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[StagnantSoul]

I hear people complaining about how common aluminum chunks are in Dwarf Fortress compared to real life, yet it's not that much more. At least Napolean had aluminum cutlery and embroidery for doors. I'm lucky if I have an aluminum ring. Another example: bismuth bronze is somewhat rare to see in the embark menu. I finally got it in the embark menu, and then I got a really rare, modded alloy, that I've never actually seen in the embark menu before. And then, after those two rare metals, I finally got aluminum. Why is aluminum so hard to find?

[nogoodnames]

In real life, aluminum is the most abundant metal on the Earth's surface. However, the vast majority of it is locked up in chemical compounds and methods for extracting it weren't invented until the 19th century. The "Raw Aluminum" in DF is the extremely rare pure form of the metal which can only be found in certain special environments where it doesn't chemically react.

[Absentia]

What he said. Modern aluminum comes from bauxite, which is relatively common in DF, but it takes a lot of electricity to process into metal and that's several centuries past DF's technology cutoff.

[smakemupagus]

There's tons of aluminium in Dwarf fortress -- it's locked up in the bauxite and sapphire, and in the aluminum-bearing silicates like kaolinite, microcline, orthoclase, and others; sadly inaccessable to your ~14th century equivalent metallurgical tools.

[StagnantSoul]

So get a waterwheel going, go into adventure mode, pick up the platinum war hammer, and start whacking at a sapphire on some rollers?

[Thuellai]

Look up the Hall-Heroult process.

That's something that dorftech has yet to accomplish.

Therefore, they can only get aluminum from environments where it won't have oxidized due to its reactive nature, which is pretty much only volcanoes in the real world (ergo its placement in Igneous Extrusive layers)

[Ancalagon_TB]

At least Napolean had aluminum cutlery and embroidery for doors.

And those were priceless treasures at the time.  There was a period where aluminum was a very precious metal.  When we finally figured out how to use electricity to smelt it, it became very abundant.  The reason why it's hard to smelt is because aluminum is very chemically reactive.  Any aluminum object you see is coated in a thin layer of aluminum oxide (which, unlike iron rust, is not permeable to oxygen, so it protects the rest of the aluminum from rusting).  To get pure aluminum you have to break those strong chemical bonds.   If you manage to set aluminum on fire, the resulting combustion is *extremely* intense (see thermite).

[Foxite]

Raw aluminum or native aluminum? On my current fort I don't even remember how much times I struck native aluminum, but never actually tried to smelt it or use it in some other way. I am aware of its value, but I never really did anything to do with trading and I am not planning to do so anyway.

[Quietust]

Raw aluminum or native aluminum?

In DF, native aluminum is raw aluminum.

[schlake]

There's tons of aluminium in Dwarf fortress -- it's locked up in the bauxite and sapphire, and in the aluminum-bearing silicates like kaolinite, microcline, orthoclase, and others; sadly inaccessable to your ~14th century equivalent metallurgical tools.

Sounds like a job for the Alchemy skill.

[Magnumcannon]

Not as rare as Bituminous Coal/Lignite

[StagnantSoul]

...That's a joke, right? I always have 8000+ coke on a normal map, with smelters going full time.

[Foxite]

Not as rare as Bituminous Coal/Lignite

Bitcoal/lignite is only available in some biomes, so if your embark is not in such a biome, then you will never find any of it. You can still use magma forges or charcoal however. Setting the mineral frequency before starting worldgen to frequent or everywhere will certainly help with finding bitcoal or lignite. But even on everywhere coal is never truly everywhere, on my current fort I have no stone coal, and since my wood supply is limited, I am switching to magma forges now.

[Quietust]

Coal is only rare if you insist on embarking on a volcano, since volcanoes are surrounded by Igneous Extrusive stone instead of the Sedimentary stones in which coal is capable of appearing.

[scionkirk]

Dwarves don't need no stinking elvish Hall-Heroult process.  They can just beat the bauxite with their bare hands until it gives up its aluminum