Metalworking

Metalworking is the shaping of metal using tools, primarily hammer and anvil.

Processing Metal Ores

Equipment you'll need:

• Access to a smithy with furnace, forge, and anvil
• Stone containing metal ore
• Forging hammer
• Tongs
• Flux (such as charcoal)
• Heavy hammer (or use the forging hammer for crushing, though you may not want to risk damaging it and use a less-valuable hammer for crushing stone)

Steps:

1. drop the ore-containing stone
2. crush the ore-containing stone until it becomes powder
3. get the powder and take it to the smithy
4. put the powder into the furnace
5. put flux into the furnace
6. Repeatedly pull the chain to work the bellows until you hear the intermittent hiss of slag melting from the ore
7. pull the slag chute lever to drain the molten slag out of the furnace
8. put the bloom from the furnace into the forge after the furnace cools, letting it get to the desired temperature
9. put the red-hot iron-bloom onto the anvil
10. Repeatedly hammer bloom make pure to hammer out remaining impurities until you feel you've gotten it as pure as possible

Forging

Equipment you'll need:

• Access to a smithy with forge and anvil
• Bronze, copper, iron, or steel (blooms or ingots)
• Forging hammer
• Tongs

Steps:

1. put the desired metal into the forge
2. Wait for the metal to heat to red-hot (the forge won't heat it any hotter than this, so no fear of accidental smelting)
3. put the red-hot metal bloom onto the anvil
4. Repeatedly hammer the bloom into the desired shape (type hammer bloom by itself to see all possibilities)
5. (Optional) put the finished item into a quenching trough to cool it down more quickly

Sharpening bladed items

Most bladed items (sword blades, axe blades, etc.) will need to be annealed, ground, and quenched in order to get a sharp blade rather than a dull one. This requirement is indicated by the item being described as "dull", i.e. "a shortsword-blade (dull)". A rare few bladed items do not show as dull and therefore do not need to be sharpened, such as arrowheads.

Equipment you'll need:

• Access to a smithy with a forge, annealing bench, quenching trough, and grinding wheel.
• Tongs
• A bladed metal item such as a sword-blade, dagger-blade, axe-head, etc.

Steps:

1. put the bladed item into the forge and wait for it to get red-hot.
2. put the red-hot bladed item on the annealing bench and wait for it to cool in the open air. This causes the metal to get softer, which is required for effective grinding.
3. (The above two steps may need to be done twice.)
4. While holding the now-softened metal bladed item, grind it at the grinding wheel. This auto-repeating process will continue until you've gotten the blade as sharp as you're capable of getting it.
5. put the sharpened bladed item in the forge and let it get red-hot again.
6. put the red-hot sharpened bladed item into the quenching trough and wait for it to cool. This causes the metal to harden again, restoring its durability.
7. (The above two steps may be done twice to ensure it is fully restored to optimal metal strength.)

Note: Sharpened blades will dull with use, but after a blade's initial sharpening it will not require the annealing and quenching process for subsequent re-sharpening!