Chapter 86: Solutions
Lessons with Leah the next morning weren’t fun. Ryan persevered in his attempts to produce useful materials from the scraps of porcupine skin that Leah had him working on. After fruitlessly bashing his head at the problem for three hours he hadn’t managed to produce a single piece of leather from the holed and somewhat spongy skin of the porcupine.
After Leah’s latest critique of his attempt Ryan was forced to concede defeat. “I give up. What am I doing wrong?”
“Not much actually. Your technique has improved substantially. The problem is with the material. I haven’t figured out how we can actually make something useful from the stuff so I figured you’d keep bashing your head at the problem until you accidentally managed to solve the problem.” Miguel’s girlfriend told him cheekily.
He nearly blew his top. The frustration that had been building over the last few hours nearly erupted before Ryan could reign himself in. With a herculean effort Ryan stopped himself from screaming and ground out his question through clenched teeth. “So, I’ve just been wasting my time trying to solve your problem.”
A hint of anger coloured Leah’s cheeks as she flashed back. “No, you’ve started mastering the Tan Skill while working on a difficult material. Your understanding of the process has improved significantly. Also, the few attempts I had you repeat so I could observe might actually lead to a useful product once we refine the process. So no, I haven’t wasted your time.”
Ryan immediately backpedalled. “I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions. It’s just been frustrating. I haven’t made progress on the armour or the problem with the bow.”
Leah’s confused look clued him in that he had entirely forgotten to clue her in on the problem they were facing with the limbs of the bow. So he rectified the issue and explained the problem while asking her for advice. As he went into more detail a thoughtful look stole over her face. By the time he had finished and raised his eyes from the piece he was currently tanning he noticed that Leah had stopped listening. He tamped down on the once more rising frustration when he saw that Leah was frantically searching through his not insubstantial pile of discards.
Ryan made motions to get up to have a closer look when her triumphant shout interrupted him. “Found it. I knew I had put it here somewhere.” Leah was waving a elbow length strip of leather in the air as she approached him excitedly.
“You said that modern limbs are a composite, right? And that you were trying to figure out how to combine quills into a usable limb, right?” the teen basically yelled in his face.
“Yeah? I did.” Ryan uncertainly replied.
“Follow me.” Leah said in lieu of an explanation and headed towards the workshop.
Ryan accepted that he wouldn’t get a more comprehensive answer her as she skipped away in bouncing strides. The workshop was deserted but the massive pile of metal shavings and the greatly diminished pile of quills told Ryan that Stephen and Mike had been busy making arrows earlier. The biting scent of hot metal and hotter oil that pervaded the space even though the windows were wide open indicated that they hadn’t left too long ago.
Leah headed straight to the vise and without saying a word strapped in the strip. With what was clearly no small amount of effort she turned the handle as far as she could manage. “Try pulling on it.” she commanded while stepping away to make space. Ryan started to understand where this was going and promptly stepped up to the workbench and gripped the top end of the strip. Ryan started pulling lightly. Then he put more strength into it, and then some more. Then he braced himself and went full out. The strip was bending slowly and when Ryan couldn’t handle the strain anymore he let it snap back with a satisfying twang.
“So, my Skills told me that this piece has a very high compressive and tensile strength, it’s also fairly hard. If we can mould it while tanning we could have great armour pieces but the snake’s scales are actually superior in all respects. So it would be a wasted effort because we have much better material we can use for armour.” Leah explained once Ryan looked at her. “However, I think this may be the solution you’re looking for. I can probably repeat your results after a little bit of testing. If we can strengthen the leather with quills it would probably be a good fit with what you’re looking for. We’ll just have to experiment a bit.”
Ryan considered the idea and found it had merit. “Ok, let’s find Mike and Stephen so we can discuss this.” He tried to call Mike but didn’t get a response so sent him a message to contact him as soon as possible as he headed out of the shop.
Leah immediately suggested an alteration to the plan. “Why don’t we see if we can replicate the method first. Once we have a few workable samples we can test them and figure out the rest from there.” she suggested.
Accepting that her suggestion made a lot of sense Ryan resigned himself to endure the unpleasant smells of the tanning pit and followed her. Even after spending hours at the place he hadn’t been inured against the penetrating stench and so gamely suffered on as the two of them figured out the process. With Leah’s help it went surprisingly quickly and soon the two had a couple strips of varying thickness that they could test. Leah was still fiddling with the process and just as Ryan, because he really wanted to give his sense of smell a rest, was about to suggest they start testing the things, Mike called him.
