Iron Smelting

Most info on smelting and refining originally found on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finery_forge

After having been a jealously guarded secret of the Gnomes for more than 200 years, On the second Ca'at of R'bye, the 198th day of 101CE, famed gnomish weapon-smith Glomm Tibbitz shared the methods of Iron-working to the rest of the world.

Manufacturing

The process involved liquifying cast iron in a fining hearth and removing carbon from the molten cast iron through oxidation. In the finery, a workman known as the "finer" remelted pig iron so as to oxidise the carbon (and silicon).

This produced a lump of iron (with some slag) known as a bloom. This was consolidated using a water-powered hammer and returned to the finery.

The next stages were undertaken by the "hammerman", who in some iron-making areas are also known as the "stringsmith", who heated his iron in a string-furnace. Because the bloom is highly porous, and its open spaces are full of slag, the hammerman's or stringsmith's tasks were to beat (work) the heated bloom with a hammer to drive the molten slag out of it, and then to draw the product out into a bar to produce what was known as anconies or bar iron. In order to do this, he had to reheat the iron, for which he used the chafery.

The fuel used in the finery had to be charcoal, as impurities in any mineral fuel would affect the quality of the iron.

Inventor(s)

The original maker or discoverer of this method has long been lost to history, but it was passed to the world by famed gnomish weapon-smith Glomm Tibbitz.

Access & Availability

Uncommon, but available in most large industrial cities.

Complexity

High, several other smithing, refining and heating methods are required as prerequisite.

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