Novel Name: Isekai Blacksmith shop slow life

chapter: 154

Sword Making: Day 3

------

Third day of sword making

 

Yesterday, we worked up to the point of applying the baked blade clay. Today, we will start the finishing work after quenching.

I think that hardening is the most important part of making a sword ....... If we fail here, the two days we've spent up to this point will be completely meaningless.

Riku and Nida are visiting again today. The other three are going out to the fields and foraging. Half of the time, I would walk Krull.

 

After the morning worship service, I would see Samya, Diana, and Liddy off and then magically set fire to the fire pit. I add more charcoal and send the wind with magic to make sure everything is lit.

 

Eventually, a gurgling sound heard and the entire fire turns and becomes brighter so we stop the air blast and place the entire sword blade deep into the fire bed as the burnt blade clay dries.

Adjust the position of the charcoal so that the entire blade heated evenly, while adding more charcoal and adjusting the airflow sent to stabilize the temperature. All of these ambers grabbed with a cheat.

Eventually the sword blade rose to a temperature suitable for quenching.

 

「That's the temperature.」

「Yes.」

 

I called out to riku and received a strong response.

Normally, I would have gone at night to determine the temperature by colour. Since I am using cheats as Riku is a dwarf and knows the temperature even if it is not at night, I chose to go during the daylight hours.

 

A side effect was that even if Nida had some blacksmithing skills, it was difficult to determine the exact temperature but this is a comforting thought, since it would be meaningless if the demons had the ability to detect infrared radiation. From the looks of it, she doesn't know much about blacksmithing, so it must be a hard work.

 

When the proper temperature reached, the whole thing submerged in the tank at once. The temperature of the water filled in this tank is also important in quenching.

In the previous world, there is even a story of an apprentice who put his hand in a water tank to find out the temperature of the water used by his master for quenching, only to have his hand cut off.

 

It's such an important thing but in my case it's already been confirmed by cheat and I've told riku. I'm the blacksmith of this world and my senses are more than a cheat. ......

 

The sword blade, which submerged in water and quenched made a sizzling sound followed by several kon, kon, kon sounds. I can feel it in my hand. Because the speed of cooling differs depending on the fired blade clay, the difference causes contraction and the blade is warping at this very moment.

In the previous world, some people compared these to births and I see why this seems so.

The sword blade pulled up from the tank warped as expected. The centre of the warp should be a torri(a bent/Japanese gate) warp in the middle of the blade and the warp itself should be shallow not deep.

The entire blade is exposed to the flames of the still lit fireplace to raise the temperature just a little and the slight distortion is repaired by placing it on the stand from which the log was cut. This process also allows for tempering of the tempered portion.

 

When the distortion removed and the blade has cooled down, sharpen the entire blade with a rough whetstone to check the blade pattern. It's properly leaning on the bay as I thought it should be. Personally, I think this is what swords are supposed to look like and since it was the first sword I made I wanted to give it a "look" of its own.

 

Since there seems to be no problem in the whole process, we will continue to sharpen the entire piece. In the case of model making, it would be like applying a surfacer, and in the case of cosmetics, it would be like applying a foundation base.

 

As the sharpening progressed, the blade became shiny from dull. I saw the famous sword several times in the previous world and it looks not so bad from then on. I'm not an expert and I'm a homebrewer, so I don't deny that there is some favouritism.

 

「Oh. Is it finished? 」

Nida looks at the blade I raised and says.

 

「No, no, no, not yet. Now we have to do finishing.」

「Is that so?」

「The Northern sword is so much like a work of art. But what we're building now, trying to make it very field-oriented.」

「hmm I see」

 

Nida started to think about something, so I proceeded with the work.

After sharpening and determining the overall shape, I carve a single U-shaped stripe on the ridges of the Shinogi-ji using cheat. A gutter, It is sometimes said that this is to drain blood but in reality it is simply to reduce weight. There is no sense of actual cheating or loss of strength.

(TN: The Shinogi and Shinogi-ji are best remembered as a pair, with the Shinogi being the ridge line where the sword transitions from the angled portion that forms the edge to the flat section of the blade, which is called the Shinogi-ji. The portion of the blade from the Shinogi to the Ha (edge) can be said to have a little or a lot of hira-niku.)

Now that the gutter carving is finished, the entire sword side further cleaned up. This is still painting complete in modelling or foundation in makeup. The gutters filed and honed cleanly to ensure they were even.

 

Now the blade side is ready to be finished, next is the stem cage. The holes are drilled, filed to clean up the shape and surface but to prevent the nail from falling out of the handle it is filed again one last time leaving a file edge at this time.

 

In the previous world, said that the way of leaving this rasp is different among people and workshops but I doubt if it is necessary to care about it in this world, so I did not pay attention to it.

Finally, it is the final step in the process of changing the shape. I pick up the chisel and first carve an engraving of a fat cat sitting on the blade side of the eye nail hole.

 

There, a clang-clang the bell of the workroom rings. Is it that time already? This next task will be the end of the day. As I was thinking this, Samy and the others came into the workshop.

 

「Oh, what, you're still at it?」

「Oh. Well, that's it. 」

 

I replied to Samy, picked up the chisel again and cut the inscription on the other side of the cat's imprint "Eizo Tajima".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------