System Architect - Ch 118

Unlike with woodworking—where I had to join a formal class—metalworking was easier to get into. Relatively speaking. Finding a place that did it was easy. Convincing them to allow a child to work a forge? That was another thing altogether!

Mom took me to the closest workshop to where we lived. The inside was an inferno even in early spring. There were two men working different forges. The ringing of metal hitting metal was deafening. We waited by the entrance for one of the two to finish what they were doing so we could talk to them. After ten minutes, one of the men came over.

“Hello,” greeted the man. “Do you need something?”

“Yeah,” Mom answered. “My son, here, was looking to learn how to work with metal. This is the closest place to where we live.”

“We have workshops on the weekends, but he looks too young to do anything yet.”

“I’m more than capable,” I told him. “Swinging one of those hammers wouldn’t be a problem!”

“Oh yeah?” the man said, raising an eyebrow. “Tell you what. If you can swing around the hammer in a controlled way, I’ll consider teaching you how to use it.”

“You’re on!” I exclaimed.

A challenge was a great way to convince a competitive person to go along with something. In this case, proving I could wield a hammer would go a long way towards showing that I was capable of doing the work of smithing. The man handed me his hammer and brought me to an unused forge and anvil. The hammer was weighty, but not in a way that made it hard lift.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s see you swing it against the anvil. Carefully. You don’t want it to bounce back and hit you, yeah?”

I nodded.

I picked a spot on the anvil and brought the hammer down onto it. The force was primarily from the weight of the hammer and not from me pushing the hammer downwards. As soon as it impacted, it bounced back with a loud ringing sound. I brought the hammer back to where it was when I had started the swing before swinging again—aiming for the same spot I’d hit the first time.

“Not bad,” the man said, stopping me after I’d hit the same spot four times in a row. “Your aim is good and the weight of the hammer doesn’t seem like it’s an issue.

“The only sticking point is a legal release. It’s standard for anyone who wants to learn. Forging can be dangerous if safety protocols aren’t followed. The release is to prevent anyone from suing us if that person purposefully did something unsafe. Mom, you’d have to sign on behalf of your son since he can’t.”

“That’s fine,” Mom said.

“I have a contract I’ll need you to sign as well,” I said. “It’s an NDA. And yeah, I know I sound way too mature for how I look. I can’t say why without you signing it, though. Probably would like the other guy over there to sign it as well. Just in case. In exchange, I’ll pay a large amount of money for someone to teach me.”

The man shrugged.

We went into an office in the back of the workshop. Upon closing the door, he handed Mom a form to sign. While she did that, I wrote out a very simple NDA emulating the language I had used for Jack when I started talking to him. I wasn’t expecting to have to explain too much to either of the two men, but I wanted to be safe in case I had to use Heal on myself or someone else in an emergency.

The man read the contract and signed it. He brought in the other man and had him sign it as well. Once I added my signature, the System Contract was made. I felt much more comfortable knowing it was in place. With the legalities out of the way, the two men introduced themselves.

“I’m Sebastian,” said the man we’d first met. “This lovable guy is my partner, Chris.”

“Hi,” Chris said, waving.

I noticed that his left hand was taped up.

“I’m Eddy,” I said. “So I can give you time to scrape your jaws off the floor, I’m mentally closer to sixty. Looks are deceiving. Also, Chris?”

“Yeah?”

“Let me see your injured hand real quick.”

“Oh this?” he asked, showing the taped up hand.

“Mmhm.”

“I burned it a little the other day while working on a project. The perks of working with hot metal, right?”

He laughed.

“Well, I’m sure it was pleasant. Anyhow, the real reason for the NDA is this.”

I used Heal on Chris.

“Did you do something?” Sebastian asked.

“Chris, show him the burn you don’t have anymore.”

He peeled back the tape to reveal unburnt—albeit hairless—flesh. Both of them looked at the lack of injury and then at me.

“Magic,” I said. “Hence the magical NDA. You could see why other people knowing might be an issue, right?”

“Right,” said Sebastian.

“So, anyways… teaching?”

“I’ll help you with that,” he said. “Chris is working on knife orders. He’s the better smith. I help out where I can.”

“Yeah, he’s got a mind for business,” Chris piped up. “I’d be broke if it wasn’t for him!”

“So you’ll be teaching me,” I asked Sebastian.

“Yup. You cool to come with me and start?”

“Sure. I can call Mom when it’s time to go.”

He gave me a thumbs-up. Chris was long gone—back to his forge. I waved to Mom before following Sebastian to his forge.

