What's with the Wrench?

[TinklePit]

Strip 20030727 shows Kestrel using a wrench. Other strips show a wrench on the wall of Iron's small workshop. Also, the containment vice used to hold the sword has lots of threaded stuff. You ask "So?"

Point 1) Wrenches are only used to manipulate threaded stuff like bolts.
Point 2) Threaded stuff is only mass produced by machines. A blacksmith can make nails and rivets, but only a machine makes screws. (Exception allowed for the first screw-making machine.) Yes, you could make hand-made bolts, but think of the effort involved. Rivets would be much easier.
Point 2.5) The crescent wrench used by Kestrel is not adjustable yet must fit the bolt head almost exactly. Again, implying mass production to a standard.
Point 3) So far there has been no evidence of mass production or heavy production machinery. Everything has been consistant with a middle-ages technology.
Point 4) You could not expect lux to create bolts via some clever spell. Lux is just another energy such as electricity, so it would have no more intelegence than electricity. Lux is not magic.
Point 5) Lux could be used to drive a screw making machine just as electricity does. But see point 3.

Counter-Point -) It's just a comic. Get over it.

Counter-Counter-Point -) The Continuity Police will not be denied.

[RHJunior]

Minor points:

Lux can be used to manipulate material substances such as metal. In fact, Rac Cona Daimh metallurgists are generally those with a knack for essentially telepathically "reading" and telekinetically manipulating metal.

Spells, especially spells on artifacts, are essentially the equivalent of "computer programs" (or perhaps a circuit board is a closer analogy) for manipulating lux. It is quite possible to produce repeated, precision results.... such as making molten metal shape itself into perfectly identical and accurately sized screws, nuts and bolts.

[DracoDei]

Actually, according to a blacksmith I talked to, nuts and bolts existed before standard screw thread sizes. Each blacksmith made there own taps and dies and they matched there counterparts (IE the nuts fit the bolts they were supposed to) but the blacksmith from the next town over would probably not have sizes that would match close enough to be workable.

[The JAM]

[...unWARP!!!]

Good evening.


BUT

it has been mentioned that the Rac Cona Daimh are a metal-poor society. Wouldn't mass-production of metal precision parts (either iron, stainless steel, copper, tin, aluminum, lead, titanium, etc.) be rather hard to start up in the first place without opening up trade with the outside world?

[Earl McClaw]

Wouldn't mass-production of metal precision parts (either iron, stainless steel, copper, tin, aluminum, lead, titanium, etc.) be rather hard to start up in the first place without opening up trade with the outside world?

That assumes they're mass producing instead of small-lot. And precision? Not too likely. I like DracoDei's report that blacksmiths could make nuts and bolts in matched pairs. Maybe the Rac Conan Artificer's Guild managed a level of standardization that eluded Earth and they all use matching taps and dies.

I'd also like to remind everyone that metal-poor doesn't mean no metal. All it means is they're picky about what they use metal for, and probably try to recover metal whenever they can. That makes the museum items all the more precious!

[TinklePit]

Compare metal-poor China/Japan with metal-rich Europe.

The European saw is wide and cuts on the push. The Oriental saw is narrow and cuts on the pull.

The European chef has a set of knives. The Oriental has but one and uses it for everything.

The average European eats with silverware. The average Oriental eats with bamboo chopsticks.

The Romans drank wine from lead goblets and became Italians. The Chineese drank tea from procelean cups and became Communists. (I defy anyone to do anything with that statement without creating a logical fallicy! RH will grade you.)

So, going back through the strip, does the culture "feel" metal poor to you?

Where have we seen metal outside of the artifactor's shop? Have we seen any especially clever use of plant or wood to get around having to use metal? How successfull has RH been in giving a metal-poor impression?

And anyway, how many posts do I have to make to get promoted from Newbie to Proxy?

[UncleMonty]

Compare metal-poor China/Japan with metal-rich Europe.

The European saw is wide and cuts on the push. The Oriental saw is narrow and cuts on the pull.

The European chef has a set of knives. The Oriental has but one and uses it for everything.

