Yoku Wakaranai Keredo Isekai ni Tensei Shiteita You Desu - Vol. 8 Ch. 33 - I Don't Really Get It But, This Seems to be the Forge

[MangaDex]

 

[The5thSeraph]

I could tell just from looking at that "sword" that it was absolute garbage.
The blade is far too wide, the handle far too small, and the crossguard pointlessly enormous and badly shaped. That thing would be so unbalanced as to be unusable.

I'm guessing that is the artist's fault though.

 

[iririuuu]

oh no they are going back? now the only reason why i'm reading this (yuri) is ending

 

[SuplexSensei]

It seems Alisa-san wants in on Ren's salad as well...~

 

[User_Name]

Fun fact: Japan is pretty proud of their traditional iron-sand iron. Which actually either is pretty crappy quality or not traditional at all.

• Without magnetic separation there are too many impurities in it. The classical/traditional method is pretty good, but only as far as late medieval methods go. That's pre pre-industrial.
• Even after the magnetic separation, sulphur from sulfur compounds need to be burned off in an oxygen rich but low-ish temperature (you don't want anything melt at this stage, as that would encapsule impurities).
  • The traditional method doesn't include this step.
• After that you would want to melt it in a carbon rich environment which would reduce iron oxides, and make the steel carbon rich. And further separates the iron from still present silicates. For that, though, are temperatures needed that melt the iron to point of being as viscous as water. And hold it there for a while.
  • The traditional method fails here again as it doesn't get hot enough to fully melt the iron. Even the modernized traditional method that uses electric blowers, instead of manual operated ones, fails to reach these temperatures. It melts, but not enough for the separations to occur. The former method (manual air pumps) barely melts it.

All that leads to a high-ish impurity iron. The further processing then tries to hammer out the impurities with meager success.

Again: it's pretty good for late medieval times, but doesn't hold a candle to modern spring steel.

I don't like that fact, either, that a sword made with the heart and soul of a traditional Japanese blacksmith, even with modernized methods, loses against one industrial stamped from rolls of sheet metal.

 

[Godc0re]

Lol, pretending like iron-sand would in any way compete with proper iron.

 

[naphack]

Lol, pretending like iron-sand would in any way compete with proper iron.

Iron sand is one of the best sources for iron if you have the proper methods to process it.
It's very low on slag IF you have access to strong electromagnets. With storage magic as absurd as Ren's, you can simply store only the grains of magnetite and leave all the silicates in place.

 

[NotSomeone]

Fun fact: Japan is pretty proud of their traditional iron-sand iron. Which actually either is pretty crappy quality or not traditional at all.

• Without magnetic separation there are too many impurities in it. The classical/traditional method is pretty good, but only as far as late medieval methods go. That's pre pre-industrial.
• Even after the magnetic separation, sulphur from sulfur compounds need to be burned off in an oxygen rich but low-ish temperature (you don't want anything melt at this stage, as that would encapsule impurities).
  • The traditional method doesn't include this step.
• After that you would want to melt it in a carbon rich environment which would reduce iron oxides, and make the steel carbon rich. And further separates the iron from still present silicates. For that, though, are temperatures needed that melt the iron to point of being as viscous as water. And hold it there for a while.
  • The traditional method fails here again as it doesn't get hot enough to fully melt the iron. Even the modernized traditional method that uses electric blowers, instead of manual operated ones, fails to reach these temperatures. It melts, but not enough for the separations to occur. The former method (manual air pumps) barely melts it.

All that leads to a high-ish impurity iron. The further processing then tries to hammer out the impurities with meager success.

Again: it's pretty good for late medieval times, but doesn't hold a candle to modern spring steel.

I don't like that fact, either, that a sword made with the heart and soul of a traditional Japanese blacksmith, even with modernized methods, loses against one industrial stamped from rolls of sheet metal.

They were pretty good for 10th century, not late medieval. Katanas are good swords made with shit iron, the way they are build, the blade profile, all of that is to compensate for the mediocre iron you get from smelting iron-sand. If we're looking at late medieval europe, we are talking steel.
Ren is a "scientist" and she has whatever Op skill the story needs next, so she can probably just hand-pick iron from the sand and magically mix it with the right % of carbon and create modern steel without any tools or anything.
I mean, she would NEED modern steel to make spring coils for her carriage, even when at this time period carriages had pretty good suspensions made with either leather straps or leaf springs.