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[Footkerchief]

Guys, I think if armour and weapons were possible to create by casting, it would have been done. But it never was. The only think cast were arrow/bolt heads- everything else was welded. (I don't know about anvils, of course).
So I really see no practical use of implementing this into the game.

I'm honestly curious, where are you people getting these ideas from?  The casting of (high-quality) bronze weapons and armor was a widespread practice 3000 years ago, it's not some fancy modern invention.  Cast iron is still useful for furniture and many tools and weapon components where the best impact toughness isn't needed.

[Silverionmox]

It's also a false dichotomy: forging depart from cast metal parts, and cast objects are often hammered in the finishing stages.

[winner]

The cast tips to 50 year old jackhammers are still doing fine. They see heavy use very often as they belong to the city water department.

[LegoLord]

So I really see no practical use of implementing this into the game.

Oh, let's see, maybe . . .

Try reading the rest of the thread before posting.
Did I really write this post?  Ugh.

[eerr]

I Propose, certain metals and items require casting.

What is casting? casting is a method of metal working where metal is poured into a mould.

Anvils, bronze, lead, and some other metals will require a cast, instead of an anvil, for initial preparation. If that is too simple, the item can be later "smoothed" by those with the engraving job enabled.

blades will most likely require a form of sharpening.

[Luke_Prowler]

Holy necro bump, batman.

Forging and casting can both be used, each with it's own Pros and cons. However casting should never really replace forging, and it defiantly shouldn't be the magical fixer upper.

[eerr]

Holy necro bump, batman.

Forging and casting can both be used, each with it's own Pros and cons. However casting should never really replace forging, and it defiantly shouldn't be the magical fixer upper.

In reality, certain metals are cast, like bronze. Certain metals are hammered, like steel.

As stated previously, It's usually a mix of several methods.

But casting alone should produce produce a passable anvil.
In fact, it should probably produce an ordinary anvil.

I dare you to hammer the amount of metal into place required for an anvil!

Making just a dagger is hard work, and a large amount of shaping.

That is to say: you couldn't hammer the amount of iron in an anvil if you tried!

[Andeerz]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anvil#History

Regarding anvils, at least according to this article (and we all should research this more...), some anvils were not cast from iron prior to the 20th century.  They were constructed by forge-welding together billots of iron, which is basically gushing a bunch of hot metal together.  The flat face of the anvil could be plated with a harder metal.  It would make sense to me that this would be the case for almost all anvils in medieval Europe, as the ability to reliably melt iron throughout medieval and earlier Europe was not commonly achievable.  Furnaces were just not hot enough until the advent of blast furnaces after the 14th century.  The Chinese had hot enough furnaces, however, to actually cast iron loooong before the Europeans...  Perhaps dwarves could, too.  I think what most people are confusing in this thread as cast iron are actually thinking of wrought iron.  Hmmmm... I really need to read up more on the matter.

Regarding other metal items, there would be a LOT of items that would likely require casting, especially crafts, toys, statues, etc. made of bronze, copper, and other lower-melting-point metals.  I recently had the pleasure of touring the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and took a look at the ancient Indian artifacts they had on display.  There were many copper, bronze, and brass objects (figurines, statues, furniture and archway components) of immaculate detail that were obviously cast from molds.  Trying to make such crafts by using a hammer to shape chunks and sheets of metal is possible, but I would argue it would be much harder to do than simply melting the metal, casting the objects, and fine tuning the shape using files and the like as was likely done with the Indian artifacts I saw.  Some objects would be hammered into shape though, such as vessels or dishes, which I also saw in the exhibit.

By the way: suggested reading for everyone interested, including me - "The Knight and the Blast Furnace"  ... if anyone has a copy, lemme know.

[darkflagrance]

Is there a balance reason why anvils should be so expensive?

Although, if the cost of anvils were decreased to reflect hypothetical ease of casting, then the game would actually be harder because we'd lose embark points that used to be invested in the anvil.

[eerr]

Is there a balance reason why anvils should be so expensive?

Although, if the cost of anvils were decreased to reflect hypothetical ease of casting, then the game would actually be harder because we'd lose embark points that used to be invested in the anvil.

Iron and steel aren't always available.

Maybe reduce the anvil to 300 pts?

We'll get back more when theres more useful stuff available.

