(Flashback) The Ironworks: Of Fire and Alloy - Part 5

[Bandin Everdance]

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

"Just leave it to the side," Ros said.

"I've got to ask," Bandin prompted. "What's the use in polishing an ingot that's just going to be worked right after, anyway?"

Ros smiled, even chuckled for a single breathe. "None at all."

"You'll have to run that by me again," Bandin said; the Isur had lost him with that one.

"I've already told you," Ros said. "We're not worried about speed right now. We're worried about teaching you the process. Yes, there's no use in polishing an ingot that's about to be used. Getting it filed down and uniform is enough; it just has to make weight and shape, not have any voids... It's more than useable at that point, but we need you to understand how to smelt, mold, and finish. Polishing is the simplest form of finishing and I wanted to introduce you to it before anything else."

"And now?" Bandin asked; everything the Isur said made sense and he appreciated learning just about anything that Ros was willing to teach--it'd all come in handy eventually, of that he had no doubt.

"Now we teach you about molds," Ros said. "But not before we start another fire."

Bandin's gaze went over to the much smaller furnace that sat beside the work table. An iron pot sat atop a spit, strung over an empty forge bed.

"Most forges aren't going to have a full-scale blast furnace and, as you saw, it's definitely a bit much when you're just trying to smelt out and mold a small project," Ros said. "Now I'm going to teach you how to use a smelting pot. It's the same concept, mostly, but there's a few differences."

"Come on, wipe your hands off and get on to the woodpile," Ros said.

The setup around the smaller furnace was much the same as what had been laid out around the large one Ros had started him on, just sized down in every way. There was a chest, which Bandin knew to contain the tender, and a wood stack, along with coal bags and what he assumed was already prepared bags of tin ore.

There might be something to be said about uniformity, after all, Bandin admitted to himself. Thanks to Ros having set up each forge space the same, Bandin could know, without even looking, just where everything he'd need was located.

Ros approached the pile and picked up a single piece of wood with his Isurian arm and handed it to Bandin. The boy hesitated; he tried to remember just what the master smith had told him about wood stacking: heavier, lighter, and then heavier again, and leave a space in the middle for the tender.

Bandin placed down the piece of wood on the outer edge and then picked up another similarly weighted log and mirrored it on the other side. He worked his way in, leaving just a gap in the middle. He alternated light pieces in-between the heaviest pieces on the bottom. Then he worked his way up, as best as he could remember.

Finally, he added the tender.

Ross only gave him minor corrections as he set up the furnace. These consisted of small details and observations about the wood that were more hints as to how they'd affect the furnace's heating up than anything else.

Word Count: 562 Words

[Bandin Everdance]

"The furnace is smaller; it won't take nearly as long to get to heat," Ros said. "Now you need to remember that we're still going for the same amount of warmth, but it'll be more concentrated in the small area just below the smelting pot."

Bandin nodded and placed the flint and steel away; he tucked it back inside the little tool alcove that was nestled under the lid of the tinder chest.

"Alright, what mold are we going to use, though?" Bandin asked; he noted a distinct lack of an inbuilt system of runner channels on this smaller furnace; it wasn't entirely the same as the larger blast furnace and the lack of a mold-affixing system was by far the biggest difference.

"That's takes me to the next lesson," Ros said.

The man once more ducked to ruffle down in the cabinets below the workbench, but this time he went by Bandin and on over to the far side.

The Isur withdrew a large bag of something that Bandin couldn't guess at to its contents, though it looked quite compacted. He was impressed as Ros lifted it mostly with his strong arm alone, placing it onto the table.

Next came a small, wooden frame of some sort, both a top and a bottom piece. A mostly square box, with metal locks on the side, but entirely empty in the middle. He placed this too on the table, directly beside the mysterious bag.

"This is a flask," Ros said.

Bandin glanced at the fire, keeping an eye on it. It'd be a while still before it was hot enough to rapidly consume fuel, however; they had some lead time to focus on whatever it was that the Isur was trying to get at.

"It doesn't look like you could drink out of it," Bandin commented. "It'd rightly spill out if you tried to pour anything in there."

"You don't," Ros opened the only drawer he hadn't yet and withdrew a handful of a shape. "This is a pattern."

