40d:Bar

For built horizontal and vertical bars, see Bars.

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A bar is a sub-type of building material (interchangeable with a block for that purpose), and is the base individual unit of metal, charcoal, coke, potash, ash, pearlash, and tallow soap. All metals are created as bars at a smelter, whether processed from ores, alloyed with other metals, or melted down from existing metal items.

With the exception of non-fire-safe materials, all bars are as durable as others - a wall made from bars of ash, charcoal or soap will last as long one made from bars of steel.

Most bars are not an end-product, but are then used to produce something else:

Bar of...	Use
ash	makes potash or lye
charcoal or coke	powering standard forges, smelters, kilns, and glass furnaces, and for making pig iron and steel
metal	smithing
pearlash	needed ingredient for clear or crystal glass
potash	used as fertilizer, makes pearlash
soap	trade or construction only

All types of bars can also be used to build workshops, roads, bridges, and other constructions, as well as built as horizontal or vertical bars. (Be aware that some purposes suggest the use of fire-safe materials.) However, different bars require different labors to use in such construction projects - smithing for metal bars and masonry for all others (including bars of soap).

"Bars" of adamantine metal are referred to as "wafers", but when used as building material they function the same as any other bars.

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See also:

• block
• stack