Blacksmithing Guide

Information From Tale 7
The information in this article is based on Tale 7 and has not yet been verified in Tale 8. Please use such information with care as things may have changed in Tale 8.
If you are able to confirm and provide updated information, please consider updating this article and removing this warning.

You will use an anvil, metal and tool to shape a piece of metal into the goal shape (you can check the goal by pressing G over the project).
Tools will "push" metal in various ways, based on their attributes and the force of your strike. Remember to have the tools in your inventory before you start!
Your goal is to make the starting piece of metal resemble the "goal" piece as much as possible.
Each project has a finite number of times it can be struck, so plan wisely.
- Shape your project first with a shaping mallet. Try to get as much metal moved as possible at the start, so you don't have to move large groups of metal later in your fine tuning.
- Fine tune your project with the ball peen and round hammer. You don't always have to use force 9, but don't be afraid to give it a nice hard whallop when necessary.

Any time you change a hammer, the force will reset to 1. CHANGE TOOL -> CHANGE FORCE

Skills Required/Used

Projects

Name	# Metal	Other
Shovel	10
Archaeologist's Shovel	8	Asks for 10 metal, but uses only 8
Carpentry Blade	1
Hatchet	20
Resin Wedge	7
Sharp Edged Knife Blade	10
Spring	1

Construction Hits

Items on an anvil can be manipulated only so many times before they become too delicate to work. The maximum number of hits is governed by the metal used, plus a bonus for passing Art tests:

Maximum number of hits

Metal	Base # of Hits
Copper	160
Iron	180
Brass	200
Bronze	210
Steel	220
Sun Steel	240
Moon Steel	250
Thoth's Metal	260
Water Metal	250
Metal Blue	280
Octec's Alloy	300

Artistic Touch Bonus

Passing Art tests allows a blacksmith to add a small number of quality points to everything they make. *The bonus is applied when the object is removed from the anvil, and is automatic.

The bonus has been calculated by rwindmtg as follows:<
- boost=(9999-qual)*((0.02*rank)+0.002)
- For example, a Master of Art will add 102 points to a 9001 quality hatchet, for a final quality of 9103.

Starting in T8 with the addition of cheese making, Areesh cheese also gives a quality bonus. The recipe for Areesh cheese comes from a special event and the completion of the "Stranger's Challenge". One of 4 possible recipes are awarded for completion of the event (on going) but only the Areesh recipe gives the quality bonus. The value of the bonus increases with the aged potency of the cheese.

Areesh cheese at Potency 4 gave +100 to both blacksmithed and glory hole goods.
- Areesh Potency 10 gives +350 to both.

Tools Needed

Round Hammer

The round hammer has the same press pattern as the shaping mallet - 7 spots, flat, hexagon shaped. The distribution is pushing metal in any direction up to 3 points away.

The round hammer has two primary uses. It is the "poor man's" shaper, because it hits more area and pushes more metal than the ball-peen hammer, but it does not have as large a distribution pattern as the shaping mallet. It also allows you to hit metal down on spots that wold otherwise be unreachable by clicking on the point *next* to it, if the point next to it is lower than the target point. So if you have a very high point, and want it to stay there, but a low point next to it and you want that low point lower, you can hit the next point over with the round, and the low point will be hit down.

Ball Peen Hammer

The ballpeen hammer has an important press pattern. There are 7 press points - similar to the round hammer and shaper mallet - except the center one is ~19 visual "ticks" deeper than the surrounding 6 (that is, the center of the hammer sticks out a bit) -- so if you hit flat metal, only one point will be pushed. If you hit steep-angled metal, you will hit the points surrounding the point you click on as well. Metal may be distributed as far away as 3 points.

This is the only hammer that can push down only the spot you click on in most situations. It is the tool that allows you to do precision work, and get the really high quality. You would use the ball-peen hammer to clean up most of the errors left by the shaper, which it can not manage as well or at all.

Wide Tungsten Chisel

The Tungsten Chisel is useful but not necessary. It's press pattern is 4 points wide at depth, surrounded (by 12 points total) higher up, similar to the points surrounding the center of the ball-peen hammer. The points around the chisel's 4 main points are higher up than the ball-peen's -- so there are some cases (specifically, the back corners of the hatchet) where the chisel allows you to make it perfect, while the ball-peen does not. The chisel's distribution pattern is its most important feature. When you press with the chisel, metal ONLY moves forward or backward. As far as 3 points, like the other non-shaping hammers.

The Tungsten chisel's primary use is the front of blades. It speeds up what you could otherwise do with the ball-peen by pushing the metal directly away from the blade, instead of randomly around. It provides additional functionality in rare cases, due to its sharper slope (largert point difference between the low spots on the hammer and the high spots), which you can use to your advantage in the back corners of the hatchet.

Shaping Mallet

The shaping mallet has 7 points, shaped in a hexagon (6 points around the point you click nearest, as well as the point you click nearest). It is flat, so you will only push metal away from the highest point among the 7 that it could hit (the others will not be hit, as the hammer is flat.) The distribution pushes the metal as far as 4 points away, from the point closest to where you clicked, in any direction.

The large distribution makes it useful for moving metal around on the blank in large quantities, but the round/flat press pattern makes it less useful for detail work. The best blacksmiths in Egypt often shape up to 8-9k quality before working detail, because you do not want too much metal in the wrong area and have to use the peen hammer to move it—it takes too long. This is a good skill to develop, possibly the only one needed if you don't plan to make your own 9-10k items.

Techniques

Carpentry Blade

The Basics of the Carpentry blade are simple: Hammering along the front edge with a F8 Shaping hammer and finishing the front with four strokes of a S9 chisel will yield a 4-5k Carp blade. Using a Ball Peen F9 and four quick strokes on the "fins" will make it a 5-6k blade, and you can be finished there. It's a simple, quick, and dirty method for mass production.

Link to Lollipop Guild 7K carpentry blade guide from T3 (archived copy)
FaceAnkh Carpentry Blade Guide
Turkenlukz's Blacksmithing Guide 23 blows 7k based on Eldrads Carpentry Blade Guide.
Dae's Way: 6K in 13 hits
Obol Carp Blade 7k

Hatchet

Shovel

Pega's Shovel Guide

Spring

Break point for a 3x spring is somewhere around 8500 quality. Break point for a 4x is somewhere between 9075 and 9220. (Iy-Nefer)

Resin Wedge

Ikuu's 80 steps to 8k

Check also the older Guides from Tale2 and Tale3