With Mike’s and Stephen’s availability confirmed Leah relented and agreed to head to the workshop. Ryan stepped through the doorway first and was greeted with a loud “Ta-dah.” as Mike proudly handed him an arrow.
“So, we figured it out…” Mike started explaining as Ryan inpected the arrow. The 80 centimetre long shaft gleamed a iridescent shade of gun-metal grey and terminated in a dark black tip that had a threaded recess. Ryan recognised the bright orange fletching that came from his current arrows but the nock was carved from an organic material he couldn’t identify. He followed Mike’s explanation on how they had made the arrow and a few dozen just like it and was amazed at how quickly the two smiths had come up with a workable process. Mike proudly informed him that they had quickly figured out that the wall of the hollow quills was near uniform throughout the organically grown spike. With a slight application of heat they had straightened the arrows through a set of rollers the two had cast from iron and then used the lathe to machine out any inconsistencies. As a result, the arrows were near identical enough in weight if about twice as heavy as what he was used to.
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“The hardest part was machining and threading the tungsten carbide tip. We managed only with a liberal application of heat.” Stephen continued after Mike had extolled the arrows uniformity. “We had to cannibalise some of your stock for fletching but once we craft some tips for the arrows you’ll have a stock to use again. We assumed the higher weight wouldn’t be an issue with the more powerful bows.”
Ryan nodded at that last statement. It was a compromise between trajectory, speed and durability of the arrow that he would gladly make. The power of the shot wouldn’t be adversely affected to any noticeable extent. They’d still need to figure out the balance when adding a tip but that was an issue that shouldn’t be too hard to solve.
“How’d you get this done so quickly?” he asked the duo.
“Oh, we had plenty of help. Quite a few crafters were willing to experiment. The newer members especially. Shame that mostly non-combat classes came over from Resolute.” Mike answered, ending on a tangent. “Anyways, why’d you ask to see us? If I remember we were supposed to meet after lunch once we brainstormed some ideas for the limbs.”
“We might have a solution for that issue.” Leah interjected before Ryan could answer. Once Leah and Ryan had explained their reasoning the group started testing and tinkering. It quickly became apparent that the leather had a fairly high tensile strength on its own and that they would need fewer quills than they previously thought. The first major hurdle was surmounted easily. They could affix the quills if they bored them through the skin before it was cured. In the same manner they could fix the reassigned mounting points for the cams as well. The second hurdle proved a bigger problem until Paulus, who had joined them after lunch, suggested a resolution.
“Why don’t we fill the quills with sand or water while tanning the skin to avoid the compression collapsing them?” he suggested. “We can always remove the filling by boring a small hole once we’re done.”
They followed this suggestion with renewed enthusiasm for the whole process and, one more failure later, had two workable limbs. Mike, who had excused himself after the first failure to start working on the cams reappeared. “Ok, the titanium is in the crucible. It’ll take a while to melt.”
Stephen put the limbs in his pulley contraption and the group watched in anticipation as Ryan started pulling on the handle. The limbs remained stiff until the newton-meter exceeded the 75 Newton indicator before they started flexing ever so slightly. Ryan pulled some more and stopped as the meter hit the 85 mark and the limbs were now bending measurably. Ryan slowly returned the handle until there was no force exerted on his arm.
“That’s about 2400 to 2700 Newton’s on the limb, between 290 and 330 pounds of draw weight with the current setup.” Stephen answered his question before Ryan could ask. So, I suggest we make a couple more of these and then stress-test them.
Fortunately the process didn’t take too long because they elected to use a rod as filler for the more complicated cam mounts. What surprised Ryan the most was how uniform the limbs were, taking into consideration the organic origin of the materials. He decided to put the question aside once they started testing one of the test limbs. It permanently deformed at about 3000 Newtons and they could only hear the quills fracture at more than 3200 Newtons which was the maximum Stephen’s current pulley setup could test at. The surface of the leather remained unmarred throughout.
Satisfied, Leah, Stephen and Ryan started assembling the final two limbs. Mike was still grinding and sanding the cams that had cooled down after being broken from their moulds. They hadn’t accounted for the minimal shrinkage due to the cooling process and now the bearings didn’t fit. The Bulwark was patiently rectifying the mistake after he had smoothed the surface of the cams. Paulus was meticulously boring a hole through the shafts for the pins that were to fix them in their mounts.
