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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2014 4:33:50 GMT
775 words
| | The Forge
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It was one of those days when Caerbannog just wanted some time to herself. Having done some work with the guild, she noticed that people had difficulty finding the right tools for their crafting classes. Most of the other adventurers had to buy overpriced crappy tools from landers, or borrow old tools from other people. Caerbannog herself had to buy some cheap toolsets when she was a chef, and as a blacksmith it was even more difficult to find good quality things because the market was saturated with landers. So, with this in mind and as a reason to stay out of everyone’s way in the mean time, the wolf-hair hopped off to Saint Pancras Station.
It was the same old station with the same old people... and I mean literally, the blacksmiths around the area where Caerbannog worked were old people. In the same old lander-owned smithy stall that she always used, the wolf-hair noticed that the furnace was ready for use. The work bench was also neatly lined with various tools and materials, and paper and pen for her to work with. It reminded her why she was there: crafters usually had to borrow things or work with something that was subpar only to be able to get by. With the recipe that she had in mind, the wolf-hair thought to alleviate that problem.
Being a blacksmith, she could only work on tools made of metal, however. The handles made of stone or wood could be purchased from landers, but the functional parts would have to be crafted by her. A tool that was mostly wood or stone though, such as a ceramic knife, would have to be made by their respective crafters. Since blacksmith tools were mostly metal with just a few wood or stone parts, Caerbannog set to work right away.
In the real world, most of the tools that she encountered were made of steel or iron and so the wolf-hair thought to use that material in Elder Tale too. The first item that she wanted to craft was her own furnace. By checking the furnace that she had been using beforehand, and also when she thought back to when she cleaned Rose’s furnace, Caerbannog knew that it was not all made of metal. Rather, it had a metal body with an interior that was lined with cement and bricks. Naturally, metal was susceptible to heat but stone was more resilient. With the appropriate materials, she could build her own furnace and with an anvil and a quench tank, then it would be a functional forge.
Since she was in the blacksmith area, Caer was able to purchase some furnace cement and firebricks from other blacksmiths. Some of them had taken to selling materials because the crafting market tended to be too competitive; it was a good mix of people that allowed Saint Pancras Station to flourish. Fire clay was easy enough to find especially with the Marshlands nearby, but few people could work on it diligently enough to make firebricks. The ones that Caerbannog used, apparently, were made by some lander artisan whose sole capability was to make reliable firebricks. The item usually sold out well and based on her observation, there were not rejects in the stocks so the wolf-hair had thought to use it for her furnace.
Using steel ingots and plates, the wolf-hair worked on two steel bins side by side. They were not joined together, but were held up by a simple yet stable frame made of steel as well. Soon, bins that were shaped like very deep washing sinks were formed and Caerbannog cooled them in the lander stall’s quench tub. Now, she had two bins: one to be turned to her furnace, the other to be turned to a quench tub. Both were of the same size so that they would be able to accommodate roughly the same amount. As for the covering of the furnace, she would think about it later; at that moment, the blacksmith mixed up the furnace cement and began to line one of the bins. She then put the firebricks in it one by one to make sure that they were aligned and had little space in between.
Caerbannog took a break afterwards since the cement had to dry out naturally anyway. While she was relaxing, the wolf-hair began to make a list of the things that she would make and the materials that she would use for them. As for a reforge effect, the only one that she thought applicable to the toolset would be an increase in Production Quality, so she wrote that down as well.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2014 4:35:03 GMT
390 words
| | Item 1: Tongs
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Well, that was weird. Caerbannog did not get any interest... ah well, maybe it was just a glitch. ANYWAY, back to crafting. With the tools that she wanted to make all listed down and completed, the wolf-hair looked it over: tongs, hammers of at least two sizes, a rolling slab for plates, detailing tools. She also listed “anvil” in case she forgot to include it with the forge that she was making. About half an hour or so into what she was doing, Caer got up to check the furnace that needed to set. She had pushed it a little way into the street so that it would dry out under the sun, and fortunately, no one was caught unaware enough to bump into it.
