So how does hollywood and D&D get blacksmiths wrong?

Well they are orcs, I don't think sauron or saruman really gave to many shits if the swords snapped during use in battle, your long sword is now a short sword or a dagger or a thrown weapon. But it doesn't really matter as they are expendable slaves.

You can if they're bronze.

youtube.com/watch?v=eEWIuyeNp2k

This makes no sense. What, you just beat out some pre-made steel foil and polish it to make plate armor?

>Casting swords
Pure fantasy. Only bronze swords were cast. A broken steel blade would have to be melted down into a billet or ingot and reforged from scratch.

>Blacksmiths wear no clothes for some reason
No brainer. I mean holy shit.

>Blacksmiths have no apprentices for some reason
This idea that a single blacksmith made everything a village could use is pure Hollywood. All blacksmiths, by the time iron was widely available, had apprentices, even if it was just a family member. It's just far too laborious and complicated to do it all by yourself.

Modern blacksmiths can do much more by themselves, but that's only due to pneumatic hammers and better forges.

>"Damascus" blades
This is a minor point, but pattern-welded steels are not "Damascus." They're pattern welded.

>Giant pauldrons
Looking at you Warhams.

>Insanely decorative armor for line infantry
You get boiled leather and a sharp stick and you'll like it.

Every village blacksmith and his dog knows the ancient art of forging legendary blades it seems.
Though going to the local smithy and being told;
"Well m'lud, I mostly just make hinges and brackets fer the most part. Fixin' up tools is the rest. Wouldn't know 'ow to make a sword proper-like what those fancy swordsmiths do. Could do you a lovely knife though, good fer skinning."
I guess just isn't as fun as having a smith who once trained under dwarven masters in his youth or having to trek miles just to get a decent longsword made.

>>Blacksmiths wear no clothes for some reason
Because they'd be sweating like an ice cube in a sauna. Of course they wouldn't wear more than the leather protective gear.

I don't think the other anons have any idea what they're talking about.

Steel plate was certainly available before powered machinery, at least the 13th or 14th centuries.

Wearing thick insulation would keep them both cooler and safer. Exposing bare flesh to the roasting hot and dry air filled with sparks isn't helping anyone.

The biggest thing being that "blacksmiths" are very generic iron workers, and would have very little knowledge on how to make a sword. They could make axe and basic spear heads, though. But their main trade would be door hinges, shovels, gates, horseshoes, etc.

Armorsmiths make armor.
Swordsmiths make swords.
etc.

You don't go to a General Practice doctor for a hand surgery, you go to a hand specialist.

A cursory search shows that trip hammers showed up in Europe by the 12th century.

Shit, I thought they meant "powered" in the modern sense.

>magic item economy makes no goddamn sense
Well maybe magic is fantastic and has value beyond simple gold ; ^ ) or all the magic items were made in a simpler time when people loved their work and didn't need promises of money to do every little thing ( < :

But actually, I'm with you. Everyone was gushing about this kind of crap around release. Not sure why though, maybe it was the "roleplay-not-rollplay" crowd being sick of 3.5's magic item treadmill.

By the book, the only way you could make a profit off magic item creation is to either crank out basic health potions (which IIRC are made using the regular crafting rules), or keep trying to sell your stock until you get the "shady motherfucker rolls up offering 150% of base price, no questions asked" result. So its' basically a question of whether you want to be the most boring potion crafter ever, or make your entire living by selling to really scary people who refuse to tell you what they'll do with your product.

>boiled leather
That's a meme, Gambeson's more likely, much cheaper and about as protective.

So, what, plate armor can only exist when you have waterwheeled-powered hammers for a smithy?

Just houserule your setting's economy. The static DMG economy has never worked. Case in point,

1d4chan.org/wiki/15,000,000_Gold_a_Day

The operative words were 'open molds.'

The molds in the LotR are just flat pans cut vaguely into the shape of a sword. It wouldn't get you a desirable product.