He opened the flask and separated its two parts. Then put them back together.

"Come and do what I just did," he prompted.

Bandin approached and, without much ceremony as he was getting more comfortable following the Isur's commands, flipped the top half of the flask over onto the table.

"The top is called a cope," Ros explained. "The bottom is a drag and you're going to want to flip it over."

Bandin did just that.

"What you just did: you inverted the drag," Ros explained. "That's the terminology."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"Grab the pattern," Ros said. "I'll let you figure it out."

Bandin grabbed the now suspiciously ingot shaped pattern up into his grasp.

"Pull it apart, it'll come in two," Ros said.

Bandin did just as he was told, again.

"There's two sides to each pattern," Ros explained.

"We do that so that when we pack this and that." he patted the inverted drag and pointed at the sat aside cope, "with this oiled sand," he touched the now not so mysterious bag, "we'll be able to pull apart the two sides of the flask and remove the mold without breaking anything up."

"Now, place the side that has its guiding pins facing down into the drag," the Isur ordered.

Bandin did that and doing so slowly had it coming together in his mind just why they'd inverted the drag in the first place.

Word Count: 580 Words

[Bandin Everdance]

He'd flipped the drag because it'd be on the bottom when things all came together. It made sense now: placing down the pattern into an upside down drag meant that it'd, conversely, be right-side up when he flipped it back around--which was presumably going to happen sooner or later, though Bandin was still a bit murky on exactly when.

"Don't put it right in the middle. You're going to need space to complete the mold. Off-set it just a bit, but don't touch the mold to the side of the drag," Ros instructed. "The same is going to go for the cope when we get to putting the other side of the mold inside it."

The Isur pointed out the edge of the flask's bottom half. "Leave about this much space. We need to be able to pack enough sand that it's stable and won't mess up the integrity of the casting."

Bandin moved the pattern over just so, slowing down as he approached the edge and doing his best to leave just as much as the Isur had instructed him to. Ros knew best; Bandin was learning, improving his metalsmithing skills and knowledge by bounds, but he was, ultimately, just along for the ride.

There would be time to see just how much he remembered and could replicate on his own later; of that he was certain.

Ros reached into the bag of sand and, to Bandin's surprise, removed a smaller bag that looked a little permeable.

"This is parting powder," the Isur said, unceremoniously, and handed the white cloth bag to his new apprentice. "It's mostly talcum rock bits, ground finely. You can probably guess that it's cheap enough and easy to make too. We usually just buy it, but, yes, sometimes you apprentices will have to fix some up for us."

"The bag isn't too tightly woven. Just shake it out gently over the pattern and drag," the Isur instructed.

Bandin held the small, cloth bag by its drawn shut mouth and gave it a shake over the flask drag. A small cloud of white powder fell out over the table. Now able to judge just how much might come out with each shake, Bandin gave it a couple more.

"The sand is oiled. It helps it to not fall apart when we flip and manipulate the flask; it also keeps it from falling apart when we pour molten metal into it," Ros explained. "That also means it can be somewhat prone to sticking and breaking away on things. We're going to have to remove the pattern, before we pour the metal. We don't want to damage the imprint the pattern will leave--that'll ruin the molding and mean we have to start all over again."

"That's enough," Ros bade Bandin to stop applying the ground talcum, before continuing his explanation. "The parting powder helps us to separate the pattern from the sand when the time comes. It also keeps the sand from sticking to the blasted table."

"Pretty useful stuff," Bandin commented.

Word Count: 508 Words

[Bandin Everdance]

"You're not wrong," the Isur said. "There's a lot of little convivences and tricks of the trade. Things you wouldn't even begin to think about if someone else hadn't of thought of it for you first. Izurdin might've nudged us in the right direction when it comes to crafting, but it was our forefathers and theirs that mixed and matched all these different sorts of things, until we come to now. Our every protocol and procedure is built on the back of old ones."

Bandin gave the bag the last shake and set it aside, opposite to the bag of sand. "I guess so. That's pretty out there to think about, though."