“What about the string and cables?” Ryan asked Stephen as he remembered that the Runesmith had promised that he had a solution for the issue.
“On the spool lying on the shelf.” Stephen grunted in reply, annoyed that Ryan had broken his concentrated effort to carefully position the cam-mount in the quickly drying piece of leather. Ryan, who was superfluous at this stage, headed to the shelf.
He unwound a bit of the pitch-black string from the tiny spool. At about three millimetres it was thinner than the bowstring he was used to. It seemed to drink the light of the setting sun, a string shaped void in his hands that barely registered to his tactile senses because it was so light. Slightly apprehensive he clamped a part of it in the vise and started pulling. As he exerted more and more force the string started painfully cutting into his hand. Ryan could feel his Energy Shield trying to prevent damage to his skin but it was slowly losing the battle as Ryan started grunting.
“You won’t be able to break it.” Stephen commented once he couldn’t ignore Ryan’s efforts any longer.
“What the hell is this thing made off?” Ryan asked in disbelief.
“Woven carbon nanotube filaments.” Stephen’s tone was incredibly smug.
“…but how?” the question was more of a sputter than actually coherent. Ryan knew what carbon nanotube filaments were and understood that creating them in a usable format had actually been leading edge technology before the System. It staggered belief that Stephen, with access to only the most rudimentary tools, had managed to create them.
“Runes. Runearray.” the non-answer was incredibly smug. Ryan just decided to accept it for the time being but resolved to drill the Runesmith for details at a more opportune time.
“It’s insanely Energy intensive and I can only produce about a thousand filaments with about 6 metre length before my Energy runs out.” Stephen underplayed the monumental achievement. “The string you’re holding is about 3 weeks worth of effort.”
“Thank you.” Ryan was stumped.
“Not a problem. I’m getting points for it.” The laconic answer irritated Ryan slightly because the string was invaluable to him. He assumed, rightly, that as Stephen’s capabilities grew, he’d never lack for string for any of his bows in future. It had been one of his greater concerns that Stephen now resolved without further ado. “So, how do we cut it?” he decided to move on.
“You don’t. I will. Some epoxy to avoid the ends fraying and then I’ll use Chisel.” Stephen remained laconic.
“Chisel?”, once again Stephen’s answer was confusing.
“It’s a Skill. Basically a miniature lightsabre.”
Ryan gave up. It was no use asking any more questions if the only answers he received were short and not enlightening.
Stephen moved over and grabbed the spool from Ryan’s hand while Leah finished up with the limbs. Ryan watched in fascination as the surface smoothed out and turned a lustrous gunmetal grey. It was still pockmarked with large follicles but once Leah polished in some oil it actually looked presentable. Which was in stark contrast to their bumpy dull grey test limbs which were hideous to look at.
“This should match the rest better and I wouldn’t be ashamed to put my mark on it.” Leah said as she handed him the finished limbs.
Ryan handled them with appreciation. Clunkier than his original ones they were not too heavy and with the mounting bolt inset and cam mount inserted into the split ends had the correct dimensions and all the necessary parts. Mike came over with the cams and together they affixed the sturdy replacements which he somehow had found time and means to polish. Ryan took the honours and fixed the limbs to the riser with the original bolts before hhe strapped the assembled bow into the bow press.
It was a struggle to crank the limbs to the correct angle because the mechanism was clearly not designed with a triple load in mind and Ryan resolved that his next project would be an upgrade of the press.
Wordlessly Stephen handed him the strings and the cable which he had patterned after Ryan’s existing set and Ryan started stringing the bow.
With bated breath the group watched as Ryan carefully released tension on the press. The last rays of sunlight were dancing through the window as he reverently raised the deadly tool from its cradle. It was sleek despite its oversize dimensions and exuded a menacing grace. The heavy bow sat comfortably in his grip. Superbly balanced as it was it nonetheless felt bare without all the attachments Ryan had grown accustomed to. Mike had painstakingly copied all the mounting points but they hadn’t been attached yet.
Still, Ryan felt a quietly rising sense of euphoria as he made the decision to affix them on the morrow and test the bow on the range. “It’s perfect.” he shared his appreciation with the group.