting pot area to let them cool down in the cold night air. All the moulds would cool faster in the cold night, but they had to be careful that the intense heat from the mould was low enough to not crack the stone. As they placed the mould down Ethan took a moment to look back at the mould seeing steam almost rising from the hot Iron and Stone in the night air. Ethan went back and helped the others with more moulds. Once completed Ethan went back inside to empty the ash trap from the forge and began shoveling out the ash and embers from several other furnaces. It was a simple job cleaning the forges and furnaces, but as midwinter arrived it was time to allow some of the forges and blasts furnaces time to cool and be cleaned for the next year. A younger apprentice retrieved a wooden wheelbarrow and some small hand shovels used to scoop out the forge and a couple of spades for the blast furnaces. The forges were easy for Ros had set them up to have small vents for the ash to drop into and in between these vents were small holes for the bellows to pump fresh air into it. Ethan and the apprentice took the small hand scoops and began moving the ash into trap and scooping it into the wheelbarrow. After the majority of the work was done, Ethan told the younger apprentice to go get a bucket of water and a couple of rags as Ethan continued to the next forge. It took the couple two bells to finish cleaning four forges, the wheelbarrow had been dumped twice in to the slag pit and the two of them were covered in ash and soot, but the clay interior of the forge was clean and Ethan could tell that of the forges that they cleaned only one needed a minor crack repair. Ethan motioned for the apprentice to go off and grab a several long handle brooms as he would be working on the chute for the furnace and Ethan would be working in the main heat box. Ethan opened the blast furnace doors to find a mountain of ash, rock, and metal slag, along with enough heat to feel like he was working close to his fire place. Ethan sighed and picked up his spade so that he could attack the inside. First Ethan began to shovel the ash from the outer edges into the wheelbarrow. It wasn’t quite three or four scoops that Ethan found his first pile of embers. Ethan choose to take the metal blade and break up the dying embers as he started on another area of the pile. Back and forth Ethan went chopping up the embers that he found and placing them in the same pile. Ethan was half way into the chamber when he finally found the mother load of why it was still hot. The back of the chamber had been stuffed with embers and coal. As he had removed the ash the embers began to slowly breath back life and catch flame. Ethan called a stop to the apprentice above as the soot began to fall on top of the coals and briefly ignite. Taking the spade Ethan did his best to even out the coals across the floor of the chamber. Taking a piece of chalk Ethan wrote on the grey slate next to the furnace that someone needed to check the back vents of the chamber as he found live coals still being heated. So Ethan and the apprentice when to the next furnace to finally finish out their night.

[Radiant]

Ethan :

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Blacksmithing	+2 XP
Metalsmithing	+3 XP
Body Building	+3 XP
Endurance	+2 XP

Lores

Lore Earned

Design Of Fireboxes

Blacksmithing: Recycling Metal Objects

Loots

Notes :

Detailed job thread, good job, as always, 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.