(Flashback) The Ironworks: Of Fire and Alloy - Part 3

[Bandin Everdance]

Timestamp: 1st of Spring, 518 A.V.

"Good, now do you see how the level of the metal is shrinking. Look close, that's the shrinkage I was talking about. The total volume in the ingot mold is dipping lower. The only reason you can't really see it is that the riser is slowly filling it, just about as fast as it recedes down deeper into the casting actually."

"Alright, so how do you measure out how much extra material you'll need?" Bandin asked.

"Up to half again as much," Ros answered without question. "You can get away with less if you have a well-vented mold and you keep a good watch on the heat and cooling."

"Here take that rod and look there," Ros said. "Notice how it's cooling? Well, this ingot mold is only about two inches thick. There's not a lot of room for things to go wrong. The bigger you go the worse it'll get. It's worse still if you have a mold that's designed in a way that you can't access the metal while it's cooling."

"What molds are like that?" Bandin asked.

"Most are. Nearly all sand molds and a good majority of stone and clay molds as well," Ros explained and pointed at the flat, cooling surface top of the ingot which was still quite frothy and viscous--not yet a solid by any means. "This just needs to be flat. The actual hallmark on the ingot is carved out slightly on the bottom of the mold and it'll come out with it on it, thanks to that stone design being raised up. We don't need a top to this mold; it's just too simple a design. That makes things easy as can be for us; we can watch the entire process from the pour to the cooling. Things aren't usually that easy and you shouldn't get used to it, you're not going to be able to get used to it once we actually put you to work proper, whenever it is that we get you there."

"Now you can't see it well, but if you notice how this is cooling oddly here and almost swirling here," Ros pointed out an area of the brothy copper that was slightly, ever so slightly only, more disturbed than the rest. "That's where an air bubble is forming, a void if you will and that void will solidify in the final work. For almost any work, but especially an ingot, that's unacceptable--selling a flawed ingot like that and trying to pass it off as quality, purposeful or not, is the kind of novice mistake that can ruin you before you even get off the ground, or even after. We have to avoid that in our molds through ventilation and careful construction."

"We can fix it here just by popping the bubble with a gentle stir," Ros explained and gestured. "Now go on, you have what you need."

Bandin placed the iron stirring stick into the copper and began to swirl it. He felt the lack of resistance where the bubble had formed and watched as the surrounding copper flowed into it once it was pierced.

Word Count: 532 Words

[Bandin Everdance]

Bandin finished stirring out the air pocket and looked to Ros for approval.

"Right, but we've had a bit more slag come to the top from the runner channel," the Isur smith directed. "Let's take care of that."

"Sometimes a void isn't terrible, depending on how you view your work," Ros said. "For the most valuable of metals a void can save material at the cost of quality and structural strength. For an ingot this would be fraud and unacceptable. For a small statue that had no practical use other than sitting on a shelf, well, there's more of a case for it. Some goldsmiths don't mind having voids in their jewelry and other works; it saves material and you can hide it well enough if you're doing it purposefully, or choosing which air pockets you let survive well into the cooling," there was a bit of a tone of disapproval when Ros spoke of this practice of purposefully allowing flaws in one's works.

Bandin made move to grab the iron cup they'd used to brush the slag off into. He repeated the process of skimming off the sludge-like dots of waste product. This time he did the whole process with a good bit more confidence. Though, it was a bit harder to get the less grouped together, and just generally smaller amount, of slag this time. Little flecks that appeared and disappeared in the melted ore could be made out, but Bandin wasn't altogether sure he could do anything about it; he'd waste more copper removing the smallest flecks of slag now than he would improve the cast by getting them out--or at least it looked that way and he hoped his assessment was correct.

"What do you think about that?" he asked as he worked; he wanted a clearer take than just the man's tone gave him.

"It's utilitarian and if everyone involved knows then I can't begrudge it," Ros said, but still sounded ever so slightly perturbed.

The smith glanced back to the most empty channel and riser depression. "That should be about all there is. I don't think there's much worry of there being enough left to spoil the casting. Still, we'll watch for little bits drifting together that we might can remove."

"These flecks here," Bandin pointed out. "Will they do anything?"