The cement had settled and the firebricks were held in place. She would still have to leave it out ot dry overnight, but at least it would not wobble out of place when she moved the whole item. Caerbannog then pulled the makeshift furnace back into the shade of the stall so that she could worry less about its safety. The girl then set to work on the items in her list: a pair of steel blacksmithing tongs would do nicely. She was tired of working with the sooty smithy tongs that the lander lent to her, though she was not going to complain to him about it. The wolf-hair knew that landers did their best to live independently and with no other source of income but his smithing and the renting out of his stall, said lander would have kept each and every tool until it was completely useless. As for the sooty smithing tongs, they were very useful, just old and filthy.
That aside, Caer began to work on some steel ingots which she slowly stretched out with the aid of the furnace’s heat, the sooty tongs and a trusty heavy smithing hammer on the anvil. With each pound of the hammer, the heated ingot flattened bit by bit and with a few turns in the furnace, it soon took a shape similar to the tool that handled it. The first half of the tongs was done, and soon the second half followed. Caerbannog then cooled them down before she fitted them together to create a tool that she could handle better with her little hands.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2014 7:08:26 GMT
515 words
| | Item 2: Hammer A
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Of all the individual tools that she had to craft for the toolset, Caerbannog had finished two of them. The furnace along with its quench tub, together they were the forge. An anvil still had to be made for it, but that was to be created later due to its size and weight. The blacksmith had moved on to working on the smithing tongs and with just a little work on her part, it was also finished soon enough. She still needed to inspect it thoroughly later to check if it was serviceable, but for the most part, it was intact and could be used after inspection.
Now, the easier tool to make was the hammer. Because she had made a great hammer before, the blacksmith knew which parts to put together and what material was suited for it. The metal to be used should be hard but not brittle, and should be able to withstand vibrations of the repeated strikes. Instead of the usual steel material, Caerbannog opted to use a tough sort of wood for the handle so that the impact to her arm would be lessened. There were pre-made handles in the market and so she only had to choose one, and then she could focus on the head of the hammer.
Caerbannog took a single high carbon steel ingot and place it in the lander’s furnace. She then waited for it to be sufficiently heated, and then the blacksmith set to work. With the hammer that she’d been using all this time, the wolf-hair struck the hot ingot to slowly form the appropriate shape for a hammer’s head. One face was completely flat and would used to strike wide surfaces, while the other end was like a wedge that could strike narrower parts. She took up her hammer against the heated ingot and threw down strike after strike, and after who-knows-how-many strikes, the head took sharp. Every now and then, the wolf-hair would re-heat it in the furnace just to make sure that she was striking a hot piece of steel.
As one side was evened out little by little, the blacksmith turned the head over to the other side upon her anvil so that she could work on that. Since the current hammer that she used was completely made of steel, it was hot to the touch if not for her gloves, and still the vibrations of each strike got through the leather and cloth equipment. She hoped to be able to make a blacksmith hammer that would be easier to handle, not so tough on the arms and hands, but still heavy enough for smithing work. So far, it was going well.
At the bottom of the ingot which was being fashioned into a hammer’s head, Caerbannog had struck a hole in which the wooden handle could be fitted. She would have to secure it in place, but that was easier to work around. With a few more strikes to the hot ingot upon her anvil, the wolf-hair was able to create one of the basic tools of a blacksmith: a smithing hammer.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2014 11:46:56 GMT
305 words
| | Item 3: Hammer B
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Once the first hammer was done, Caerbannog set to work on the second hammer which was to be made smaller. While the first hammer was made to pound swords and spears into shape, more delicate work would require a smaller, easier to control hammer. The difference was the size of the tool because a larger, heavier hammer would have greater impact once it made contact with other materials. Caer immediately set to work by picking out a steel ingot similar to the one that she used for the first hammer. This second ingot was smaller in size though because it would be used for the head of the hammer.
As for the handle, she had picked out a variety of wooden handles beforehand and had laid them out on the work bench. A handle made of mahogany wood, reddish brown and firm, was chosen to further differentiate it from the other hammer which was larger and had a pale yellow handle. Caerbannog separated it from the rest of the materials as she prepared to work on the head of the hammer. With the sooty tongs, she put her selected steel ingot into the furnace so that the fire would make it workable. On the work bench, the mahogany wood handle waited for its counterpart.
