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[Rozenbuddy]

My fortress has no metal (as far as I've dug) and I've been needing a jail. I have stone of many types (none being ores) and wood. from what I've read from dwarffortresswiki.net you cant make proper jails from wood. I know I can trade for metal but i think it would be much easier if someone has no metal if they could make cages for jails and other uses out of rock.

[lucusLoC]

I think a "jail cell" should be a room, defined from a door to make it so that you can have an empty jail cell. Or perhaps a special "jail door" that would allow the passing of food and water through. The cell could be furnished if desired, and maybe even a workshop included.

[Sensei]

I don't think there's much stone you couldn't break a 2-3 inch thick bar of. Stone tends to be brittle when cut so thin.

[Felblood]

Why not just use ropes? --or build wooden ones?

There's already  plenty of ways for the metalless, or even the metalless, woodless, fort with no reeds to get their prisoners jailed.

Unless there's a strong flavor justification, I can't see myself supporting it, as there is no mechanical necessity.

[LegoLord]

I don't think there's much stone you couldn't break a 2-3 inch thick bar of. Stone tends to be brittle when cut so thin.

Hah.  That's funny.  But wrong, trust me.  I've tried.  At least for the kinds of stone you'd be using to build with, anyway.

[Dakk]

Its unrealistic, even granite is easy to break when carved into a 2-3 inch wide bar, a powerful kick in the right place and it'd shatter. To make a workable rock cage, it'd have to be too tick and too large, making it too heavy to be practical.

Also, AFAIK, wooden cages work just as nicely as metal ones, unless you're trying to capture things like fire/magma men and HFS.

[Rozenbuddy]

I guess you're right, but it seems like wood would be escapable by a strong enough dwarf, i'll try it and post the results later

[Rowanas]

Well, modern prison cells are rooms with vertical bars. I don't see why prisons in DF shouldn't follow suit. The only advantage of cages and other separations is that it would stop tantruming dwarves from killing all of their prison mates.

[tsen]

Well, one possibility would be using fortifications as "bars".

[ArPharazon]

I suppose you could make it out of Sapphire. >_> Wikipedia gives a pretty high tensile strength for it, and from what I understand that is the important factor with mineral bars.

[LegoLord]

Its unrealistic, even granite is easy to break when carved into a 2-3 inch wide bar, a powerful kick in the right place and it'd shatter.

Have you ever tried?  Cause I have, and it didn't work like you say.

[Dakk]

Well i never met anyone with the time and skill to craft me a 1,5 meter long 2/3 inch rock bar, but i assume i could easily break one by kicking its center a few times. Non crystaline rocks tend to have considerably low tensile strenght.

[Sensei]

There's a reason concrete beams include rebar, dude. Concrete is especially brittle, but still- schist, granite, microcline, magnetite- I can't think of any layer/large cluster stones that would really work well enough to hold most of the people on this forum. And remember we're talking about dwarves too; they're crazy mother****ers who haul stone around all day and kill skeletal colossi.

[Grendus]

There's a reason concrete beams include rebar, dude. Concrete is especially brittle, but still- schist, granite, microcline, magnetite- I can't think of any layer/large cluster stones that would really work well enough to hold most of the people on this forum. And remember we're talking about dwarves too; they're crazy mother****ers who haul stone around all day and kill skeletal colossi.

Dwarves in mythology are usually fairly strong on top of this. It's unlikely any dwarf wouldn't be able to break a thin rock bar. Of course, dwarves can be restrained by a lead chain, it's not like DF physics are accurate.

Metals are fairly easy to find. Look for embark zones with flux stone or granite, they're usually heavy with all sorts of metals. Worst case, embark with some copper nuggets. They're cheap, like 6 dwarf bucks.

[buman]

They could easily mix cat hair into the concrete to make it strong enough, at least stronger then gold, copper, tin, lead...