The average European eats with silverware. The average Oriental eats with bamboo chopsticks.

The Romans drank wine from lead goblets and became Italians. The Chineese drank tea from procelean cups and became Communists. (I defy anyone to do anything with that statement without creating a logical fallicy! RH will grade you.)

So, going back through the strip, does the culture "feel" metal poor to you?

Where have we seen metal outside of the artifactor's shop? Have we seen any especially clever use of plant or wood to get around having to use metal? How successfull has RH been in giving a metal-poor impression?

And anyway, how many posts do I have to make to get promoted from Newbie to Proxy?

We probably think of the Rac Conan culture as metal-poor because Ralph said it was.

European saws are wider and longer because Europeans cut a lot more wood.

The Chinese did not become Communists from drinking tea. They remained the dictatorship they had always been, changing only the terminology describing it.

The Romans did not become Italians from drinking wine, they became Italians by being born and growing up in Italy.

Why do you want to be "promoted"?

[The JAM]

[...unWARP!!!]

Good evening.


Provided that there are no major ore veins anywhere in Rac Cona Daimh, the impression we have so far is that wood and stone are used for home and businesses. Metal, it seems, is used mostly for weaponry (can't forget that boomslang, and of course, swords and spears, or at least spearheads), and heavy machinery, like that thing Kestrel was first working on. As Earl pointed out, precision tools and precision parts (wrenches with their respective nuts and bolts) would not be mass produced, but lot produced, say, a dozen at a time, since there wouldn't be that many machines for the parts. Gold is used as currency, apparently, but only as major payment (much like the ancient Middle East and the use of the talent (1 talent = 6,000 denarii/day's wages)).

This is a fun discussion, isn't it? Amazing what we can learn by someone pointing out little details!

[RHJunior]

Seems there's some misunderstanding about how "metal poor" the Seven Villages are.
to be more clear, they're not precisely "metal poor".... they just have no <I>domestic sources</i> of metal. no mines. Basically, all their metal came from OUTSIDE... with trade from the dwarves.
It was fairly recent--- within Quentyn's own lifetime, in fact--- that trade suddenly stopped. Recent enough that Quentyn, young as he is, can remember that the sudden cutoff was what propelled Rahan's family into sudden wealth (and what a prat it made out of Rahan.)
They have quite a bit of metal about... it's just that they've spent, oh, about a decade <I>with no sources of new metal whatsoever.</i>
Although metal and finished metal products are still quite plentiful (evidenced by Rahan picking up a load of ingots), use and reuse and re-reuse have become desperately important.

[Earl McClaw]

...they just have no <I>domestic sources</i> of metal. no mines. Basically, all their metal came from OUTSIDE... with trade from the dwarves.

A succinct description of the Rac Conan situation, and one that fits perfectly with what we've seen so far.

I'm sure if we looked at the Seven Villages some decades in the future (assuming no source for useful metals is found -- including luxcraft figuring out a way to manufacture or simulate it), we'd see some significant changes in everyday materials. Metal objects would become even more precious, nails replaced with wooden pegs, and applications that would tend to destroy a metal tool (e.g. scraping away a shovel head) would begin to see non-metal substitutes for conservation of resources.

Would the luxcrafters be able to come up with a metal collecting method? Something that could re-gather and maybe sort metal flaked off to wear and rust?

[The JAM]

[...unWARP!!!]

Good evening.

The Romans drank wine from lead goblets and became Italians. The Chineese drank tea from procelean cups and became Communists. (I defy anyone to do anything with that statement without creating a logical fallicy! RH will grade you.)

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the Romans drank from lead goblets and became fascists?

If a metal crisis does indeed come to Rac Cona, perhaps lux could be used to manufacture heavy duty ceramics, or maybe diamond-edged ceramic cutting tools, utensils and weaponry.

Or they could stumble on the invention of the water drill that would replace metal drill bits and saws.

[TinklePit]

OK, I need help on this.

A couple of decades ago (yes, I'm an old fart. Wouldn't know it from my tu-tu...) I worked with a large manufacturing company. They had just purchased a special machine which drilled with electricity. I think it was called an EDM machine. Someone please correct me on this.

