Ephron Son of Zohar Read online

  Chapter Nine Dwelling in Unity!

  Psalm 133:1

  The incoming crowds prevented Ephron and Shelometh from leaving as quickly as they intended. Most of both tribes came by to view their progress.

  “It seems that everyone is made happy by seeing piles of slag and a few pieces of sponge iron,” said Tawananna as she finally pushed her way through the mass of curious onlookers.

  “It's something they can see,” said Shelometh. “The sponge iron is the first visible sign that all of this might work. Those who have not been to a city have never seen a brick kiln or even bricks before. Most of us never heard of an iron forge.”

  “It means,” said Ephron, “that in a few days, construction will begin on more ovens, an outer wall, and actual rooms for your tribe.”

  “Also, some of the most disagreeable jobs are finished,” said Elon. “Yesterday Taku and Anah allowed everyone to switch to a job they wanted, as long as everything was getting done. No one was allowed to just sit around. Today the iron blooms promise an opportunity to actually finish this dream of winter shelter.”

  The morning sacrifice brought the gawking to a stop. Everyone attended the morning and evening sacrifices except the few with urgent responsibilities.

  The morning sacrifice to Adonai completed, a new crew, headed by Akiia, began learning how to work the brick kiln. Tawananna, Elon, and their two helpers moved over to the new smelter. Unlike their brick kiln production, Tawananna and Elon's output of sponge iron was meager.

  “What can we expect from such a tiny smelter?” asked Taku. “And Zohar produced more blacksmiths than Ephron. We'll build a forge before the stars are out.”

  The bite of the early November winds supplied the urgency. They burned all the wood the two saws and four axes could produce. The piles of dry firewood were burned to charcoal for use in the smelter and the forge. The sons of Anah, unskilled in the ways of fire, carved stone molds for tools and made molds for bricks. All of the anvils, bellows, and hammers in storage were set in place and put to work.

  Taku and Anah brought as many people would fit into the area to construct a forge. More than a dozen hands did nothing but erect the brick forge. But the best efforts of not only Tawananna and Elon, but also Anah, and even Taku could not make the forge hot enough to melt iron. In spite of their combined efforts, nothing made the iron flow into the molds. The brick kiln, thanks to Tawananna's oversight and additional workers, still produced as many bricks as the day before. The brick production combined with the meager sponge iron production was encouraging, but not enough to offset the failure with the forge.

  Shelometh appeared with the stars, dressed in her usual cloth.

  “My Ephron will know how to make the fires hot enough,” said Shelometh.

  “Your Ephron,” repeated her father Yovov. “Four days ago you had not even met him.”

  As people completed their daily responsibilities, they returned to look at the brick kiln, the sponge iron, the smelter, and the new forge. Ephron arrived silently with the onlookers and simply glanced at the forge. He was also dressed in his regular clothing.

  “We need charcoal,” said Ephron. “Wood fires will never be hot enough. And the titanium forge must use coke. Even with coke, it will be difficult to make a fire hot enough to make titanium bronze soft enough to work with. The heat of the titanium forge will melt the bricks of this firebox. But for the iron we have today, we can get by with charcoal. But this looks like wood, not charcoal. It did not burn long enough.”

  Taku replaced the charcoal, fetching it himself. He laid the new charcoal across the floor. Ephron examined the replacement charcoal and pointed out places where the impurities had not burned out. They still had places where the wood had not turned to charcoal. These impurities in the wood prevented it from burning hot enough to melt the sponge iron.

  Ephron segregated the usable charcoal from the pieces which still needed to be fired again. He then examined the firebox.

  “For one thing,” said Ephron. “You are losing too much heat through the walls of the firebox. You’ll have to insulate it with another layer of bricks.

  Both he and Shelometh changed into their uniforms. Then they helped the day crew stack another layer of bricks around the firebox. That entire layer was sealed with a heavy layer of clay to seal out all air. Ephron then examined the entire forge again.

  “That still isn't enough,” said Ephron. “We need to cover the rest of the forge with another layer of brick.”

  Ephron allowed the day crew to leave and those on the night shift stacked the additional bricks, including yet another layer around the firebox. After coating the additional bricks with clay, Ephron added newly-cut wood. As the wood fire dried the clay seal, Ephron used the time to examine the overall layout.

  “Anyone who wants to stay up until the clay is dry enough to seal the forge completely, I am not stopping you,” said Ephron. “But that will be hours from now. Stone would not take as long to build into a forge and would last for years. These brick fireboxes will need frequent repairs and should be replaced by stone as soon as stone is available. You will also need another forge for the blacksmith. The blacksmith must repeatedly reheat the iron to keep it pliable. The blacksmith's forge will need another bellows. When we fire titanium, we will need two, maybe even three or four bellows on the same forge. One nice part of working with titanium is that the temperatures are so high that smelting and forging can be done in one process. For tonight, we can pour axheads, but a blacksmith will need to finish them later. You will need more bellows, but how many depends on what you plan on doing.”

  Before continuing, Ephron made some quick checks.

  “We can use the same smelter and forge for bronze, just not at the same time,” said Ephron. “Bronze does not need as much heat. If we intend to be more productive, we also need more and larger chimneys. We can use coke for bronze as well.”

  “What is coke?” asked Anah.

  “You burn coal but then allow it to cool off leaving a gray solid. What is left is called coke, not coal,” said Ephron. “It produces a much higher heat than coal. It is a very similar process to burning wood to produce charcoal.”

  “What is coal?” asked Anah.

