# Question about forging metal



## Androxine Vortex (Nov 21, 2012)

In one of my novels, there is sort of a "last city of mankind" and mankind is nearly extinct from the relentless attack of the demons. It may not make sense to you now but just know that the demons can only have free reign at night (or I might just make it midnight, not sure yet)

Anyway, all of man has sort of fled to this huge, gated and heavily fortified city/fortress. Everyday they are forced to fight and keep the demons at bay. So what would they do with broken metal? Could they take broken armor and sort of re-forge it into new armor? How would this work? Would it be easier to just melt it down and make new metal? Keep in mind that this is the last city of man and therefor their ability to gather fresh supplies is very limited living within the walls of their fortress.

*I was thinking of having the humans melt down holy artifacts and such and make them into armor and weapons to fend against the demons

(And I have it planned that there are secret tunnels in place deep underneath the fortress-city so that the people there can go to secluded locations far away and grow crops and gather other materials)


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## Filk (Nov 21, 2012)

yeah, you would just want to keep all the similar metals together i believe, much like when scrapping metal nowadays i.e. steel with steel and copper with copper and then you would forge new items from the resulting ingots.


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## CupofJoe (Nov 22, 2012)

As things like coke and charcoal are probably going to be limited too, then hot riveting might be the solution for armour and the more basic tools like shovels. [Rivet - in case I'm not clear] You have to heat a whole less material that welding or melting down. I would guess that for swords and similar would have to be reforged and could not just be welded [and they really couldn't be riveted]. I don't know much about forging metals but if I remember correctly [from a class 25 years ago...] that combining even similar metals [iron especially with its trace elements] can often lead to very weak results as they might not not "mix" well.
Your location sounds interesting...


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## Anders Ã„mting (Nov 22, 2012)

Androxine Vortex said:


> So what would they do with broken metal? Could they take broken armor and sort of re-forge it into new armor? How would this work? Would it be easier to just melt it down and make new metal?



Depends on the level of damage, but for something like for example a broken sword, it's actually better to reforge the whole thing from scratch rather than trying to weld it back together. Melting it down would probably be overkill, though. 

Also, Joe makes a good point: The real problem would be to get enough coal to run the forges of an entire city state, let alone the amount of fuel you need to operate a major foundry. That stuff needs to be mined (and refined, if you want the good stuff like coke) and if these people can do that they can probably dig up more iron as well.


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## Androxine Vortex (Nov 26, 2012)

Anders Ã„mting said:


> Depends on the level of damage, but for something like for example a broken sword, it's actually better to reforge the whole thing from scratch rather than trying to weld it back together. Melting it down would probably be overkill, though.
> 
> Also, Joe makes a good point: The real problem would be to get enough coal to run the forges of an entire city state, let alone the amount of fuel you need to operate a major foundry. That stuff needs to be mined (and refined, if you want the good stuff like coke) and if these people can do that they can probably dig up more iron as well.



Well here's my problem. I want to have this city/fortress the last defense for humankind. And every night it is attacked by hordes of demons (I know it sounds weird but it is crucial to the plot) So it is as if they are forced to stay within the walls of the city. Now to make things a little more fair for the humans, they have a material what they call Ferrugothium that is incredibly resistant to the demons magic but it is actually holy artifacts that were melted down a long time ago and have been remade into armor and swords (they don't realize this)

I want this to be believable though. How can I make it believable to have people locked away in a city, being attacked by hordes upon hordes of demons, and not run out of provisions?


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## psychotick (Nov 26, 2012)

Hi,

Yes you can reform / reforge metal, no problem, but where do you get your heat from? Since this is a fantasy, I'm tempted to say magic, but it seems to me that a better option given that demons rule the night, would be to use sunlight. Maybe a gigantic magnifying glass device. That way you get a metaphorical light against dark aspect to the work. And you could claim that the ferrogothium has sunlight infused into its matrix that makes it more deadly against demons.