Anyway, it used a small wire to present a spark to the work piece. The spark evaporated a miniscule amount of the target. It was computer controlled and had no rotating parts such as a drill might have.

This divice could drill square holes. In fact, any shape hole or depression you like. The only limitation was that the target material had to conduct electricity for the spark to jump.

So why not create the equivilent lux machine? No water needed.

But the truely interesting thing about RH's post is that it implies three story arcs:
1) Who/What are the dwarves and where did they come from.
2) Why did they abruptly cease trading with the Rac Conan.
3) What happens from there.

Of course, that is the wonderful thing about this story. Each arc spawns enough material to generate three more arcs. There are enough open ends out there already to keep the strip going for another five years.

Y'all pray for Brother RHJunior that he make it to the end.

[TinklePit]

European saws are wider and longer because Europeans cut a lot more wood.

The Chinese did not become Communists from drinking tea. They remained the dictatorship they had always been, changing only the terminology describing it.

The Romans did not become Italians from drinking wine, they became Italians by being born and growing up in Italy.

Why do you want to be "promoted"?

Actually, the Oriental saw is that way precisly because of the expence of the metal. Try it with a hacksaw blade. It will pull quite nicely without the handle, but will bend and jam on the push. So you can make the same saw with much less metal if you make it a puller.

The drinking comment was a clutchless paradigm power shift. Sort of like the story where Jesus said to Lazerus, "Come forth and receive eternal life." but Lazerus came fifth and only received a toaster.

The promotion question was not so much desire as curiosity. There is obviously a mechanism in place which changes your status from Newbie all the way up to All Master of Time and Space. Just wondering what the levels were and when they changed.

[UncleMonty]

European saws are wider and longer because Europeans cut a lot more wood.

Actually, the Oriental saw is that way precisly because of the expence of the metal. Try it with a hacksaw blade. It will pull quite nicely without the handle, but will bend and jam on the push. So you can make the same saw with much less metal if you make it a puller.

You're not taking this far enough. Why was the European saw designed to cut on the "push" stroke?

When you cut wood, the sawdust has to go somewhere. A "Pull" saw throws it at the person doing the sawing, while a "Push" saw throws it the other direction. European homes were built of boards, which meant a LOT of sawing. I'm not saying the lack of metal wasn't important, only that generations of carpenters sawing European pine trees into lumber would inevitably have switched to a "Push" saw to... reduce the fiber in their diets, so to speak.

[The JAM]

[...unWARP!!!]

Good evening.

OK, I need help on this.

A couple of decades ago (yes, I'm an old fart. Wouldn't know it from my tu-tu...) I worked with a large manufacturing company. They had just purchased a special machine which drilled with electricity. I think it was called an EDM machine. Someone please correct me on this.

I don't recall an EDM machine, but I do remember an episode of "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" (with Jack Palace) that introduced the water drill. That thing cut through some 3 inches of stainless steel with practically no effort, no burr, and no overheating.

[DracoDei]

For what it is worth my Dad programmed an EDM at one point I think. He was making dies for plastic extrusions.

[Zorro]

...they just have no <I>domestic sources</i> of metal. no mines. Basically, all their metal came from OUTSIDE... with trade from the dwarves.

A succinct description of the Rac Conan situation, and one that fits perfectly with what we've seen so far.

I'm sure if we looked at the Seven Villages some decades in the future (assuming no source for useful metals is found -- including luxcraft figuring out a way to manufacture or simulate it), we'd see some significant changes in everyday materials. Metal objects would become even more precious, nails replaced with wooden pegs, and applications that would tend to destroy a metal tool (e.g. scraping away a shovel head) would begin to see non-metal substitutes for conservation of resources.

Would the luxcrafters be able to come up with a metal collecting method? Something that could re-gather and maybe sort metal flaked off to wear and rust?

In the Star Trek Universe the Vulcans had almost no metal too before asteroid mining.

Their solution was VERY High Tech Glass as a replacement.

The next generation metal alloys will be "Glassy Metals" simular problem solved in the same way with two very different technologies.