"It is. Especially for my people. We age slower than you do. The world burned and knowledge was lost--so much knowledge that it's more than tragedy, it's a disaster. We don't even know all of what we've forgotten. For you humans it was only twelve generations or so ago on, the low end. that everything was lost, but it's still so far away now. For us it was half that, but we weren't just safe in our mountains. Kalea didn't used to be just mountains--it was hills and forests and young ranges that reached for, but didn't touch the sky. When the gods warred, the land broke. Our cities were torn apart, our people... well, most of them didn't make it. We fared no better than the other races. We lost the same amount of lives and knowledge and advancement, if nor more, as anyone else," Ros explained.

Bandin suddenly felt a bit of melancholy spread over him. What had been forgotten? Just how much? Could it ever be retrieved, or would doing so just contribute to further disaster?

"Where does that leave us?" Bandin asked.

"Well," the Isur paused. "It leaves us picking up the pieces. I'm just a smith, but--"

The master paused. "With every little innovation we make, we add to the knowledge that the next generation will have to work with. They'll see things we didn't, grow, and learn. and, eventually, they'll climb back to the heights we won't even imagine in our lifetimes--if we're all just given the chance to try."

This was a new side of the master smith: the idealistic side and, while Bandin hadn't exactly expected it, he was now seeing very clearly how it influenced everything that the man did.

Ros was an innovator by nature and belief. It was a potent combination and Bandin wasn't confused about where all the man's success had come from, if he ever had been.

The young smith reached into the bag of sand; he dug his fingers into the oiled grains and pulled out a clump.

"So," Bandin said. "What do our forefathers say I should do with this sand?"

Ros laughed in full this time. He pointed to the pattern.

"Right there around the pattern, pack it in. You'll need much more than just a handful, it needs to be well-packed," Ros said.

Bandin placed the first handful down, building a frame of oily sand around the pattern.

Wordcount: 519 Words

[Bandin Everdance]

"Alright, pull that out," Ros had watched the young blacksmith make the mistake.

"What'd I mess up?" Bandin asked.

"You have to crumble the first bit of sand up and sprinkle it over the drag," the Isur said. "You never fill it in one go and you make sure it's all even throughout and just barely covering the pattern."

Bandin reached into the drag and began removing the sand. He started to crumble and sprinkle it over the pattern, just as he'd been instructed.

"Like that, or different?" he asked.

"That's fine. Get more sand," Ros instructed and waited for his apprentice to do so, before he continued what he was saying. "If you fill it all at once, you'll be able to get a nice and hard surface across the top of the drag, what will be the bottom when it's flipped over, but the actual sand around the pattern will be weak and loose; you'll get a bad molding, if the whole thing doesn't crumble away altogether when you try and pick it up to flip it back upright again."

Bandin grabbed another handful of sand and filled the drag up just enough to be over the pattern.

"Just use your fingers and push the sand down and around the pattern. You need the strength most there; it's not the only place that matters, but it's the most important. You'll still need the sand to be sturdy enough to survive you cutting channels and runners into it, and risers too eventually," Ros explained.

Ros reached into the bag of sand and removed a wooden tool that appeared to be flat on one side and pointed on the other, much like a flat screwdriver's head.

"This is a ramming tool," Ros explained. "Just compacting it down with your fingers won't be enough."

The Isur continued with his trend of allowing Bandin to do everything himself, with only his well-given instruction to go upon, and handed the young apprentice the ramming tool.

"Sometimes this tool can be a bit big for smaller flasks, but you'll be fine enough for now. Use the flat end across the top of the sand," Ros instructed.

Bandin beat the sand down with up and down motions; it became more and more compacted, but displaced a bit towards the edges that he couldn't get with the flat end.

"Use the pointed, edged end to work into the corners. Any old piece of wood will work as a ramming tool; you just need something that gives you more leverage and a harder touch than a finger," the Isur told him.

Bandin flipped the ramming tool around, and held the flask steady with his free hand, before he went about working the sand into the edges.

"Good, now add another layer of sand," Ros said; Bandin's compacting down of the sand had left it filling only a little over half of the flask.

The smith reached into the bag and sprinkled another handful of sand over the previous one. He was getting a rhythm now and from there he added sand and packed it down with only minimal guidance from the Isur; he switched between both sides of the ramming tool rather proficiently and as he needed to.

Word Count: 541

[Alric Lysane]

Bandin

Hi!

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~ Alric