  “We find it in the ground,” said Taku, pleased that he could answer this question. “It is a kind of black rock that burns. We have large piles of coal, but very little has been turned into coke. But we do have some coke.”

  “Do you have any locations picked out for additional ovens?” asked Ephron. “Because you will likely have a few iron doors by morning. And you will need at least one, probably several blacksmiths to sharpen tools. If all goes as planned, if you give us some people to train tomorrow, Shelometh and I should begin stonework in two evenings.”

  “Shelometh and I?” asked Anah.

  “We did not make the labor arrangements,” said Shelometh.

  “But you did call him your man,” said her father.

  “You can talk about that later,” said Yovov's wife, Mahalath. “Nothing is going to change before Heth gets here anyway. For now, I want to know, how many ovens can you build tomorrow? We are not so concerned as to who gets them, just how many. We do have to plan the cooking schedule.”

  “Maybe two,” said Ephron. “Since you have to build them first, they will not be ready for cooking until afternoon. How many total do you want?”

  “We have eighteen clans,” said Anah. “Every clan is used to cooking for itself.”

  “A single oven needs at least two iron doors, one for the firebox in back and one in front for the oven area. We can pour maybe eight doors for four ovens in two days,” said Ephron. “Then we must use all of our manpower to make tools to cut trees and saw stones. Somewhere along the line, maybe by next week, we should have enough iron to make a few more oven doors, maybe two. A double oven can share the firebox, reducing the number of bricks and only needing one firebox door for two iron oven doors. But that is your decision.”

 
“And we decided we want to increase brick production,” said Taku.

  “It would be more efficient if the day crew could just build another kiln and keep this one working as it is,” said Ephron. The day shift observers left Ephron and his crew alone and went to bed.

  “You certainly know how to make a woman feel useless,” said Shelometh. “I didn't even understand half of what you said.”

  “About two weeks after this is done,” said Ephron, “we build a bridge and invite a caravan to stay here. Then you can return the favor. I have been to cities, but not to Shinar. I really do not know what to expect. So I will depend on you as my woman.”

  Shelometh blushed. No one else commented and Ephron was soon busy instructing the new arrivals how to work the smelter and the brick kiln. After nearly a quarter of the night of a wood fire, Ephron removed the wood from the forge and replaced it with charcoal. He had also found a few pieces of coke and arranged for two bellows to supply air. Since they only blew air into the firebox on the down-thrust, operating them together allowed for a continuous thrust of outside air, instead of only half of the time. The lever on one bellows was pushed up as the other was pulled down in a slow, smooth, continuous, motion. To pump the maximum amount of air, each bellows needed two people.

  It was almost midnight and time for lunch when the first iron ingot was heated to the point it liquefied. As a liquid, more impurities could be removed. This additional slag was discarded and the remaining liquid iron was poured into a mold to make an oven door. Ephron made two forge crews so they could keep the forge working through lunch and not allow the firebox of the forge to cool down. This left only two workers on the brick kiln until after lunch. He place Shelometh in charge of the first crew and left her as he ate lunch.

  Production continued without incident, and by the time the stars began to disappear, Zohar and Anah's tribes were the proud owners of six more oven doors, a dozen saws, and two axheads. The axheads were ready to be reheated and sharpened by a blacksmith.

  Anah arrived in the first group, and they looked in amazement at the number of iron pieces before them.

  “The cast iron requires more iron,” said Ephron. “But it is the easiest to forge. We must get the fire hot enough to melt the iron. Then we have to pour the iron into the mold correctly. But the axheads require the skill of an expert blacksmith to finish them. The oven doors we poured will be ready as soon as they cool, which should be after lunch. So you need enough bricks to build three ovens. The saws can be removed from their molds about the same time, then a blacksmith needs to sharpen them and add wood handles. Without a freestanding forge and blacksmith, the axheads are not much use. We poured two just to demonstrate that we can do it. Finishing them will require another bellows.”

  “Where are the molds to make more trays for ovens or skids for the new brick kiln?” asked Yovov.

  His daughter pointed to the molds.

  “Be very careful,” said Ephron. “Anything over here could easily either kill or seriously injure someone. Perhaps I miscalculated, but the iron ore we have should be enough to cast front and firebox doors for eighteen ovens, about fifty saws and about seventy-five axheads. That will take almost all of the iron ore we have. Then we need more iron ore.”

  “So we have to make another bellows. And where does more iron ore come from?” asked Yovov.

  “Normally,” said Ephron, “We leave in the middle of the summer with most of the pack animals for several weeks and we mine it ourselves. This time of the year, we will have to trade for more.”

  “Trade what?” asked Anah.

  “I don't know,” said Ephron. “I've never traded with a caravan before.”

  “Food,” said Anah. “Food and shelter. Maybe protection and safety, but do not make them think that you are extorting them. Maybe trading for protection is not such a good idea.”

  “Basic hospitality is not for sale,” said Zohar.

  “But you cannot feed the entire world,” returned Anah. “How many people can we feed? We don't even have enough food for own sons and daughters and their families.”

  “As long as I live,” said Zohar, “anyone who comes here and works will be fed as long as we have food.”

  “So we have to find something around here that other people want and are willing to trade for,” said Anah.

  “Your quality workmanship. Your woodwork, bronze lamps, utensils, and stoneware...” said Yovov. “You make things I've never seen or even heard of before.”

  “It is easiest to work with bronze,” said Tawananna. “So as soon as we run out of iron ore, we will convert to bronze. Bronze is combination of copper and some other metal.”

  “I'm certain everything will change a dozen times over in the next few weeks,” said Ephron. “See you at the evening sacrifice. For now, we are going to bed.”