Chapter 24: Industrial efficiency
What Alaric was looking at was Cassius's own take on the blast furnace, he had enjoyed studying early metallurgy so much, that upon retiring he had build his own scale model blast furnace in his cottage's shed, he avoided using as much modern technology as he could, and took to forging most of his own utensils for fun and for practice.
The biggest drawback he had found with this design, and after doing some research to confirm his suspicions, was just how brittle the steel got. He then found out he hadn't made steel at all, he had simply produced pig iron. More studying and experimenting later and the shed in his backyard had expanded to nearly match the size of his cottage and had included a scale crucible to match his scale model blast furnace. His studying had led him down the rabbit hole to eventually attempt recreating Wootz steel, or Crucible steel as it was more commonly known.
One of his biggest regrets is that he had to use some modern technologies to help with both processes due to airflow and the heat required to actually melt the iron down and refine it…
But here now on this backwards planet, his hobby might just become his primary income for all of eternity.
He had thought long and hard and drawn up the most rudimentary model he could remember off by heart of his little designs, a water driven blast furnace would be the best thing he could do given his resources, and a crucible could be constructed from the iron it produced, which in turn would produce his Crucible steel. Hell, he could introduce this world to the glory that was Damascus steel! All of this made his blood boil with excitement as he thought about his future plans.
He absolutely needed to drag his father and Hektor kicking and screaming to the investment table.
Alaric however, was convinced that whatever he was looking at was some sort of advanced furnace and finally had enough and decided to ask the boy, who was literally jittering in excitement.
"This… design boy… this isn't your 'spinning wheel' is it?"
Obviously this got Hektors attention who quickly asked for the design and attempted to study it, having no background in metallurgy and only surface level knowledge, he too wasn't sure what he was looking at and looked between Alaric and Cassius for an answer.
"You're correct, Alaric, that design wasn't supposed to be seen until the spinning wheel was completed… However, now that it's out of the bag, what do you think?"
The gruff bearded man grinned "I think I owe you an apology ki- My Lord, It looks vaguely like a bloomery, but I can tell this model of yours is massive in comparison." He continued after a breath, "It looks like you've removed a lot of the manpower aspects of the bloomery and replaced it with water power, and supersized the scale of it."
Cassius nodded enthusiastically, "Yes! Exactly! By scaling up the bellows and powering them with a water wheel, these furnaces could be supplied with a constant 'blast' of air that was capable of generating enormous heat! Much more than any man powered furnace could ever provide! Day, Night, Storm, or snow, we can scale up Iron production by over a hundred times and we never had to turn it off! As long as we fuel it, production will never stop!"
Hektor looked shocked and mortified, I came here for a spinning wheel? Why aren't we talking about my spinning wheel? And a hundred times? What?
Alaric's eyes began to take on a feverish, nearly zealous glow. "How much production can this model create? What are the requirements!?"
Dale sighed, he knew how excited Alaric would get when he showed him the design after he figured it was likely something to do with metallurgy.
"Well, I believe the bloomeries we use now produce somewhere between 40-100 kilograms of wrought iron a day… Whereas this single blast furnace once operational will be able to produce several tonnes of pig iron every single day."
The room went silent as everyone's eyes essentially bulged out of their heads in shock, or in Hektors case, his large mouth formed a perfect "O" as his body melted into his chair.
That was what was called revolutionary in the simplest of terms.
Cassius was absolutely going to ensure this life was comfortable and that he could retire filthy rich, he just needed to see a map of his fathers territory and improve the already impressive smithing practices of the territory and he'd be set for life.
'To hell with being a Margrave, too much drama.' He repeated like a buddhist mantra inside of his head.
Meanwhile Hektor's mind was currently in full stand still, realising this is what he meant yesterday when he said he wanted to try his hand at the family smithing and forging practices.
Alaric repeated his statement over and over in his head and then asked, realising a critical error in the statement. "But refining that much pig-iron into workable steel would take forever, nobody wants to purchase tons of garbage iron that can't be used."
Cassius grinned ear to ear, happy to be talking to another professional.
"Yeah, that's correct… But what if we could also 'industrialise' the process as well? We would then have hundreds of tonnes of usable steel a month, the biggest issue we would have is having too much steel to use, or not enough iron for production, or running out of fuel, but I have solutions to all of that!"
He was on a roll, he knew what could and would happen everything got going, and how much production he was capable of. If he could claim apart of the river below as his own… or perhaps one of the fast moving mountain streams that joined it… 'By Alaric's beard…' He thought with a laugh.
He knew he needed to calm himself down, there was no way everything could go exactly as he planned but he frankly didn't care right now, maybe it was the hormones of an eleven year old wreaking havoc on his old mind, but he was absolutely enthralled with the potential this had.
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