Iselin and Olafr help me and learn as we do all the steps to make crucible steel. It's just Olafr, Iselin and I inside the forge, but Alith and Caecilia are in the metalworking building next door and Gunhild outside. I really show how a crucible's contents are prepared, we select the charcoal and grind it down, weigh up all the parts and seal the crucibles. As we've worked, we're discussing metallurgy, and Olafr is having a hard time understanding that it is mainly a slightly higher temperature that is the big difference, and to really control the content by using a crucible. It hasn't been hot enough for long enough, and it's not enough to just join the iron together, it needs to be completely liquid. You can't make brass by just forging together copper and zinc. It needs to be liquid, but that is easier to do due to lower melting points. Sealing the crucible makes the material composition more accurate. I explain how the glass and sand collect slag on top and will float on the heavier iron, and tell him why some swords and steels are 'sejdish' and magical. Why there may be rules like the hearth must never be quenched, or the vessels must not be emptied or cleaned for the sejd to work, when in fact it may be that the soot on the side is important and clean vessels don't have it. Why heating in coal and hammering, force carbon into the iron and gives carbon steel, but that you don't force in the strength from the fire. Or the right timber or hearth type gives a higher temperature etc, and it may be a small difference that makes a huge difference in the craft and steel produced. Olafr asks if carbon from bone doesn't make the steel better than just using charcoal, that it's possible to harness and take a bears strength, take the speed of a wolf, or capture some of a birds flight for spears and arrows, but I shake my head and say unfortunately it doesn't work like that, and it can make the end product worse because it's less suitable form of carbon.

  As Olafr already knows, there is a lot more you can do with patterns depending on whether you screw or forge together, or mix in light metals like nickel etc. Some substances and metals can be mixed well, like copper and zinc or tin, while others can hardly be mixed at all, like copper and iron, which Olafr of course knows well. I don't know how to get manganese or such, but I know it's important for certain steel. Heck, silicone is used in steel. When Olafr really realises how many shiny metals and other stuff there are and we might be able to join, he becomes so keen to experiment. If a thousandth of something can make a noticeable difference, how many combinations won't there be?! I've brought examples of metals and items, and show him my stainless steel knife. I explanation of stainless steel is basically what we're doing, but with a metal called chrome, and that I hope to make stainless steel in the future. Talk about magic iron and steel. I get even more motivated about trying to find and mine chrome and letting him try to that, both in how different it is to work with and how it basically doesn't rust if the chrome content is high enough. Even in salt water. I should show him galvanising and explain hot dip galvanising. I'll show him aluminium and titanium, because such a light metal that behaves so differently is basically magical too. Especially when titanium doesn't melt in a fire. We wouldn't be able to melt that even in the special furnace we will build. It would be fun to show him Jane's ring, but I'll never damaged that. It's Jane's precious.

  We have made eight crucibles of increasing carbon content, so he can try and see the difference between steel with 0.2%, 0.4%, 0.8% and 1.6% carbon, and tell him that there was about 1.0-1.2% carbon in the steel I gave him, which the knives and swords etc are made of. I warn Olafr that the more carbon, the lower the maximum temperature it can withstand for forging and machining, but I have no real idea and can't measure the temperature anyway. Olafr will have to take notes of all the steps and lessons learned and observations on the different alloys and make sure to keep track of which is which, label it, etc. After I killed some of a forging and a fires, charcoal and animal bones mystique, Olafr is starting to get really excited and feel an urge to do things methodically and figure out the true mystique that exists, and he is so glad he could get this job and knowledge. The master blade smith who thought he knew everything about iron and forging feels like a novice, and he likes it. He likes that there is so much more to learn and that forging and just making metals can be so interesting. He is also very much looking forward to his future, and making more machines, and to try the steamboat and such.

  On the forge's backside and fairly closed off area, we build the special furnace which will increase the temperature high enough and for long enough. Iselin have done this before, and I like to see Iselin having fun with the clay and enjoying doing the work and getting a bit dirty. We're not your normal regents and high nobility. We are using the external port for air from the water powered bellows system. I prepared for that when I had the forge was built, so it's just moving a couple of flat stones so the usual air outlet is blocked and the second channel is open, and then leading that to the small furnace we're building. Iselin remember how much work and it was to pump the bellows by hand, and love I included things like this. Which also proves to Olafr that this have been planned for a long time. We can't light the furnace today, and Olafr will do it with a couple of the bodyguards in a couple of days. Not Raneigh, though. There are just so many other things to do here, and Olafr smiles. He's really looking forward to his new life here, and loves the forge and metal workshop.

  We go back into the forge and with help from the two blacksmith-machine operators Birger and Gaermarr, we try to do a new sizes of bolts and nuts. It feels damn good to know that there are now sorting cabinets with boxes of ready-made M8, M12 and M20 bolts in 4 different lengths each, and both M12 and M20 are available with coarse threads and fine threads. And there are also matching washers, lock washers and nuts. Once the milling machine is finished, many tools will be made for the eccentric press and other machines.

  As we were working on the crucibles and moving the airflow, I remembered Iselin's wish for a secret door, so discreetly I ask Olafr to make a hidden security door, and I will send Caecilia with the drawings. Iselin doesn't know it, but instead of a door right through the wall to her room, there will be a door from her wardrobe to the empty space under the stairs between the bodyguards' bedroom and the attic room, and then a door from there to my workshop attic. The small space will be about 1.7 metres high and 0.7 metres wide, but even I should get through it without any issues, even though I won't be able to stand up straight. Iselin could, but will probably have to duck a little if she continues to use her beloved high-heeled shoes. I wonder if Jane's satisfaction with Iselin's love of heels is because Jane has someone who understands and shares her love of high heels, or because it's a 'corruption' of Iselin. Or both in combination. Best not to ask.

