Making swords, slaving for the man (Closed thread)

[Zim Rage]

TS: Brightening 5, of cycle 4, of the first month of Autumn, Era Xiv. PF.

Zim returned from the thanes office after deliving the swords there. Walking into the forge he called in his colleges, "Well everybody, there is good news and bad news. Both in the same statement; We have been asked to produce another 2,000 swords. I have also been asked for the production of some trebuchetes, these will be completed after the swords. I have asked for a cycles week of grace on the swords. Which I plan to break this cycles time up over the cource of the next five cycles in order to give us breaks between working on the sword order. I know that we are on our limits, but just a little more and then we can be done for a while. I intend to leave Teralon after these orders are completed. We have served Teralon well with our trades. Now we can leave with place with pride for our own safety. My fraternal family owns a Castle in the Dollwoods, it is perfectly safe. I have a forge there that I work from for the Archprelate and plenty of room to expand. If you wish, you and your families can come and I can give you housing there. I can make sure that you are comfortable there, and you have everything you need to make your crafts and pay for your training as well! You have a months time to think on this before I depart back to the castle carmalyn. In the mean time, lets get ready to work!"

With a slam of his hammer on the anvil Zim and his men started to cheer aloud in the forge as they prepaired themselves for what would come to be 5 of the longest hardest cycles of thier lives. Only to be drawn out even longer by the trebuchete order after that. Everyone returned to thier stations as before, Beegin on the bellows, the dwarven triples working on moulds, poring steel, and scourching, Eric on shaping the blade and Zim on sharpening the blades and inspecting. It would be a long job, but the pay would be good. Zim had not shared it with his men yet, but they would be getting a hefty bonus for this next stretch of work.

[Zim Rage]

Beegin fired up the furnace, feeding it with wood trimmings from the kindeling pile until it started to flame, then he added coal, once the coal was starting to burn good and hot a good amount of coke was added to the fire to burn even hotter. All the while pumping the bellows. Occasionaly he would allow the bellows to open to far and would have a hard time pulling it back down. He would either climb around the furnace and jump onto the bellow to force it down, or he would call for help from one of the others. Normaly prefering to do it himself, due to his pride - gnomes being known for thier pride.

This was Beegin's job in all of this, to man the furnace, keep it up to temperature, and to keep the alloy consistant. His was arguably one of the most important of the process. For with a bad mix, or a low temperature, your alloy comes out completely different and thusly may end up in shotty blades and huge mistakes. He would monitor the temperature by the color of the steel alone, making sure that each blade has a consistant color as it forms, and that it is a bright, hot liquid white in the furnace. Constant adjusting and calculating was his job, but far worse for him was the job of climbing a latter to be able to see into the furnace. Not only was this tireing, it was also scorching hot, as well as dangerous. Loosing his balence or being bumped would send him right into the liquid metal below, most likely he would die of the heat before his little body would make it to the surface of the metal anyways.

Water breaks were plentiful and often in the forge, the last thing that they needed was someone slipping up and getting seriously injured or hurt. If you needed a break, you took it. And even then there was a mandatory break every candlemark. Even if you didn't take in fluids you still had to sit and relax and close your eyes. They were all incouraged to leave the forge to step outside into the cool autom air.

[Zim Rage]

The next worker in line was Urlund, the leather worker. He was incharge of shaping the moulds that the steel would be poured in. These moulds are made of 2 parts clay 1 part sand. Once this ceramic mix is made Urlund rolles them out like a loaf of bread, to make sure they are consistant and to get the right size. Then using a press that is shaped the size and shape of the sword being created, pushes it into the mould and takes it out, leaving an indent in the ceramic clay. Then, they are loaded into another part of the furnace, seperate from the steel, that is much cooler. In a few moments the mould is baked and is ready to take the liquid hymm steel.

After the Hymm steel starts to set it is passed down to be scourched.