As for the rest, think roof gardens and conservatories for food, recycling of pooh into soil and compost, water from rain as well as underground rivers / wells. An entire green ecosystem. Even in fantasy it should work. Especially if you add in a druid or two.

Cheers, Greg,


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## Anders Ã„mting (Nov 27, 2012)

Androxine Vortex said:


> Well here's my problem. I want to have this city/fortress the last defense for humankind. And every night it is attacked by hordes of demons (I know it sounds weird but it is crucial to the plot) So it is as if they are forced to stay within the walls of the city. Now to make things a little more fair for the humans, they have a material what they call Ferrugothium that is incredibly resistant to the demons magic but it is actually holy artifacts that were melted down a long time ago and have been remade into armor and swords (they don't realize this)
> 
> I want this to be believable though. How can I make it believable to have people locked away in a city, being attacked by hordes upon hordes of demons, and not run out of provisions?



Well, obviously, the city needs to be entirely self-sustaining - they have to produce everything in house, so to speak. You basically have a siege scenario, only the whole point of a siege is to wait for one side to run out of resources. For this to be going for a very long time, the people in the city have to be able to at least grow their own food and produce the resources to maintain a certain amount of industry. 

One way to approach it is to make the human stronghold very large, basically having walled in a big piece of land and set aside one part for housing and one part for farming. Maybe they actually have a mine within the walls? Perhaps they are trying to expand, sending out teams of builders in the daytime to add more walls to the structure - perhaps by deconstructing old obselete walls for building materials. But then they have to weigh the pros of having more living space vs the cons of spreading their manpower too thin to defend the walls. Maybe that leads to a political conflict, with the military and farmers and builders all arguing which is more important?

I have seen something kinda like this scenario, actually - there's a Japanese comic called Shingeki no Kyojin. It's about a world that has been overrun with man-eating giants, and what remains of humanity lives in an enclave protected by gigantic walls. Check it out, maybe it will give you some ideas. It pretty much depicts the human territory as large enough that the question of resources isn't brought up much. 

If the human state is smaller, though, the question resources pretty much _has _to be adressed because, again, sieges always come down to resources.

Since the humans can also move around freely in daytime, it would also be possible to send out excursion teams to gather resources outside the walls. They leave at daybreak, cut down as many trees at they can, load up everything on carts and return to the city before the sun sets. 

Alternatively, since this is fantasy, you could also cheat a bit by giving them more easily renewable resources than we have in our world, via magic or otherwise. Maybe they have a type of wood that grows exceptionally fast, so they plant and harvest entire grooves each year. Another trick is to make the same crop have multiple uses - textiles for clothes, building materials and food all from the same plant.

I think it really comes down to what scale you are aiming for. The smaller the city is, the stronger you can make the sense of isolation and desperation. But in return, it becomes harder to justify these people surviving for any extended period of time.


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## Kahle (Dec 4, 2012)

Swords and armor can be reforged, but the result is stronger when the item is completely melted down and remade. A sword has to be heated to different points to provide a flexible core, then re-heated to obtain the harder edge for the point and blade. Also, there is the quenching process. If you don't use the right cooling method, the metal will not harden, and any blade you put on it will be destroyed by even wood after a blow or two. Besides, if a blade or armor were simply melted back together, that joining point would become the weakest part of the weapon, and its flexibility or rigidness would be compromised. All said, the metal is salvageable for new items. Certain grades of metal are more desirable for different types of items. Armor is usually a softer grade so that it can be shaped easier, while harder metal/steel is needed for a sword that needs the strength to hold up in repeated combat.

Given humanity's predicament in your story, they could scavenge during the day-the need for materials might outweigh the risks in this case. As said above, a large enough compound could prove self-sufficient. I know that most modern forge boxes use compressed gas to heat the metal. This can give better control over the heat, and doesn't need constant fueling or stoking like a fire. You could also use the heat of the generator your people have as power for the forges/furnaces. Natural gas could be easier to come by than a full-blown coal mine.


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