"Likely not," Ros said. "It's still a flaw in the casting, but it's too late to fix them now. There's not enough slag left in the ore run to form groupings big enough to skim easily and it's not worth it to risk the copper by going after each one individually. You'd likely just push the flecks deeper into the mold, anyway, and, even though they rise to the top mostly, at this point in the cooling they're likely to get stuck deeper in the metal bar all the same."

"How do you prevent it?" Bandin asked.

"You're more careful when you skim," Ros said. "You get it all. You skim sections and leave enough to get everything up in little groups."

Bandin nodded. "But it won't affect the metal? This much anyway?"

Ros shook his head. "Not this much, not noticeably, but you can do better."

Word Count: 537 Words

[Bandin Everdance]

"This is only going to need a few stirs more," Ros admitted. "Now that we've made it this far, we're in the final stretch and things should go easy, but can either proceed smoothly or terribly. If you've made, or bought, a bad mold now is when you'll find that out. If it's giving you a lot of trouble in the cooling then you've likely messed up your ventilation, the smelting, or your ore is just bad quality. Those are the first things I'd think of, anyway."

"There's a lot to know," Bandin said. "When I first learned to smith I was overwhelmed by all the different ways to shape and move the metal, but it all clicked once I'd done it with my own two hands. It's all physical, muscle memory. You've only got to grasp it mentally just enough to get your hands moving. If you're lucky you have someone to watch you and they'll fix the little wrong habits you're forming. But, ultimately, it's your hands doing the work. It's your hands that remember what's going on. There's thought to it, but that mostly comes in the deciding of what you're going to make. Your body does the making once the thinking is over."

Ros seemed to actually be listening intently, something other teachers might not be so inclined to do. There was a respect to this man, both in the demanding and in the giving, that Bandin couldn't help but... well, respect.

"This," Bandin paused; he was trying to keep his point going, to phrase it just right so Ros could understand how he was seeing everything. "This is all mental. You're proportioning, and watching, and gauging, and remembering all the times you've done all that before, to try and get it a little more right that go around. There's no muscle memory to it--it's just memory plain, and decisions both momentary and planned, and tweaking. You seem like you love it. And I like the freedom and learning involved so far, but it's different. And, for something so close to smithing, it's out there to me that it's so very not."

"Hm," Ros stroked his goatee and pointed down to the ingot, prompting Bandin to give it another stir; the ingot was all but almost solidified now and he had to hold the stirring rod above the mold for a good few seconds, just to let the sluggish copper that'd stuck to it fall back into its proper place so that it could resettle properly. He made a note of this effect, figuring it'd help him know when not to stir in the future.

"That's very fair," the Isur replied. "It's like I said. This is the why behind why all that muslce'ing you were talking about works. It's math. Chemistry. This part of it, anyway. Later on you'll get back to the physical, but this is where the real usefulness of metalsmithing comes in. It gives you options, a selection of things to work with. It's worth it. It'll even help you to think more during the smithing. If you know the exact properties of your raw material then you can bring out its strengths all the better; you'll know what limits to push and when to stop, what to shore up and what to let go simply because the metal you're using doesn't give you much of a choice."

Word Count: 567 Words

[Bandin Everdance]

The blast furnace had died down mostly. The ingot itself was all but cooled to solidity.

"I still say that was a good deal of work just for one ingot," Bandin said.

Ros laughed, but it was a teacher's laugh; the kind a parent gave a child who'd done well, but now complained about the do'ing. "I'll give you that. These furnaces are for much bigger jobs. We do use them mostly for ingot-making, because it's just not worth the fuel costs otherwise. Not to mention how much an investment these things are themselves; it's just not worth it to do small work like this."

"I needed you to be familiar with the blast furnace, though. Until you get better, you'll be working it whenever we set you to this side of the trade. You apprentices are in charge of the mass smelting of our ingot supply. Both from the iron ore we bring in from our mines and just what we trade for to keep our overall supplies up. It gives you all a chance to learn the alloying process, our recipes, and it's hard to ruin the work if you've been properly taught the basics--which you will be. All around a good thing for you all," the Isur further explained.

"We're going to do it again for the tin?" Bandin asked.

