The Metallurgy of the Owl Republic
Heavily WIP
Early History
While the various city states that preceded the formation of the Owl Republic host relatively advanced Metallurgy for their time, metal production underwent significant change over the years especially as an adaptation towards the relentless warfare and aggressive centralization to direct the war effort which both affects supply and demand.
Before the Century of Ravage, two iron smelting processes dominated the Lands that would become the Republic. Bloomery in the East and Blast in the West. The adaptation was influenced by the difference in quality and availability of geological resources and society in the two parts. The relatively high quality iron ore in the East allowed the continued usage of bloomeries which had a relatively older history. The lower amounts of impurities in the ores allowed for continued use of bloomeries, where the slag can be easily removed to reveal the smelted iron. But the method was not stagnant. By the time the Eastern states were brought into the fold of the fledging state, almost all registered smelteries were of the improved type, with water powered box bellows and hammers. While the more laborious process of bloomery dominated the East, the availability of Limestone and high amount of impurities necessitated the development of blast furnaces in the West. To maintain the higher temperature of the furnace, other than the introduction of bigger bellows, the use of chuubanite which increases the temperature of the air blasts was also introduced in the bigger smelteries alongside some early attempts at making metallic bellows. Both of which are noted to be significantly earlier than the more modern attempts at increasing the quality and quantity of the metal industry. As you would notice, both parts of the land use box type bellows. Carpenters in the Eastern border with the UUUing Forest were an important provider of excellent bellows, which produces a higher air pressure than the leather bellows commonly used in homes and smelteries of other contemporary nations. *For a detailed account for the bellows-making trade in the region, Waldrek's book Lungs of Fire is an excellent work on this subject.* However, as the war intensified, many smelteries were cut off from the supplies they relied. To satisfy the demand for iron, changes were made both on a wider, state level and local level.
Although the bloomeries were more than enough to meet local demand, the need for more arms and armor pressured the authorities in the East to build new blast furnaces, which, while consuming more charcoal, allowed for bigger batches to be made at a given time. The ironworkers were also more unified by a state organized guild system which had not existed in the East, where a more personal system of apprenticeship was the norm. The ironmasters and officials of the West faced a different predicament. Without the abundant supply of charcoal from the lush Eastern woods and the forestry resources stretched, the furnaces can not be kept firing. Thus the process of coking was gradually introduced. Local coal, often from exposed veins is mined and worked in specially built furnaces. The use of Chuubanite in the refractory material and as a heat source is noted in various records. The coke relaxed the demand for charcoal and allowed iron with lower carbon content to be produced. The usage of coke still remained after the war had ended though its production was not expanded together with the demand for metal in the following decades, especially as the resume of the charcoal trade between the two sides of the country. Though the retention of many coke-works and the knowledge is the main reason the Metallurgical Revolution between the 1040-60s was so rapid, as scholars and officials are already aware of the potential benefit they provide for the new processes that were developed.
Excerpted from Mihails, Alexei., History of Metallurgy, 2nd Edition, Noctea: University of Noctea, 1193, pp 2-3.