[Zim Rage]

Scourching was being handled by the forges Jewelcrafter, Glanel, the redheaded triplet. His job was also extremely important. After the steel started to set in the mould Glanel would force the mould and hymm steel into a vat of water that would quickly scorch it, and the drastic change in temperature would also shatter the ceramic mould. Then it would be re-heated and scourched again, a number of times to help achieve maximum strength and flexability.

This is were the most back ups occured, so Zim and Eric would come over and help out with these as often as possible. Many of the backups were caused by needing to change the water and remove the debries from the vat, which was more like a stable feed trough then anything else.

On breaks Glanel was the one who usualy took invintory of how many we had done. For some reason he liked to keep a countdown going in his head until they were done. It was also the three triplets that usualy delivered the swords to the weapons manufactory after 250 swords were complete. Which is roughly every other day, around mid-day.

[Zim Rage]

Ofik was incharge of Pouring the steel, arguably one of the easiest jobs at this point, it was his job to take the ceramic moulds and pour the moulten hymm steel into it's opening. So while his job was simple, it was also the most dangerous. Infact, it was almost impossible for Ofik to do this job without getting burned. For that reason he would be seen wearing heavy gloves and apperons, in addition to these he wore a mask to help protect his face from the extreme heat of the liquid steel and also helped to keep any access smoke out of his eyes.

After the mould was poured Ofik passed the mould to Glanel, after letting it set up a bit. When things got backed up a bit Ofik was usualy the one to Help Beegin mantain the heat of the forge.

[Zim Rage]

After Glenel was done scourching blades he would pass them on to Eric who would use his metal smithing knowledge of working with armor to shape the blades more fully, makeing sure that in the scourching that the blades have not curved, and hammer out an edge more.

This was another spot that could create a good amount of back up, so Zim would of cource help with this as well. If there was a blade that was too far bent or crummy to be worth the time it would be put back into the furnace, much to Beegin's dispair (as adding cool hard steel reduced the temperature drasticly), to be remelted and re-cast. This was also a sort of 'pre-assesment' before the blade went onto Zim to inspect and sharpen.

[Zim Rage]

Once the swords made it to Zim he would inspect them, for consistancy and general quality of each blade. If he was satisfied with the blade then Zim would go ahead and sharpen the blade, otherwise he passed it back to either get corrected further, or put it back in the furnace to be recasted.

The process of sharpening these blades was relativily simple, Zim would lock the blade into a guide and the peddle to spin a lathe with a curved edge that gave the blade a beveled edge to it that made it much sharper then a standard edged blade. Running it one way, then turning it over to do the same edge from the opposide side, and then flipping it over to do the same process on the opposite side. Once this is done Zim wipes away any shavings that might be left behind with an oiled cloth and sets it on a pile to later be sheathed and hilted.

[Zim Rage]

Once the blades were sharpened Zim and the others set down to work on the next step of the project, all except Beegin who spent the time cleaning gadget parts around the forge and writting up blue-prints for the larger-more permanent trebuchetes that Malkaer was interested in.

The other 5 then worked in teams on sheathing, and in hilting. Ofik, being the wood worker, spent his time carving the wood into sheaths, which were then wrapped in leather that was cut by Urlond and sutured into place with a rawhide thread in a chris-crossing pattern by Eric. It would take a few brightenings time to completely finish all of them.

Mean while, Glanel and Zim worked together to hilt all of the swords. Putting the leather disks onto the shafter was Zim, and Glanel used a jewelers hammer to lightly tap a pomel into place. When a sword was done it was hilted and then put in another pile, which a tally of the number in each pile was kept by Zim and Ofik, both keeping track to conferm thier numbers.

Having taken 4 cycles time worth of work and a breaking a cycles break time into smaller chunks made the whole process take exactly 5 cycles. And by the time it was finished the blue prints for a larger trubuchete was completed. Sending the triplets to deliver the last swords, Zim and Beegin went to the Thane, leaving Eric maegus behind to clean up and tend to the forge.