Caerbannog carefully struck the heated ingot with her borrowed hammer as it was laid out upon the anvil by the blazing furnace. Since it was smaller than the one that she made before, the blacksmith took care not to strike it too strongly lest it be flattened out. The time of completion was much shorter due to the size of the hammer head, and afterwards she quenched it in the tub, and then attached it to the wooden handle. The wolf-hair looked over her newly-crafted tool and then set it beside the other hammer.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2014 2:07:33 GMT
390 words
| | Item 4: Detailing Tools
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After a few minutes of resting, Caerbannog checked the list of crafting tools that she had to make. It still listed three things, though one of them was actually a lot of small tools put together. The blacksmith decided to work on the detailing tools so that she could get it out of the way. The other two items, the rolling slab and the anvil, were easier to work on because they were just big chunks of metal. She could work on those lastly when she would be almost too tired to pay attention to what she was doing.
The wolf-hair set to work on the detailing tools such as files and small hammers. Since there was no goldsmith crafting class in Elder Tale, it was up to blacksmiths to put decor on their crafts. Because the items were much too small for ingots to be used, Caerbannog smelted some ores as her base material. Unlike the large hammers, she could use metal on every part of the detailing tools because they would not be touching the furnace and they were too small to make her arm feel tired.
With the base metal ready, Caerbannog put it in one of the molds that the lander had provided. No, she was not about to completely handcraft her tools... that would be crazy. The landers already had molds for smaller tools and so the blacksmith used those. If there were any imperfections, then that’s what she would work on. The first item was a file and it turned out pretty good, save for a portion of the metal which dripped off to the side. Caerbannog struck it off with a hammer because the drip was just a small part anyway and so it was brittle. The wolf-hair then worked on a larger file which fortunately did not have any mishaps.
Lastly, Caerbannog made one detail hammer which would be used to make dents and embossed parts on whatever she wanted to craft. It was made of solid metal and was rather heavy for its size, but it was still wieldy. It should be noted that the detail hammer had a much smaller head compared to its handle, unlike the large blacksmithing hammers. It was made that way to maximize the user’s control over the tool because it would be used for delicate work.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2014 4:39:28 GMT
445 words
| | Item 5: Rolling Slab and Anvil
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Smithing was such tiring, boring work that Caerbannog wanted to be done with it already. She still had two more tools to work on though: a rolling slab for making her own plates, and an anvil that would complete her small forge. Now, in the real world, factories had large contraptions with which they make metal plates but of course, that level of technology has not been reached still. Caer began to work on an old-fashioned rolling slab like the ones that landers used: a rectangular basin that looked like a large mold in which a melted ingot could be turned to a plate. With a hammer, the ingot can be flattened out evenly until it was the right thickness and size for its purpose.
The slab was thick and made of high grade steel that would withstand a lot of pressure and heat. Ideally, it should have been about a meter in length but Caerbannog halved the size so as to make it portable. She could then use two smaller ingots if the need for making a large plate arose, but usually, with her crafts she only needed small plates. Once the shape of the rolling slab was at almost the right size, Caer struck it repeatedly with her hammer so that the surface would become even and appropriate for creating plates. Since the tool was wide and larger than her other tools, it began to cool down quickly because more areas were exposed to air. The wolf-hair could not cover it up lest the covering be burned, so she just struck the metal as fast as she could.
The rolling slab was soon done and Caer moved on to the final tool, the anvil. Like the slab, it was just a large piece of metal. The blacksmith used multiple metal ingots to form the larger portions of the anvil. The face, table, base were all made from the ingots put together while the waist, foot and heel were fashioned by striking it with her hammer. The horn and shoulder, which was a protrusion past the cutting table, was made from a separate ingot that was attached to the body while the anvil was hot. Caer then put some holes near the heel and started to inspect the anvil as a whole. She struck down some dents here and there just before the crafted item was cooled down. Lastly, the anvil was allowed to stand on the work bench for a while as the wolf-hair started to clean up the place. Her work was done and she could go back to the guild house, hopefully with a recipe that a lot of people would find useful.
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