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  More importantly, with two secret doors it allows for two different doors. A simpler one in the back of her wardrobe that is pushed inwards and is very discreet, and a security door from that space to my attic, which automatically close and locks itself behind you, and can't be open from the attic. No-one would expect a door from her room to the bodyguards' bedroom, since there isn't any space or purpose for that, but it's will use the small space in the corner behind their stairs to the attic. The workshop attic exit is also more discreet as it is at the back just before the back shelves. The steam pipes and stairs etc would otherwise have forced her secret door to be just above my stairs, and far more visible. And there are shelves there now.

  "Robert! Arnesson!"

  Jane stands in the doorway to the front yard, with her arm against the frame, glaring at me. From the look on her face and the fact that Jane is here in the metal workshop, I'm assuming she's discovered the surprise. "Ye-es?" She's definitely not buying my innocent expression and emphasis.

  "There is a big blue Police box standing by the clock tower! You bastard! You actually had them built a bloody Tardis just to fuck with me!"

  "Oh! Kinky! It's kind of public. But I'm game!" Smug face on.

  Jane shakes with frustration and she barely manages to hold back comments, and through clenched teeth she hisses out: "Bastard!" As she walks closer and no longer with daylight at her back, I see her limp as she walks towards the hot forge. And she's wet and muddy?! "I was taking a shortcut while jogging, and it made me trip! It is your damn fault my ankle, knee and bum hurt and that I slipped down into the creek! It is bloody freezing cold!! Do you know how many saw me do that!?! And then laughed their arses off as I slipped while getting up!?! After I warmed myself up, you are going to. Help. Me. Home."

  So worth it! I translate what she said, and Caecilia and others try not to laugh while Caecilia hurries to get dry work clothes for Jane.

  The eyeglasses are a bit frustrating to make because of concave lenses, but progress is being made, and slightly curved glass helps a lot to get weakly concave lens. The biggest issue besides exact shape over the whole surface, is boring fine polishing so the micro grooves from grinding disappear. I only have two different abrasives, one rough and one polishing. Big difference between them, especially on hard glass and where the coarse agent makes deep micro cracks, so it takes a long time with the fine polishing to get it all out, and I have to balance the focus while doing it. But better to do the rough polishing to get it close to correct.

  It was definitely a good idea that I made a simple lens grinding machine instead of grinding everything by hand, and not just because it gives me time to build other things. The machine is more consistent, and it is also a bit entertaining to see the lens oscillating back and forth in small movements while rotating, and the mould with glass rotating the other way. I just have to keep an eye on the machine and examine the surface of the lens, add abrasives or use more pitch or roughen its surface. I can also vary the lead weight holding the grinder down on the glass lens, to vary the pressures. The glasses also takes extra time because I'm worried that the glass will crack or deform with too much pressure as the glass is quite thin. So I just let the machine work even though a lens can take a couple of hours, and it is not certain that the lens will be good for the intended glasses either. Might be good for someone else or other use.

  Ciara helps me grind lenses and do a bit of every day maintenance after her daily workout on the exercise bike. She enjoys supervising the lens machine while knitting or just watching what I do. Since I showed her how to engrave brass plates, she has started doing that too, and Olafr is going to make her a small tool kit for that.

  I look over Ciara's shoulder and look at her work, and give her a hug and kiss on her cheek. I let my hands wander and start playing with her breasts and kissing her ... and it gets more intimate.

  Making eyeglass lenses is good practice for making more and bigger and better lenses for telescopes, binoculars or spyglass telescopes too. In the future, I intend to make a certain production of eyeglasses, because I think there might be a market for them among the rich, and it feels good to have gained some experience in that until I am likely to need it myself. I would prefer to sell eyeglasses to the less wealthy, but we'll see in the future. Eyeglasses shouldn't be that expensive once there is proper manufacturing.

  Not surprisingly, Jane has 'opinions' on the design of the eyeglasses I gave Bodil, even though she herself helped make the eyeglasses that inspired them. They work and are not 'ugly', but they could be made prettier, so she has made a couple of designs that she thinks suits Hillevi's face, but complained a bit that the lenses are round. That might should in the future, because I'll try to grind them down to get more rectangular or other lens shapes. I myself prefer more rectangular sunglasses, partially for more air movement and less fogging. Especially Bodil's basically reading glasses will benefit from having a flatter top so she can more easily look over them.

  Unfortunately, Jane doesn't have any really durable paints that stick well to polished brass. She's been testing on brass parts I gave her, and would be happy to paint the frames. We have started contemplating about firing on a light ceramic glaze or similar in the lab oven, but we need to do a lot of tests. Eyeglasses need something that doesn't crack due to tiny material flexing, and that's a problem for most durable materials, so for now we've just oiled and polished wood on the frames. Olafr knows how to blue brass, so that might happen, and we might plate with gold or silver to get more options. We might do genuine silver or gold frames too.

  Might as well make more glass thermometers. The ones I made have worked really well, so I am starting another batch. I need to teach some craftsman or craftswoman to do work like this in the future.