"Well, not quite," the Isur said. "Let's get this ingot out."

Ros removed a pair of tongs from a free-standing rack and tossed Bandin the heat-resistant gloves they'd been set atop, before handing the tool over as well. "Get that ingot out. It's solid, we can tell that pretty well just by looking at it, but it's best to assume it's still hot. And, I'll give you a bit of advice: it is."

The Isur moved away. "Come on, we'll cool it off. The furnace is dying and will be fine; this whole place is mostly stone and for a reason."

The master smith led the younger one to a small area of the shop. A large table was pressed against a wall, next to which sat what appeared to be a small oven--much smaller than the blast furnace had been and only vaguely similar in looks. Old cabinets took up the space below the tabletop, tools lined the walls and various familiarly crafted free-floating stands set about. A large, oaken barrel of water sat next to the table.

"Dunk it," Ros said. "We're not worried about hardening right now. This isn't forging. It's metalsmithing. Get it cool and we can move onto finishing."

Bandin approached the bucket. He held the medium-sized, misshapen and unfinished copper ingot out in front of him with the cold iron tongs. He made sure his grip was solid while hovering the would-be ingot over the barrel, though there wasn't much adjusting he could do now that he was relying on the black metal to hold the orange.

"Don't drop it in, or you'll have to wait for the water to cool and get your arms wet," Ros offered.

"I've got it," Bandin said and began the careful submerging of the ingot; so hot was the unassuming, small bar that the water began to steam and bubble--though not as badly as Bandin had sometimes seen in the act of smithing proper.

Word Count: 549 Words

[Bandin Everdance]

"You know what's it about," Ros said. "Keep it in there until the water cools; that's how we'll know the job is done."

"Right, not so different," Bandin replied.

The Isur smith nodded. "Not so different; you're picking this up quick. Smiths always do; you've got a mind for craft and metal. The interest is what smooths the learning."

The frothing water within the oaken barrel slowly began to bubble down to a cool simmer.

"It's good?" Bandin asked.

"Hmph," Ros grunted in the affirmative. "Shake it off and get it over to the table. We're going to finish it. Won't be much of a process. Ingots are easy to make presentable."

Bandin gave the almost-ingot a good few shakes and approached the table.

"Here?" he asked; he hovered the ingot over a relatively central spot.

"Just so," Ros said; the Isur began to retrieve a number of tools from the rack directly above the worktable.

"These are metal cutters," he said and laid a plier-like pair down upon the wood.

"This is sanding paper. Gum-bonded parchment; it can be made with shells, sand, or seeds. It's as old a thing as anyone can remember, but it works. Better than water and sand, that's without a doubt. I prefer a simple sand-based paper. Seeds hardly work. Shells are too location-dependent."

"And this," he pulled a counter-weighted scale from the side of the table, "is how we know we haven't removed too much material. You're not likely to do it, especially if you're doing it right, but it's better to know than not. You've got to be sure with these things. You're liable to set one our smiths to anger if they end up not having what they need by only a margin and all just because you weren't thorough."

"You can put the tongs down right there," Ros told him. "Come over; we'll start with the cutters. We need to get this excess from the channels cut off and put away for reclaiming later on."

Bandin leaned the tongs up against the thick table-side, out of the way of the cabinet doors down below the table. After which he accepted the cutters from Ros.

"All we need you to do is cut just here, close as you can to the surface," Ros said. "The closer you get, the less grinding you're going to have to do. Believe me, take my advice and make it close; you don't want to, and shouldn't be, spending a lot of time finishing up just because you fumbled on your cutting."

Bandin did his best to get the cutters pushed right up against the rounded back of the ingot. With a snipe he cut off the cylindrical excess that had been attached to the molded thing.

"Other side as well?" he asked.

"Go on," Ros prompted.

"Got you," Bandin repeated his go-to affirmation.

He sniped the other bit of excess off the other side of the ingot. It was actually somewhat looking like a proper thing now, though the area below where he'd cut was still slightly raised.

"Not bad at all," Ros confirmed. "You'll still need the paper, though, and some water."

Word Count: 528 Words

[Alric Lysane]

Bandin

Hi!

Should you return please update your CS and PM/DM me for your Grade!

~ Alric