>which IIRC are made using the regular crafting rules
Nope. sageadvice.eu/2016/03/14/i-want-to-make-a-potion-of-healing/

5e's crafting is meant for adventurers with a few days of downtime. The gameworld doesn't need to follow the present rules logic (and shouldn't), by the devs' own admittance.

what he ^ said

blacksmithing is a lot like pan frying bacon because of the sparks. it's hot work yes but that's one of the many reasons why all smithies had waterbarrels or their equivalent

You have to create sheets of metal that are relatively uniform and that have the capacity to be worked without breaking. That's hard.

Note that up until plate armor most "heavy armor" was made up of interlocking plates, each one forged individually. For a full suit of contiguous armor you need a large piece of contiguous steel.

>>Giant pauldrons
>Looking at you Warhams.
>not looking at Warcraft

Up your pauldron game, user.

Journeyman Blacksmith here. 6127 hours over the course of 4 years here.
In my shop, I wear denim jacket and jeans under a heavy leather apron and welder's gloves and usually a full welder's mask when working large pieces over an inch in diamater. The clothing protects from sparks and the god-awful heat. My forge is hot enough to melt moderate amounts of steel without too much issue. That is fucking hot at over 2500*F. its way more comfortable to use the heavy-loose clothing then to get proximity burns.

Weren't those just to get blanks that you then grind, polish, and finish?

Where at and how much to train? I've been unable to find one on the east coast.

Steel doesn't really work that way. It's actually way cheaper and easier to just make a quick forged blade than to cast one.

>not looking at Warmahordes

Any European examples?

Skyrim actually has a really accurate depiction of blacksmiths, as shown in this video:
youtube.com/watch?v=DmYQMWNJgWo

Of what?

What's the difference between a forged blade and a molded one?

That was intentional. One of the biggest gripes about 3.5 was that one ended up playing their equipment list, rather than their character.

Of plate armor made up of smaller plates.

Nope. You take a sheet of steel, cut it, shape it, harden it, attach rivets, straps, buckles, join it with other segments, polish it, possibly engrave it, then it's ready to go.

If you have to start by making sheet steel with hand tools, it's a fucking nightmare.

No. You can also make it if you have a rolling mill or other facility able to produce sheets of steel. Powered hammer mills were just the first ones to really do it.

Exactly that. Drawn wire and small, easy to forge plates where the primary armor materials before trip hammers.

Naw. Castable iron/steel is way too brittle to be used for a sword.

>Forged
A forged blade is made from one or more pieces of metal that have been heated and worked over an anvil or some other smithing implement. That's really it. A forged blade would also be tempered.

>Molded
A molded blade would be like the kind you see in Lord of the Rings or Conan. You would heat steel until it was liquid and pour it into a mold. What you get is a crapshoot, since carbon content and micro-fractures within the steel would be random.

Forging, particularly pattern welding or FOLDING MIRRION TIMES, makes the carbon content of a blade more or less consistent, and results in a stronger blade because of it.

It's the difference between trying to break two sticks held together and twenty sticks held together. The more layers you have, the stronger material you have.

Not that guy, but Southern Illinois University has a really good Blacksmithing program.

Every blacksmith makes swords and armor.

>None of them make nails, plowshares, spades or other tools.

Steel isn't castable without sophisticated, modern technology. Cast iron can't be used to make a sword.

Oh yeah. The most famous is probably the brigandine.

Each one of those little rivets you see is holding a short piece of steel on the inside. I'll post an interior photo.

>heat steel
*heat iron, sorry.

Umm, there are some masters out that way that i have heard of, but really 90% of it is practice on your own. I got my apprenticeship at a local historical site. did my 500 hours and then bought most of my stuff at farm auctions. I have about 10k into my shop and have learned on my own how to make most armors and shit myself through trial and error.

I have examples of scale, chain and plate armors that i have done, however none are convienently located for me (gotta lot traveling).

Your best bet is starting with youtube. there are a lot of really good tutorials on there. Knives are the easiest way to get into blacksmithing.

...

Roman Lorica segmentata, Transitional Period Coat of Plates/Brigandine, Carolingian Lamellar.

>Knives are the easiest way to get into blacksmithing.
So Skyrim was right?

