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Yes

6 (54.5%)

No

5 (45.5%)

Indifferent

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 11

[ZayZe]

Saw this in a mod recently, I'd like it added into the base game. Seems realistic and agreeable. Giving us another use for stone.

[PatrikLundell]

Not particularly realistic, I think. There are nowadays processes to grind stone down to gravel for industrial use (e.g. to be added to reinforce concrete), but grinding it all the way down to sand would require a LOT of work, and many of the grains would probably have dangerously sharp edges.

[Bumber]

And you wouldn't be able to use most stones for glass.

[ZayZe]

Added a poll.

I see what you're saying

[Azerty]

Not particularly realistic, I think. There are nowadays processes to grind stone down to gravel for industrial use (e.g. to be added to reinforce concrete), but grinding it all the way down to sand would require a LOT of work, and many of the grains would probably have dangerously sharp edges.

Breaking rocks was a task typically done by convicts and prisoners. It could be a way to use POWs.

[PatrikLundell]

Not particularly realistic, I think. There are nowadays processes to grind stone down to gravel for industrial use (e.g. to be added to reinforce concrete), but grinding it all the way down to sand would require a LOT of work, and many of the grains would probably have dangerously sharp edges.

Breaking rocks was a task typically done by convicts and prisoners. It could be a way to use POWs.

Into gravel, yes, but not sand. Also, as Bumber said, most rock wouldn't yield sand usable for glass anyway.

[NullForceOmega]

Hoo boy, I see people making comments about things without researching them.

Industrial sand production is very much a thing, and can be used for basically every single use that natural sand is, and is in fact preferred in many due to having a more refined percentage of silica.

However, it is an extremely energy expensive process that uses simply massive modern industrial machines, and would be unbelievably impractical for the fifteenth century tech cutoff in DF.

edit: Also, and this is very important and very few people seem to understand it, sand is not a material, it is a size.  Any kind of rock can be reduced to sand, and you can find natural instances of basically all of them on any given beach.  There are of course some specific cases where the sand on a beach is uniform (or close enough for the trace amounts really don't matter) in its composition.

[GoblinCookie]

I think it would always be more practical simply to send a bunch of dwarves off to wherever the sand is than to do this.