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FLTL Ch 226. Mould And Deckle
🕑 Added 2025-05-06 14:30:02 +0000 UTCA/N: I have attached some images after the chapter. You can take a look at them to visualise the designs better.
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"The simple reason is that paper isn't just going to be used by us two in the future," Kivamus replied. "Right now you can't even imagine just how widespread the usage of paper can get in the future. We can use it to give children something to write on, we can replace the costly parchments for us, and perhaps even print books in the future. It also takes several days to convert a hide into parchment, but paper can be made much faster than that in a larger quantity, which will make books accessible to everyone who wants them." He looked at the majordomo, who still looked sceptical. "Just trust me on this."
Duvas smiled. "Of course I trust you. You have proved the usefulness of your ideas time after time, no matter how absurd they felt in the beginning." He added, "By the way, you meant to write new books, right? I don't understand what it means to print books."
Kivamus smiled. "Printing... is a little difficult to explain without actually showing it. Let's leave it for the future when we are ready for it." Once the majordomo nodded, he looked at the waiting carpenter, who looked eager. "This wouldn't be a single, individual machine, but will have several parts which will be used in sequence for the whole process of making paper." He pointed at the blueprint he had drawn. "Most of the parts look simple at first glance, but they need to be sturdy enough that it wouldn't break under load."
He put his finger on the sketch of a rectangular wooden frame. "This is the simplest part. You will need to make around a dozen of these for now, one of these will become the deckle while the other will become the mould. I will ask Cedoron to make a bigger fine mesh to attach to half of these, just like he is making for the new safety lamps for the coal mines. Later I will show you how to attach the mesh to the frames when both are ready."
Darora frowned. "You mentioned this already but these are still too simple... I can easily make them by tomorrow evening. Is this all?"
Kivamus chuckled at the impatience of the young but talented carpenter. "Hardly. After this I need a wooden tub, just like the ones the maids use to wash clothes in, as well as a wooden beater - again, similar to the ones they use for washing clothes."
Duvas looked at him with raised eyebrows. "This sounds like you just want to order more maids to wash clothes... Is this really how paper is made?"
Kivamus ignored the jibe, and continued, "We will need a medium to large sized cauldron for boiling, but we can just use an extra one from the kitchen for this. We already have enough ropes we had bought from Pydaso before winter, so those can be used for drying." Thinking about it, he muttered, "Hmm... We will also need to make some felt for this, since I haven't seen any of it here, but it should be doable from the rabbit or wolf hairs. We will also need a good amount of lye." He looked at the majordomo, "Are you still dumping the wood ash in holes in the ground like in the past?"
"Of course not," Duvas huffed, "I'm not that forgetful! We've already started to gather it in big earthenware pots to use as fertilizer in the farms after you told me about that a month ago. They are being stored outside the manor like you had ordered, so there wouldn't be any chance of it catching fire and damaging other buildings."
"Good, good. There should already be enough ash for making lye then. If we can make it in a decent quantity, we might even be able to start making soaps here."
Duvas stared at him. "But we had already bought enough soap from Pydaso to last the whole village for the winter - although they'll likely last a month or two longer since the villagers are habitual of using the smallest amount they can get away with to save some coin."
Kivamus frowned. "No, that won't do. Tell them there is no need to be frugal about that. Like you said, we have a lot of it in stock." He added, "Also, soap is something we just can't do without even after the winter ends, and I don't want to buy something which is that easy to make and at such inflated prices from those money-grubbing soapmaker guild of Plumron. Anyway, that's an issue for the future, since Plumron basically has a monopoly on soapmaking and it's not going to be easy to go against them."
Finally, he focused back at the carpenter who looked impatient by now. "Now this is the difficult part for which you are here." He pointed at one of the blueprints made on the parchment. "I need you to make a trip hammer, like this one. We certainly can't spare enough iron to make even the head of the trip hammer from it, so it will be made of wood, with a layer of iron around it."
He explained further, "There will be a simple rectangular frame around a man's height, With the pivot of the trip-hammer attached to an axle in the middle of that frame. One side of the hammer will have its iron wrapped head, while the other side, which is the haft - or the handle in case of a normal sized hammer - will be pushed downwards by a cam." He added, "The cam is just a smooth triangular piece of wood shaped like a single tooth - which will push down that side of the hammer and raise the hammerhead on the other side of the fulcrum - the pivot - which will then fall down under the force of gravity."
Darora scratched his cropped black hair. "I know the concept of a cam, but how will the cam push down the hammer's haft? This whole hammer will weigh as many as half a dozen men, if not more. I don't think it can be done by hand."
"Of course it can't," Kivamus agreed. "I was getting to that part. That cam will be attached to the water wheel we will install under the dam on the eastern stream. It will take maybe ten more days to remove all water from the mine shafts, and after that we can shift that wheel to that stream. We will use a long wooden axle to shift the rotational motion of the water wheel under the dam to another wheel located on the shore. This arrangement will be enough for the trip hammer, once you have made the second wheel with cams on its circumference. Later on, we can use gears to transform the rotational motion of the second wheel from a vertical plane to a horizontal one, in case we want to use it to grind grain or some other stuff like that, but that's for the future."