>Nope. You take a sheet of steel, cut it, shape it, harden it, attach rivets, straps, buckles, join it with other segments, polish it, possibly engrave it, then it's ready to go. If you have to start by making sheet steel with hand tools, it's a fucking nightmare.
But that only takes two weeks for a full suit? Is that from doing it every working hour?

I've always been a huge fan if brigandine and llamelar armor. Hell, my old SCA armor was brigandine.

It was hardened plastic and double-layer heavy canvas rather than felt and steel, but the style was the same.

Why can't you cast iron to make a sword? Can't you cast a dagger or a spearhead or an arrowhead?

Hammer forged steel has the stresses worked out of it, carbon distributed more or less evenly, and quite importantly you don't need to liquefy steel to make it.

Melting steel takes a fuckton of energy. Liquid steel also has an annoying tendency to shrink a lot as it cools, making casting much harder, and the alloying agents can separate.

Oh, and remember how it changes size a lot a sit cools? If it cools at an uneven rate huge amounts of stress can build up inside. When taken out of a mold it might sit there a moment, then explode into fragments.

It's a giant pain in the ass to cast steel now. It was impossible before the 1940s.

If you have access to sheet metal, a full shop, and some assistants (assuming medieval period), you might actually need less time.

Isn't lorica more Llamelar than plate or brigandine?

Because it would shatter or crack. Iron is actually relatively brittle.

Lamellar and brigandine are very, very similar.

>Hammer forged steel has the stresses worked out of it

That's what tempering is for, as I understand it. If you just drop a forged blade into a bucket of water there's a good chance it will deform or even shatter. There's still plenty of stress under hammer forged steel.

>Wearing clothes on top of leather while working in a room with a fire hot enough to melt steal.

There are rarely any sparks from hammering steel as there is hardly anyting coming of it. The biggest danger is overheating and smoke inhalation when smithing indoors as you need to keep the fire out of the elements while also venting smoke.

What about cold forging?

>Cast iron sword
Again, think of the stick analogy. It's easier to break a single stick or one or two sticks held together than it is to break a bundle of sticks. A cast iron sword would be of inferior quality, since it would be randomly rigid and wouldn't flex at all like good steel would.

>Spearheads and arrowheads
Do not need to flex in order to do their jobs. A sword does, and even a dagger is better off forged than cast.

But that's not what people mean when they say "plate armor." That's just studded leather.

Depends. If you've got good tools you can likely turn out a simple suit in 12-20 hours of work, or about two days. More complicated armor harness took more work.

That's a good question. Cast iron is very hard and brittle, with poor shock resistance. It can take a moderate edge and can be used for a knife, arrowhead or spearhead, but used to make something the shape of a sword would be very fragile and poor quality compared to a steel blade.

Cold forging uses metal that is already tempered. It's flexible and strong, so you can beat on it to deform it and you only need to temper it a final time at the very end of the process. And "cold forging" still uses heat, just not as much.

Cold forging is more for raising armor. This is a good example:
youtube.com/watch?v=TJb71Q5IO-o

Cooling steel and metals is the hardest and most critical factor in making it. If you forge a big thick bar of steel, say 20 inches across, the outside will always cool quicker than the inside unless steps are taken to lower their temperature at the same time.

Lmao. That is NOT studded leather.

If you're stuck on D&D terms, it'd be splint or scale armor

Are we still talking about medieval forges, or modern ones?

>Studded leather
u havin a giggle m8

Who said brigandine was plate armor? user specifically said "heavy armor". Which I assume to mean non-mail, non-leather/textile based armor.

It was, also, the technological father of plate armor. Small plates become larger plates as the technology to create them becomes more wide spread.

seriously. you can go grab a 3/16th inch thick piece of iron, take it to a grinder and start your work. its a cheap knife, but it can still hold an edge. you work up from there.

Medieval forges. Sheet metal was available in the Late Medieval period, so that's where you see those fantastic knightly plate armor sets.

>assuming medieval period
Are you retarded?

Shut up, dude. He was asking a legitimate question.

That's either horizontal nor open

Cool, are you a LARPer, my good sir?

