Pushing on rebar

[Ascended Grubberfly He/Him]

Rebar is metal rods put in concrete, but can we Push on it. Iron lines are severely weakened when they go through a wall, and is this interference enough that we can't use conventional roads as spike roads like in TFE?

[alder24]

1 minute ago, Xiahida said:

Rebar is metal rods put in concrete, but can we Push on it. Iron lines are severely weakened when they go through a wall, and is this interference enough that we can't use conventional roads as spike roads like in TFE?

It's possible to push rebar in concrete, but the strength of that push should be weakened because it's covered in concrete. Using reinforced concrete as a spike road would be very inefficient. I don't know how many roads are made out of reinforced concrete, most are made out of asphalt. TLM ch 41:

Quote

Little blue lines spread from his chest toward viable sources of metal. Most of these were faint, indicating nails in the walls and furniture. Light fixtures, doorknobs, even unseen wires for electricity. More and more, their lives were surrounded by metal—glints of it facilitating everything from the incandescent bulb to the nib in the pen on the desk. He knew some people felt that the day of the Metalborn was over, that modern advances would equalize all people and diminish the advantages of Allomancer and Feruchemist.
Yet he had trained himself—with practice—to put out the lights in a room by distorting the wires in the walls. His versatility improved with each new discovery. And as more metal outlined their lives, he was able to see more and more details of rooms.

 

[Duxredux he/him]

3 hours ago, Xiahida said:

Rebar is metal rods put in concrete, but can we Push on it. Iron lines are severely weakened when they go through a wall, and is this interference enough that we can't use conventional roads as spike roads like in TFE?

Elendel Basin has already installed extensive Coinshot routes in the form of their railroad. It works quite well whenever we see Wax use it, even letting him push an entire train car fast enough to catch up to the main engine. Those tracks are designed for much higher stress than a Coinshot would provide, barring Duralumin. If IRL is anything to go by, trains are here to stay as they are the most efficient way we've learned to transport cargo over land. A Coinshot should be able to travel to every major hub city connected by the trains as Scadrial develops. That said, Wax has good reason to ride the trains - it carries all of his equipment and does the work for him.

As for if conventional roads double as spike roads, there's a decent chance you'll also have light poles, rails, fencing, and/or signage, all of which commonly use steel. In most cases when people use high speed ground transportation, they also want to see where they are going, how they need to navigate, and have some sort of barrier to prevent larger wildlife wandering into traffic. Not all stretches of IRL roads will have this at intervals necessary for a Coinshot, but Scadrial will have people who will pay good money to install them. Particularly as most travelers would probably prefer to pay a little extra for each road to install anchor points rather than the Coinshot simply Pushing off of their vehicle. They could even impose a toll system on a Coinshot roadway if anchor installation substantially increases cost. For the most part though, I expect these to only be necessary for cities that do not already have a train, tram, skyrail, etc. system. Once you get to the city proper, then you'll have plenty of lightpoles and street signs as anchors.

Edited October 21, 2024 by Duxredux