“So the most important thing is safety,” he said. “The forge is hot. Like burn-your-skin-off hot. Don’t fuck around with it. The same goes for the metal coming out of the forge. The tools are dangerous—but in a way you’d understand. The sharp ones can cut you or poke an eye out. The dull ones will crush bones. Finally, anything electrically powered will munch fingers for breakfast—so no using the automatic hammers until I’ve shown you how to use them safely, ok?”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“The first project you’re going to work on it making nails. While not terribly useful in the modern world—with all of the machine made ones—they are the easiest starting object to make. Making a hundred of them over the next few weeks will teach you the basics of how to heat the metal and work it with a hammer.”

Sebastian walked me through the process. Everything from lighting the forge to preparing the workspace for the project. To make it easier, I was starting with a thin rod of steel that was the same thickness as the nails would be at the top. Into the fire it went to heat.

“It takes a lot of practice to be able to see the temperature by the color of the metal. So for now, I’ll help you.”

After several minutes, he pulled the metal out of the forge with tongs.

“I’ll show you the process the first time,” he told me. “After that, it’s up to you.”

He held the metal against the anvil before bringing the hammer down. I paid special attention to where he was hitting and how hard. After each hit, he turned the metal a quarter turn before pounding it again. Back and forth he went, turning the end of the rod into a spike with four flat sides. Where the spike met the rest of the rod, he cut it off using another tool that was like a knife he could hammer against. Finally, he created the head of the nail using a special jig he attached to the anvil.

“One nail,” he said, quenching the metal in water before handing it to me. “Square nails are fairly easy to make, but doing so successfully will take understanding of how the metal works. It’s something you’ll get a feel for by doing rather than me telling you.”

I nodded.

“Now, it’s your turn. Let’s start by heating up the metal.”

Sebastian put the metal rod back in the fire. I waited until he gave me the signal before pulling it out. Like he had, I placed it against the anvil before trying to remember how he’d struck the metal. I raised my hammer before bringing it down on the metal. I turned it and hit it again. Back and forth I went before he stopped me.

“The metal’s getting too cold,” he said. “Put it back in the fire.”

“How were you able to get it to stay hot longer?” I asked while doing what he said.

“Practice, mostly,” was his answer. “The metal gets hot when it deforms, so if you strike it just right and do so quickly enough, the metal will stay hot because it’s being worked.”

“Interesting…”

Moments later, it was time to keep going with the nail. I didn’t try his technique, figuring—rightly—that it wasn’t something I could do without the hours of effort he’d already put into the craft. By the time I had to put the rod back in the fire, the shape of the nail was complete. It was a little wonky, but not terrible for a first attempt. Working with metal felt kinda like trying to mold clay while wearing mittens.

“So for the final part, place the rod on the cutting tool just past where the spiky bit starts. You’ll want to cut it off so there’s enough metal to turn into a nail head. Not too much since that would be a waste.”

I lined up the rod on the cutter and brought the hammer down. I had to hit it several times to cut most of the way through it. I took the cutter out and dropped in the heading jig before bashing the metal into a rounded shape at the top. I took the tool with tongs and smacked the edge of the water pail until the nail fell out. It sizzled and hissed until the temperature came down enough for me to handle with my bare hands. It was still hot, but not dangerously so.

“Let me see,” he said.

I handed him the nail.

“Not bad for a first try. Look at how inconsistent the square pattern is. Same for the slope of the spike. You want both to be the same so it goes into its hole easily when hammered. Let’s see you make a couple more today before you go home, ok?”

“Sure.”

For the next hour, I hammered out nails from the metal rod—and a second metal rod. Each time, I tried something a little different. The differences taught me how to do it. I might not do it perfectly yet, but the improvements were quick! When I laid out the nails next to each other, each was less crooked than the last. The last one I had done—while not as good as Sebastian’s—was passable to my eyes.

“That last one looks pretty good,” he said. “A couple weeks of doing this and you’ll be ready to make something more complicated—like a knife!”

“A knife sounds like fun,” I smiled. “I’ve been working on inlaying wood recently. Is it possible to do something like that with metal?”

“Hmm… Chris might know. Hey, Chris, come over here!”

“Yeah?” Chris asked when he joined us.

“Eddy was asking about inlaying metal. Figured you might know.”

“Engraving’s the closest I can think of,” he said. “It’s a different skill set than simple hammering metal into shapes. Is that what you want to do?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I like the fine detail work a lot, so I’d definitely want to try. I also would like to make a knife, too. You never know when something like that would come in handy, right?”

“Right. Well, we don’t have the tools for that here. That said, if you bring them, I can help teach you how to engrave. I’ve done it before when I was learning how to be a smith. The guy teaching me said ‘you never know when someone will want an engraved blade’. It still hasn’t happened, but I learned just in case!”

“Awesome! I’ll get the tools. I hope it’s similar to the inlaying I’ve been doing. Also, thanks to the both of you for teaching me today. I’ll be back next week to keep learning!”

“See you,” Chris said.

“You’ve got the spark,” Sebastian added.

I waved to both of them as I left the workshop to go home with Mom.