Seeing that Duvas was getting confused now, while Darora was squinting his eyes looking at the blueprint, he added, "Leave the details of how the full system will work to me. I will explain whatever is needed if you have any problems, but for now you should start making the frames first, and then you should return to make the third crossbow. By the time that is ready, we will have started the construction of the dam, and you can start making the trip hammer and the second wheel and axle arrangement. That would be completed around the time the dam is finished, and after that we can start the installation of everything there."
Darora nodded. "Even though I will have to start working on the trip hammer only after a week or so, I will still take this blueprint with me, so I can familiarise myself with the design in my free time. The wooden frames are simple enough, but the blueprint will be helpful to see the dimensions for reference."
"That's a good idea. you can take it right now," Kivamus said as he rolled up the parchment. "Come back here with all the frames when they are ready, so I can show you how to attach the wire mesh to it once Cedoron has made them."
"Of course milord," Darora said before he took the parchment, and exited the manor hall.
Kivamus looked at the majordomo. "Call up the blacksmith tomorrow morning, so I can explain about the wiremesh to him." Once Duvas nodded, he continued, "We have enough pelts stored now, so order a few servants to take a few of them and pluck the hairs from them. We will use some hot water and repeated agitation and compression to make felt from those hairs, which will be used to compress the paper later."
"Won't it be a waste of those precious pelts?" Duvas asked. "We can sell them for a good price to merchants after winter."
"Don't worry, only two or three pelts would be more than enough for now." Kivamus added, "Tomorrow morning, tell a servant to bring up some of the stored ash, so we can boil it to make lye. That can be a little dangerous, so we will do it outside the manor walls in the east, and I will supervise the process. Once we have some lye, and the mould and deckle have been built, we can start the process of making paper. The final product, at least that of a decent quality, will have to wait until we have the trip hammers ready, but we should still be able to start making some of it once we have some felt made from the hairs. Ideally we will also need a separate paper press machine for making the final product, but we can just use the wood press machine for this in the beginning, since by that time we will start mining coal again and we can spare that machine for a while."
Duvas took a deep breath. "You have thrown around a lot of new terms here, and I hardly understood half of them, but I will trust you once again that you know what you are doing. I will give the orders to the servant and call Cedoron tomorrow. I know I shouldn't doubt your admittedly extraordinary ideas by now, but every time you mention something new, I start to think if something that complex can really be made in Tiranat..."
Kivamus smiled. "That's alright, Duvas. It's okay to have some doubts, I hardly know everything after all. Either way, I believe it will be many years, if not decades, by the time I start to run out of ideas which are simple to implement, and by that time even I wouldn't be sure if any advanced designs can be made in Tiranat. We'll see what to do when we reach that stage." He grinned. "For now, enjoy the journey!"
Duvas stared at him for a while then shook his head while smiling. "I wonder how you can even think of so many unique ideas..."
Kivamus returned the smile, without giving an answer. Gorsazo had basically raised him since he was a child, and considered him like his own son, which is why there was no real risk of his former teacher calling for him to be burned at the stake when he had revealed everything about himself. However, Duvas was much older and had a similarly traditional mindset. He had no doubt that Duvas wouldn't betray him in anything, since the old majordomo considered Tiranat to be his home now, but in case he revealed his real origins, he still wasn't sure what Duvas would do. That's why it was better to be safe than sorry. Perhaps one day, he could tell more about that, but for now, it was better to keep his secret to himself.
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A/N:
Mould and Deckle (that is indeed the correct spelling of mould when it concerns paper production)
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Trip Hammer:
This diagram is fairly accurate as to what will be built here, except that the water wheel will be a little distance further into the back - just ahead of the dam - with another wheel attached on the same axle doing what the water wheel is doing in the below image. Here the trip hammer is being used to forge iron (Technically, it is being used for drawing out blooms made from wrought iron into more workable bar iron, but you get my point.)
However, the trip hammer can be used to pound anything into a flat shape, which is what Kivamus' plan is.
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This is a real pic of a trip hammer which has survived to this day in Austria. Just like in this image, the main body of the hammer designed by Kivamus will be made of wood, with a layer of iron around the head to give extra strength to it. The rectangular frame visible behind the hammer is where the fulcrum/pivot is located to support the weight of the hammer, and the cam of a rotating wheel will be on the other side of the frame, which will repeatedly push that side of the hammer down (which means the head of the hammer will go up), so that gravity will make it fall down after the cam has passed the haft/handle of the hammer.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Next chapter: FLTL Ch 227. The Southwestern Gate
Comments
Rodmin
I liked this chapter
Jermel Purse
OK, hoping some of these products can be sold in the future. Soap, good smelling soap. I could see that making money and paper or printed books that could make a ton of money. Especially if he printed a book with common knowledge, he was familiar with but stuff that this world might not be familiar with.
Alex V
Cool development π