Show us your sword! =)

Way I have it is that weaponsmiths are more common and basic weaponsmiths knowledge is more common in D&Dland because of all the fucking goblins, owlbears, kobolds, dire-everything and misc. bandits that inhabit the landscape.
The local village blacksmith still can't do shit with dragonscales, maintain dwarven or exotic equipment or the like but alongside learning how to make knives, hinges and plows a common blacksmith at least knows how to make a decent sword and hand axe, even if they rarely do so.
So most of the starting weapons in the players handbook is purchasable from most smiths.

That said, once players get into the swing of things, finding a specialist smith to order a mithril falchion inlaid with magicite or whatever is it's own side quest.

No, he wasn't.

His answer to his question was DIRECTLY IN THE POST HE LINKED. You cannot get much more retarded

Oh, that's early modern/late medieval production rates. You'd get faster in a modern machine shop.

If you had jigs, forms and pre-planned work you could turn out two suits an hour from a modern machine shop, though you'd be spending a few weeks building tools to make it. A proper tooled up factory could, of course, produce at an arbitrary rate.

Nope, just an enthusiast.

You don't attract people to the hobby by being an asshat. He misread, or he missed it. It doesn't mean he's stupid. Stop being a dick.

Lamellar is lots of little rectangle arranged in rows and tied together, Segmentata is long strips of metal. The pic I posted is pretty much a later variant of Segmentata that is either called Coat of Plates of Brigandine depending on the source.

This user begs to differ
Also, I worked with a guy who was getting his degree in Blacksmithing and he said always wore a lot of clothing.

Y'know, this thread makes me pine for more Bronze Age stuff. Steel strikes me as much more difficult to work with, even if it's mechanically far superior in most applications. Bronze you can just shape into the most ridiculous and fantastical shapes/designs so much easier.

Whenever I read "Studded Leather" I always assumed it was just boiled leather backed with metal plates and the rivets on the leather are just there to hold the metal plates in place.

It does make him stupid, if he can't even read the goddamn posts

he is a literal retard, and i hope he kills himself in his retardation when attempting to fucking cast a sword

faggots like him should be smothered to death by their mothers before they learn to speak

I really love Bronze Age weapons and armor design, but it just never fits the Middle Ages type of society that is popular in fantasy RPGs.

the trick to making cast steel is to not quench it quickly. Cast it into a heated mold that sits at around 1500 degrees F and wait a couple hours for it to solidify. Then take it out carefully and place it into a salt bath for a couple hours. Finally, once it has worked its way down to around 500 degrees, you quench it. this creates a decent blank that was cast and should only need a final grind and polish. I have made several moderate sized- double edged blades (short swords) with this method and they work great and hold a great edge. I do this shit in my shop about 3 times a year, because it does take a fuckton of work, but i can put out a blade from raw material in the space of two days instead of three to five days.

The real problem with bronze was at the time it was common it was fantastically expensive. Like.. the guy on the left there would be wearing a million dollars of armor made from bronze.

This leads to interesting stories. You could tell people were important and wealthy by their kit. A hero that fell in battle would result in battles fought to recover their arms and armor.

That sounds like a gigantic amount of work that would make me look over at a press about a dozen times and think "why are I not doing this the easy way?"

TRIGGERED

True, the majority of guys on a Bronze Age battlefield would probably be shirtless or wearing some light textile based armor at best. But this shit is just so dope.

Plus, by the late Bronze Age you start seeing bigger armies equipped with mostly bronze. Greek hoplites had a pretty decent panoply.

Could you make a bomb from hot steel and water that you could conceivably turn into a trap in a dungeon?

This is some top grade aspergers

>Studded Leather: This armor is made from tough but flexible
leather (not hardened leather as with normal leather armor) reinforced
with close-set metal rivets.
This is the actual description from the PHB. Brigandine would be much better protection that just a +3.

Yeah but that just makes no sense. It's like saying if you put on a shirt and glued on quarters it'd be good armor.

Until the city-states bankrupted themselves in the Peloponnesian Wars and you see a shift to the Linothorax.

what an amazingly gay suit of armor

its super fabulous

Well, if you have anything that is 10 kilos at 2000+ degrees you can kill the shit out of everyone in a hallway by dropping it into water.

Live steam is no joke.

wat