Records: Royal Company Blacksmith

## **The *Heavy Metal* of the Royal Company Blacksmith**

### **The Facility**

The Royal Blacksmith wasn’t simply a shop within the Rainham estate, it was a prototype for *The Royal Company Metal Works*. Here, they could do research, development, custom fabrication and forging, and limited casting runs of just about anything.

This "minor" Metal Works was divided into three sections: one major and two almost-equal minor. The largest section was dedicated to wrought iron. The two minor sections were dedicated to brass and bronze.

### **Ironing It All Out…**

#### **Puddling…**

They skipped the bloomery, and instead built a reverberatory furnace. They’d skipped the finery, and even potting and stamping processes, jumping straight into a patented, semi-secret method of metallurgical “puddling”.

Here alone, the Royal Company was slightly more than four centuries ahead of their time…

#### **Shingling and Rolling**

In addition to the puddling furnace, the *Iron Division* of the *Metal Works* further treated their product with shingling and rolling. This allowed high-grade wrought iron to be produced and sold inexpensively.

To be sure, this wasn’t what the travelers considered a modern mass-production facility, but it was far beyond anything *in the world* at this point. It was more than enough to get the movement off the ground.

#### **The Brotherhood of Iron**

The demand for everything was expanding and metals were a good benchmark for it. In 1300 (Alt-U), there were thee iron-working guilds in England, growing to fourteen by 1422. By 1378, the number was 8 around England, with one in London. The primary iron mining centers were in the Forest of Dean, as well as in Durham and the Weald.

London had an iorn workers' guild, the Ferroners, but weren’t yet incorporated as one of the “Worshipful Companies”, though they were well organized. They were powerful enough to take on the competing guilds in Kent and Sussex over their low-quality iron supplied for cart wheels. Still, they weren’t nearly the size of the northern guilds – and despite the combined iron workers around the country, they still couldn’t meet England’s demand, who largely turned to imports from Spain.

When Rick displayed the wrought iron ingots, so far advanced beyond anything anyone in England could do – or Spain or anywhere else they’d seen – the Ferroners were sure their livelihood had just disappeared. Instead, Rick ensured himself a place at the heart of the guild by guaranteeing they’d have access to these ingots. They were each given a sample ingot – itself a fantastically valuable gift given the rarity.

Within a week, the northern-and-now-locally-adopted merchant had submitted a bill, passed by an Act of Parliament, requiring Companies to prepare ordinances for approval by certain of the King's officers over matters such as the preservation of trade secrets, the qualifications of members, the regulation of apprenticeships, domestic matters of the fraternity and the settlement of internal disputes.

As an employer, it was already common knowledge that Royal wages were higher, on average, than what most were making before. Even those that didn’t come to work for him directly now bought his ingots and worked with those to fashion mid- and end-user products (like the bands for cart wheels). While London merchants were singing Rick’s praises, local nobility was losing patience with Richard’s “lavish” treatment of the commons.

### **Getting down to Brass Tacks**

Similar to the advanced iron production, this was also based around a coal-fired reverberatory furnace. The water-powered hammers were there, but the biggest element was the use of speltering; the direct alloying of copper and zinc metal (rather than the hit-and-miss method of cementation processes). Further, they used granulated copper and poured molten metal into cold water. This increased the surface area of the copper helping it react and zinc contents of up to 33% more efficiently.

Further, they were already adjusting the alloys, making several kinds of brass. This included the ability to distill metallic zinc…

### **The Bronze Metal**

Finally, the Metal Works was producing Bronze, with a very large capacity. *Why* they had that capacity was still a cause to be a bit coy about…

### **The Weight of the Royal Company**

When the *Metal Works* was “officially” unveiled, local nobility were invited, but the target audience was really the growing English merchant class.

It was producing it’s first ingots within a month of the start of construction.

#### **Wrought Iron**

* The wrought iron bars were passed around the potential customers – and were generating rumors. The Metal Works was already producing, and right now, all the product was immediately incorporated into the printing presses and carriages (also being produced by the Crown Company).
* The “merchant bar” or high-grade iron was so vastly superior to what English foundries were creating that the other merchants’ product was immediately obsolete.

#### **Brass and Bronze**

* Similar to the iron, there were brass and bronze ingots available for merchant review – and there was immediate demand.

#### **The State of the Market**

* Iron ore or low-grade processed iron was in immediate demand in London – by the *Metal Works* – and it was churning out inexpensive merchant bar that simply had no equal.
* This had reverberations as far as Paris within weeks. England was now growing a capacity for metal far beyond what her competitors could manage…