Dwarf fortress: the forging era

All tools have 2.0 versions? : P

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

rock-hammer
rock-anvil
rock-plumphelmet
water-booze.
pebbles-bolt
Arm-crossbow.
dragon-admantium plated giant dragon.
Vomituminous blood- vomituminous blood ball monster.
Stick-sword
axe-battleaxe
steel-adamantium
Noble-dead noble

[uncledrax]

With regards to casting:
- you would/could cast: spear heads, heads of projectiles (javelins, arrows, bolts, and various parts of other weapons (sword pommels, etc)).. the shafts of these weapons were more often then not constructed of wood. I'm assuming Toady just abstracted this process to prevent micromanagement nightmares.
- Obviously any of an assortment of decorative/structural items (vases, bars (for fences/grates, bowls, goblets, spoons, etc). Minor items like spoons and goblets were very often easier to make from clay (obviously not in DF yet :[ ), carved from wood, or from beaten softer metals once you have them smelted into usable forms (like pewter, tin, silver).
- Cast items, esp with the rough molds used before very modern times (they have some really nice/precise molding technique these days), required additional cleanup.. polishing and deburring on decorative items, or maybe grinding/honing/turning and/or minor additional hammering for weapon (spear/arrows) points, but otherwise running a honing stone a few times over a cast arrow head wouldn't take to horribly long (that is, in a game where I can create a mail hauberk in a single day, the time to sharpen some arrow/spear times is insignificant). Game mechanic wise, Arrow and Spear construction is again likely just abstracted.
- per http://www.metal-technologies.com/HistoryofMetalCasting.aspx, Sand casting was present in China circa 645BC.


- "Cast Iron" is a specific form of purity/additive of iron that required it to be melted. This is where blast furnaces circa 15th century Europe came into play.  Are Dwarfs advanced in metallurgy enough to actually blast-furnace melt iron? Given the presence of Pig Iron as a precursor to Steel, that answer is yes. Also aren't Dwarfs the only race with Steel (maybe I"m thinking early versions?).
- Given the level of metallurgical technology possessed by Dwarfen kind, I would argue that all metal types could be cast, up to and including steel.


Also:
- Please don't call them 'rock hammers'.. call them Stone Hammers..   a Rock Hammer is a very specific type of hammer, not a hammer made of rock. ( http://images.google.com/images?q=Rock Hammer ). It was called 'The Stone Age' after all ;]

That is to say: you couldn't hammer the amount of iron in an anvil if you tried!

Welcome to why there used to be a large following and amount of respect for professional blacksmiths.. and also why they invented the various powered hammer mechanisms (like waterwheel powered Trip-Hammers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_hammer). Do remember that a smithy was usually alot more then just the 1 person it is in DF, and older style anvils were really pretty much just blocks steel, instead of the fancy shapes with hardy holes and horns that are common these days.

---

All of that said, as for what I'd think would be ok/good to see for casting in DF, if it was to be added:
- Create a 'foundry' building type.
- Casting uses Fuel, Sand (collected same as for glass), and bars of the metal type you are using.
- Allow casting for non-weapon, non-anvil items. This includes furniture, pipes, goblets/toys/crafts. IMO there are already several weapon/armor elements available, however if armor/weapons are to be included, I would argue for their naming as in 'A Cast Iron Short Sword', and it should have a lower damage/armor multiplier then that of a forged weapon. Quality should still be relevant and have suitable multipliers. So a Cast Iron SS should have a weapon quality of 0.75 or something.

All of that said.. why would anyone bother with casting when it's easy enough to just forge in DF?

[DooMJake]

But that still leaves the question/problem that we are not able to make an anvil without an anvil. Where did the first one come from?

[Virex]

The point with casting is that it's quite quick. You pour it in the mould, leave it to solidify and open the mould. After that you just have to grind off the flash (sides of the mould that don't close perfectly) and what's left of the riser (prevents the object from getting all kinds of holes when it shrinks due to sollidification). If it's sand-cast you may want to pollish it as well to remove the grains. While this may take a few days all togheter (most of which is cooling time), that's still a lot shorter then the time it takes to fully forge the same item from a bunch of bars. Plus, you can cast multiple items in succesion, and store them for grinding.

