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[MuseOD]

Thank you!!

[Naryar]

Or you could move your entire fort next to the magma, if doable.

[MuseOD]

@Naryar, I don't have the time nor the manpower to move my fort ~100 z levels. Using the magmakart idea sounds doable. Thanks, though. If I want to have !!FUN!!, I'll certainly consider setting up shop on the caverns

[greycat]

Is there a primer I can read on that? The wiki is somewhat vague

It is?  Really?  Which part is vague, specifically?

[MuseOD]

I misstyped. Intimidating is the right word.

[fearlesslittletoaster]

I solved this by doing the following:

1. Carved out a room which was designed to be flooded with magma, and a room for the magma to drain into be low that. Rigged levers and hatches accordingly.

2. Stockpiled magma-safe minecarts in that room. Note that if you have Nether Caps in one of the caverns their wood is magma safe. This would help you with either corkscrews or minecarts without wrecking your iron supply.

3. Flood magma room. Once it is filled up, drain it. Each mine cart will now contain enough magma to fill a single tile to 2/7.

4. Dig single square pits, build in a track with a stop to dump the magma into the pits. Dump two mine carts into a pit and it will power a magma forge, smelter, kiln, or glass furnace.

If all you are looking to do is run magma forges this is a pretty straightforward way of getting a bit of magma upstairs. However if you need much more than that it is slow, needs fiddly management, and is labor intensive. A pump stack or a piston is far far better for bulk transportation.

[greycat]

1. Carved out a room which was designed to be flooded with magma, and a room for the magma to drain into be low that. Rigged levers and hatches accordingly.

2. Stockpiled magma-safe minecarts in that room. [...]

This is basically the same as the wiki's "Design 3: Minimalist magma moving" and is also the method that I use when all I want are a few magma-powered workshops.

[PatrikLundell]

Nether-cap is magma safe for screw pumps, but NOT for mine carts. They catch fire and burn if you dump magma into them, and disappear without a trace if you try to scope up magma by sending them through a track through magma. I think nickel is magma safe and not a weapons grade metal, by the way.

The way I move modest amounts of magma is to use a single magma safe screw pump to pump magma into a single tile room with a magma safe grate at the bottom (and a magma safe door) to let excess magma back down. Hand crank the pump for a few seconds, and the cart is full. I then have dorfs carry the mine cart to the track stop at the dump location and back afterwards (using routes).

The cave-in method to move magma is called a magma piston (as mentioned by fearlesslittletoaster), by the way.

However, I don't usually bother with moving magma up to my workshops, but rather set up a magma powered workshop area down by the magma sea. The mine cart hauling is used to cauterize cavern lake entrances for cavern securing purposes.

[fearlesslittletoaster]

Nether-cap is magma safe for screw pumps, but NOT for mine carts. They catch fire and burn if you dump magma into them, and disappear without a trace if you try to scope up magma by sending them through a track through magma.

I had no idea, thank you. That would have resulted in some... complications for my current fortress actually. THE PLAN was about to become reality.

[Killgoth]

Wait...can't you get sand wherever you want simply by dumping water on a tile then building a floor over it...then deconstructing the floor?  Someone else had a similar problem and solved it this way.  Then you can have your sand pit right next to your magma-glass smelter.  There is something like a 1 in 4 chance that when you deconstruct the floor you will get sand instead of mud right?

[origamiscienceguy]

I think that's only if there was sand already and it got covered by plants or something.

[Killgoth]

I think that's only if there was sand already and it got covered by plants or something.

I looked into it.  As it turns out--if there is sand anywhere on your map you can convert a tile of stone into soil.  http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=102917.0

1)  Muddy the tile (I suggest doing a lot since it is random)
2)  Build over the mud with floor
3)  Remove the construction and cross your fingers

Edited to add:
On my own embark I have red sand and silt:

So far though I have only had luck converting rock floors to furrowed silt.  I am gonna try mass re-wetting and building over, then removal tomorrow to see if I can get any other soil types.

[PatrikLundell]

You can also get soil by channeling down into SMR, build a floor/wall over the exposed magma flow, and then remove the construction. However, it seems this soil always matches the soil you have in the caverns (I haven't done enough attempts to verify if that's 100%, though).
I suspect all the muddied tiles that convert will result in that same kind of soil, but that's more of a guess.
I have at times sealed off a small patch of the 3:rd cavern for sand harvesting, though.