The foundry
Astrapi, August 618, halfway between the city and the mine
"Good morning monsieur Duchamp, I am honored by your presence here. As you can see, the foundry is now fully operative, and we estimate the costs will be completely refunded in a couple of months".
"The honor is mine, director, you've done an admirable work!" Replied Renè Duchamp. Director's prediction was a bit too optimistic, but how to blame his enthusiasm? They had been just a step before complete failure, the investors were discouraged and only his own reassurance to creditors, Tristan's perseverance and the director's skills saved House Rimbaud's investment on Astrapi silver.
Everything about that damned silver has resulted harder than expected, with the ore in an impervious area, water infiltrations in the tunnels, the employment of an half of the labour force in the construction of the Arsenal and, last but not least, copper in the silver veins, just enough to make conventional smelting process almost useless. "As you can see, we are receiving in this very moment some partially refined silver from the mine... it is smelted there, but that doesn't remove copper. The cargos are delivered to the pier using small boats or bigger barges" "What are those men doing?" Asked Duchamp, curious. "They are numbering and date-stamping the barrels. Since their content comes from the same area of the mine, we will assay only some of them for copper amount, and mixing them up wouldbe a problem" "And here you can see the beast -continued the director- the heart of the foundry. This is our cupellation furnace, eating coal and pooping fine silver... I am sorry sir, forgive my rudeness." "No problem, Director, it is no trouble at all. Please, go on: how does your famous furnace work?" "How I was saying, sir, it is a cupellation furnace, not a great innovation, but the first one in the New Worl; as the name suggests, it contains one or more "cups", bowls of calcareus sand. The smelted silver from the mine is loaded in the furnace together with a calculated amount of lead. When the metal melts, we open the hatch, and the strong air flow oxidise lead to litharge, that sinks through silver and is absorbed by the sand, dragging copper away. Copper oxidises too, but without the lead movement it would remain mixed with silver." "Lead... that's why you need so much lead! It's not easy bring it to the foundry!" "I know, monsieur, and for this reason we have a good stock of both lead and coal. My men are bringing lead ingots inside the warehouse, a hard job, I do not envy them at all" "There we also store the barrels of raw silver, ready for refination" "Please, monsieur, come with me in the building behind us. As you can see there are a little furnace, used to assay raw silver, and what's needed to verify weight and size of silver ingots and to mark them." "Good morning guys. Thank you for the tour, Director. I only have a question: what is that yellow powderon the table?" "An easy question, monsieur. It is solid litharge, that is lead oxide. We usually sell some of it to local painters, who use it as yellow pigment." The facade of the building An overall view
Everything about that damned silver has resulted harder than expected, with the ore in an impervious area, water infiltrations in the tunnels, the employment of an half of the labour force in the construction of the Arsenal and, last but not least, copper in the silver veins, just enough to make conventional smelting process almost useless. "As you can see, we are receiving in this very moment some partially refined silver from the mine... it is smelted there, but that doesn't remove copper. The cargos are delivered to the pier using small boats or bigger barges" "What are those men doing?" Asked Duchamp, curious. "They are numbering and date-stamping the barrels. Since their content comes from the same area of the mine, we will assay only some of them for copper amount, and mixing them up wouldbe a problem" "And here you can see the beast -continued the director- the heart of the foundry. This is our cupellation furnace, eating coal and pooping fine silver... I am sorry sir, forgive my rudeness." "No problem, Director, it is no trouble at all. Please, go on: how does your famous furnace work?" "How I was saying, sir, it is a cupellation furnace, not a great innovation, but the first one in the New Worl; as the name suggests, it contains one or more "cups", bowls of calcareus sand. The smelted silver from the mine is loaded in the furnace together with a calculated amount of lead. When the metal melts, we open the hatch, and the strong air flow oxidise lead to litharge, that sinks through silver and is absorbed by the sand, dragging copper away. Copper oxidises too, but without the lead movement it would remain mixed with silver." "Lead... that's why you need so much lead! It's not easy bring it to the foundry!" "I know, monsieur, and for this reason we have a good stock of both lead and coal. My men are bringing lead ingots inside the warehouse, a hard job, I do not envy them at all" "There we also store the barrels of raw silver, ready for refination" "Please, monsieur, come with me in the building behind us. As you can see there are a little furnace, used to assay raw silver, and what's needed to verify weight and size of silver ingots and to mark them." "Good morning guys. Thank you for the tour, Director. I only have a question: what is that yellow powderon the table?" "An easy question, monsieur. It is solid litharge, that is lead oxide. We usually sell some of it to local painters, who use it as yellow pigment." The facade of the building An overall view
Astrapi, August 618, halfway between the city and the mine
"Good morning monsieur Duchamp, I am honored by your presence here. As you can see, the foundry is now fully operative, and we estimate the costs will be completely refunded in a couple of months".