Also, one thing to take into account is that cast iron is hard but britle. This means that, although you could make a pick out of it, it'll break as soon as you hit the wall with it. Basicly, anything that's going to get a large amount of stress on it can't be cast (on the other hand, stuff that needs to withstand little stress but a lot of pressure can be cast very well). This is because cast iron contains quite a big fraction of cemmentite (FeC or iron carbide) which is a ceramic. So cast iron is indeed excelent for furniture (assuming it isn't too big, since then material shrinkage becomes a problem), while it generaly blows for things like tools, weapons and siege-proof doors.
Also, there's black or grey cast iron and white cast iron (ignoring alloys using magnesium here). The grey cast iron's easier to make because you can cool it quicker, but on the other hand it's less hard then white iron. White iron is formed by letting the cast iron cool very quickly(using a water cooled metal mold for example) so that the metal can form cementite. If you cool too slow you get graphite and iron instead of cementite and iron. Often the metal is cooled resonably fast, in which case you get a hard, white iron shell and a soft grey iron core.

Note that if you'd cast steel you havn't realy got this problem, becuase steel contains far less cementite. You do have problems with allingend grain boundaries which may serve as starting points for tears, so often cast steal is hammered, extruder or rolled (roling and extruding are post era though) to realing the grain boundaries. Still, if you're halfway to the shape, hammering's only going to take a little amount of time compared to directly hammering stuff from bars.
As with cast iron, steel can form austenite (Normal steel) or Martensite if you cool it rapidly. Martensite is harder, but also more britle, so often a shell of martensite is formed around a core of austenite.

What this all means in terms of gameplay I don't quite know, except that the quality of the mould is very important as is the skill of the one making it. Besides that,t eh aplications and range of qualities is also quite broad. So I'd actualy say that forging in DF terms should be the baseline. It's quite slow, but it'll get you decent results. Casting is faster, but you'll need a good metal caster to get reasonable results (and a good mould). I'm not sure if the caster should directly process the object, requiring him to be a good smith as well, or if it should yield an "unprocessed iron cabinet" which has a strong negative quality modifier untill someone hammers it into shape.
In terms of molds, there are the sand moulds, usefull for when you've only got  to make a few of the things you need, because they're fast to make, cheap and easy to reuse (the sand that is, the mould has to be broken). Then there are ceramic moulds, which give a better finish but need to be destroyed. Permanent moulds which themselves have to be cast from a metal with a higher heating point (steel moulds for copper) which give a good finish and good reusability but arn't availible for all metals and are expensive and stone moulds which are reusable bit give a poor finish. A poor finish means it'll take more time to process it after casting and also that it'll have a lower quality baseline, so if you don't have a good smith a sandcast cabinet is going to be of worse quality on average then the same cabinet that has been cast with a ceramic mould. (also note that you'll need a damn good caster and a damn good mould to cast a cabinet because you'll get problems with long cooling times and material shrinkage)

[RavingManiac]

Note that they did make cast iron and cast steel anvils, but the former had a steel face to better withstand the forces involved. Considering the difficulties of casting explored by Virex's post, anvils could still be quite balanced.

[uncledrax]

As a casual DF player, I think you guys are trying to over complicate the game mechanics of this process, and adding in entirely to many additional dependencies (so ceramic molds require I make a pottery shop (which I imagine, since we're going to this level, should require a carpenter or stone mason to first craft a Potters Stool and a Pottery Wheel, and hooked up to a wind/watermill to turn the wheel) and a pottery kiln (constructed from rock blocks, and of course using coal/charcoal/wood to fire) first.. then collect [C]lay, make [M]old -> of [G]oblet. [F]ire molds in the Kiln (applying a quality modifier?).. once you have it, let it cool down and do whatever. Then at your Foundry, [C]ast -> [G]oblet -> from [C]eramic mold, and that would yield a *((rough brass goblet casting))*.. which you would then [C]lean up castings on?

You seriously want me to do something 20 keystrokes to make a casting? True with a reusable mold, you lower the amount of successive repetition.. but I mean.. seriously, in-game you'd want to streamline the process and not shut out users.
As for casting larger objects, generally one wouldn't cast an entire cabinet or chair.. one would cast the pieces of the object and later assemble them. As pointed out, shrinkage is an issue with larger casts. IRL, this does mean you spend more time deburring and cleaning up each individual piece (unless you're just making something that is strictly functional of course)

Now the main power of casting, as Virex pointed out, is time. If casting does happen, one should be able to make more then casting at a time... that is, create a mold of 5 goblets, and each cast produces a series of the objects (so you could mass produce something). Presently I don't see any advantage to 'speed of which a piece is completed', since it seems as though 90% of the time my dwarfs spend trying to make a suit of armor or metal crafts are spent fetching materials, not actually sitting on the forge. If Toady is planning on adding in more 'realistic' time frames for crafting, I apologize as I'm not aware of it.


As for Cast Iron, it was possible to face-harden cast iron items to given it some additional strength.