Automation for making chainmail or metal rings, certain clay shapes

[Terosism]

Right now, making/repairing plate/chain armor is an extremely time consuming business (not particularly resource consuming as once you find iron, you usually find it in massive quantities, now if you are making copper/bronze/steel armor, that's a different story). The process of making chain-mail should maybe be tweaked as follows. Metal rings should be made in 2 ways:

1. Punching rings into a metal plate. Something that can currently be done but only manually. (faster, more waste)
2. creating metal wires, cutting it in multiple pieces and twisting the pieces into chains using a new metalworking tool (slower, basically no waste)

The chain punching technique would be much easier to automate in a way similar to the helve hammer, but it would be less resource efficient. It would be either a 2 step process by using 2 separate hammers that punch circles of different diameters, or a alternating hammer mechanism that requires less human oversight.

Meanwhile making metal wires and twisting them would produce less waste but its a process that is harder to automate. (i guess it should be possible using mechanical power only but it would be kind of convoluted)

Shingles and basic bowls should be able to be formed through a mechanical process similar to the helve hammer. For bowls you would make a inverted & upside down cutout into a certain material the clay wont simply stick to (or if it does then the clay needs to be fired up inside while inside the shape and it will drop out after it dries. You would put the clay on a weaker hammer similar to the helve hammer and it would automatically fill in the shape. Or you could just stuff it in manually. To be honest i'm not sure how realistic this might be as the only clay molds i can find online are made from silicone so yeah, maybe the clay part wasn't the best idea. But clay shaping should have some additional mechanics as opposed to the current add/remove voxels, maybe something similar to the strong hammer hit in iron working.

Edit random addition: while thinking about sillicone i realised latex could be added to the game as it has been used historically for very long in certain places. Dont have many ideas for possible uses, only better footwear comes to mind.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Terosism
extra explanation

[DonKamaro]

In fact, the process of making chain mail armor is not so complicated. Yes, while there is no automated hammer - making chain mail is long and dreary. But when an automated hammer and mill appears, it can be used to forge plates, which are then placed on an anvil. It remains only to remove a few voxels from the plate by hand, and a chain of mail is obtained. It only takes a few seconds. Especially considering that the metal plate after forging with an automatic hammer remains hot and does not need to be reheated to turn into a chain.