"The honor is mine, director, you've done an admirable work!" Replied Renè Duchamp. Director's prediction was a bit too optimistic, but how to blame his enthusiasm? They had been just a step before complete failure, the investors were discouraged and only his own reassurance to creditors, Tristan's perseverance and the director's skills saved House Rimbaud's investment on Astrapi silver.
Everything about that damned silver has resulted harder than expected, with the ore in an impervious area, water infiltrations in the tunnels, the employment of an half of the labour force in the construction of the Arsenal and, last but not least, copper in the silver veins, just enough to make conventional smelting process almost useless. "As you can see, we are receiving in this very moment some partially refined silver from the mine... it is smelted there, but that doesn't remove copper. The cargos are delivered to the pier using small boats or bigger barges" "What are those men doing?" Asked Duchamp, curious. "They are numbering and date-stamping the barrels. Since their content comes from the same area of the mine, we will assay only some of them for copper amount, and mixing them up wouldbe a problem" "And here you can see the beast -continued the director- the heart of the foundry. This is our cupellation furnace, eating coal and pooping fine silver... I am sorry sir, forgive my rudeness." "No problem, Director, it is no trouble at all. Please, go on: how does your famous furnace work?" "How I was saying, sir, it is a cupellation furnace, not a great innovation, but the first one in the New Worl; as the name suggests, it contains one or more "cups", bowls of calcareus sand. The smelted silver from the mine is loaded in the furnace together with a calculated amount of lead. When the metal melts, we open the hatch, and the strong air flow oxidise lead to litharge, that sinks through silver and is absorbed by the sand, dragging copper away. Copper oxidises too, but without the lead movement it would remain mixed with silver." "Lead... that's why you need so much lead! It's not easy bring it to the foundry!" "I know, monsieur, and for this reason we have a good stock of both lead and coal. My men are bringing lead ingots inside the warehouse, a hard job, I do not envy them at all" "There we also store the barrels of raw silver, ready for refination" "Please, monsieur, come with me in the building behind us. As you can see there are a little furnace, used to assay raw silver, and what's needed to verify weight and size of silver ingots and to mark them." "Good morning guys. Thank you for the tour, Director. I only have a question: what is that yellow powderon the table?" "An easy question, monsieur. It is solid litharge, that is lead oxide. We usually sell some of it to local painters, who use it as yellow pigment." The facade of the building An overall view
Everything about that damned silver has resulted harder than expected, with the ore in an impervious area, water infiltrations in the tunnels, the employment of an half of the labour force in the construction of the Arsenal and, last but not least, copper in the silver veins, just enough to make conventional smelting process almost useless. "As you can see, we are receiving in this very moment some partially refined silver from the mine... it is smelted there, but that doesn't remove copper. The cargos are delivered to the pier using small boats or bigger barges" "What are those men doing?" Asked Duchamp, curious. "They are numbering and date-stamping the barrels. Since their content comes from the same area of the mine, we will assay only some of them for copper amount, and mixing them up wouldbe a problem" "And here you can see the beast -continued the director- the heart of the foundry. This is our cupellation furnace, eating coal and pooping fine silver... I am sorry sir, forgive my rudeness." "No problem, Director, it is no trouble at all. Please, go on: how does your famous furnace work?" "How I was saying, sir, it is a cupellation furnace, not a great innovation, but the first one in the New Worl; as the name suggests, it contains one or more "cups", bowls of calcareus sand. The smelted silver from the mine is loaded in the furnace together with a calculated amount of lead. When the metal melts, we open the hatch, and the strong air flow oxidise lead to litharge, that sinks through silver and is absorbed by the sand, dragging copper away. Copper oxidises too, but without the lead movement it would remain mixed with silver." "Lead... that's why you need so much lead! It's not easy bring it to the foundry!" "I know, monsieur, and for this reason we have a good stock of both lead and coal. My men are bringing lead ingots inside the warehouse, a hard job, I do not envy them at all" "There we also store the barrels of raw silver, ready for refination" "Please, monsieur, come with me in the building behind us. As you can see there are a little furnace, used to assay raw silver, and what's needed to verify weight and size of silver ingots and to mark them." "Good morning guys. Thank you for the tour, Director. I only have a question: what is that yellow powderon the table?" "An easy question, monsieur. It is solid litharge, that is lead oxide. We usually sell some of it to local painters, who use it as yellow pigment." The facade of the building An overall view