A Blacksmith's rant, on metal working in TFC

[Krski 36]

Maybe the mold could be chiseled out using the chisel and hammer to create it ? Different paterns for different items ? But it will have to be identical to the items real size in the number of pixels .... What do you think about this idea?

[paradan 2]

hey blacksmith man!

really happy to see this post, while not a tradesman myself(does welding count?), the treatment of metelurgy in RPGs and such has been a huge pet peeve for me for a long time, and Ive got far to many hours of research floating around in my head. itll be nice to see the oppinions of someone who actually does this stuff and is a gamer. sure theres blacksmith forums out there, but those poor guys have been fighting off hordes of delusionioned wannabes for so long now it feels cruel to bring up the subject.

[-TK- 49]

Maybe the mold could be chiseled out using the chisel and hammer to create it ? Different paterns for different items ? But it will have to be identical to the items real size in the number of pixels .... What do you think about this idea?

If my understanding of chiselling is correct then I doubt that that would be easy. As a simple idea crafting 2 blocks of sand with a piece of wet clay should yield the moulding sand and putting one block of that with a boat shaped crafting recipie of planks should give you a ready mould. Now put that together with the carved wood tool head which could be crafted like stone tools but by placing a knife with a plank. Then you place the final mould in the output slot of a fire pit or a bloomery or that third thing that I forgot the name of and it fills with metal. Leave it to cool and craft with a hammer to get a tool head. Now you just need to grind it on a grindstone which I think could be made of some igneous extrusive stone and voila, your tool is made.

[SunsetSpecter 18]

Well that's why I brought up the idea of a sand casting table [like the scribing table we currently have] and the idea that you have to craft some 'master copy' positive out of some material. Be that molding then firing clay into the shape of the tool head, or carving wood. All could be done in an interface similar to the knapping or scribing mechanic if, for example, you took a plank and a stone knife in your inventory crafting window.

Then you have your tool head's master positive, place that in one input slot of the sand casting table, then go heat up your ingot to liquid. Place that ingot in the second input slot on the sand casting bench/table/placeable block and 'presto' you get your raw toolhead, that you have to let cool to a solid before you can remove it from the sand casting table.

Personally I would think that you could keep your master tool positive and re-use it, basically building up a collection of 'plans' similar to what the current system uses since in small object sand casting you do retrieve the master positive when you split the cope and drag apart to check for a good impression before the pour.

Now, granted, sand casting and metal pouring -are not- really what I do, and/or I have no studied early primitive mythods of pouring metal, save bronze swords [like I said, we got bored, and had a few hundred pounds of scrap brass gifted to us] so there might have been another way this was achieved. I do, however, know that the method I just described does work, and at one point in history was used to produce molded metal parts from poured low temperature metals, and is complicated enough to warrant consideration, without being incredibly over complicated for the TFC coders to pull hair out by having to add tons of new mechanics to the game.

It basically breaks down to;

1) The addition of the wood carving mechanic copied from the stone knapping mechanic.

2) The addition of a crafted 'Sand Casting' bench using planks of wood and blocks of sand.

3) Taking the 'plans' mechanic of how an ingot is hammered and applying that to how a low tier metal ingot is poured into said sand casting table.

4) Adding the mechanic of "Unfinished" tool heads that need to be hammered on an anvil to get their working edge pounded on.

That is the bare basics of my gripe with hammer working air hardening brittle metals in TFC and the easiest way to implement casting metals.

[-TK- 49]

Well that's why I brought up the idea of a sand casting table [like the scribing table we currently have] and the idea that you have to craft some 'master copy' positive out of some material. Be that molding then firing clay into the shape of the tool head, or carving wood. All could be done in an interface similar to the knapping or scribing mechanic if, for example, you took a plank and a stone knife in your inventory crafting window.

Then you have your tool head's master positive, place that in one input slot of the sand casting table, then go heat up your ingot to liquid. Place that ingot in the second input slot on the sand casting bench/table/placeable block and 'presto' you get your raw toolhead, that you have to let cool to a solid before you can remove it from the sand casting table.

Personally I would think that you could keep your master tool positive and re-use it, basically building up a collection of 'plans' similar to what the current system uses since in small object sand casting you do retrieve the master positive when you split the cope and drag apart to check for a good impression before the pour.

Now, granted, sand casting and metal pouring -are not- really what I do, and/or I have no studied early primitive mythods of pouring metal, save bronze swords [like I said, we got bored, and had a few hundred pounds of scrap brass gifted to us] so there might have been another way this was achieved. I do, however, know that the method I just described does work, and at one point in history was used to produce molded metal parts from poured low temperature metals, and is complicated enough to warrant consideration, without being incredibly over complicated for the TFC coders to pull hair out by having to add tons of new mechanics to the game.

It basically breaks down to;

1) The addition of the wood carving mechanic copied from the stone knapping mechanic.

2) The addition of a crafted 'Sand Casting' bench using planks of wood and blocks of sand.

3) Taking the 'plans' mechanic of how an ingot is hammered and applying that to how a low tier metal ingot is poured into said sand casting table.

4) Adding the mechanic of "Unfinished" tool heads that need to be hammered on an anvil to get their working edge pounded on.

That is the bare basics of my gripe with hammer working air hardening brittle metals in TFC and the easiest way to implement casting metals.

I think an interesting way to do carving would be with a anvil finishing system we already have, this would allow the positive masters to have their own quality, would encourage practice and also bad masters would yield bad tool heads. The masters should also degrade with each use, this would mean that the user would need to replace the masters regularly if they wanted good quality tool heads.

[MagusUnion 12]

As for what naturally occurring rock should be used for the low tech wetstone, I honestly don't know. All my stones I use are either, one, synthetic or two, come from the Arkansas quartz mines, and since I'm fairly sure Quartzite rock isn't the same thing, then my best guess is void.

Geologist here!

Quartzite is the metamorphic version of Sandstone, which, ofc, comes from sand. Since sand is predominately rich in quartz grains, quartzite earns its name sake from containing high concentrations of the mineral quartz (SiO₂). As such, since quartz is the most abundant material on the face of the Earth, it would make sense that many grind stones are made out of said material. Also, Quartz, on the Moh's scale of hardness, rates as a 7 out of 10. The only things 'harder' than Quartz is Topaz, Corundum, and Diamond. All three of those are rare types of gemstone minerals (Corundum can be polished into ruby/sapphire, depending on color). Therefore, using a really common rock material to pound and shape weak metals makes sense. Early stone aged forges would have to have been an easy access material that was not only very hard in relation to the metal, but could also be easily found and amassed to early workshop areas.

I decided to quickly register to this forum to add this tidbit of info in, as I love the geological aspects of this mod.