currently the number of flux need to smelt and smith items is way excessive with the bars needing a flux each and weapons needing an additional flux
the quantiles of raw material to make steel items currently uses way more limestone and bone chips that ore, these should be called bone weapons or armor not steel.

dagger iron; 4 coal; 4 molds; 8 limestone; 10 bone chips; 20
axe iron; 7 coal; 7 molds; 14 limestone; 16 bone chips; 32
lance iron; 9 coal; 9 molds; 18 limestone; 20 bone chips; 40
chain bp iron; 16 coal; 16 molds; 32 limestone; 32 bone chips; 64
plate bp iron; 24 coal; 24 molds; 48 limestone; 48 bone chips; 96

proposition for change 1 remove the flux component from the smelting of steel bars, and instead add it to the making of the plates and chains
this would reduce the over all numbers of limestone and bone chips need

dagger iron; 4 coal; 4 molds; 8 limestone; 2 bone chips; 4
axe iron; 7 coal; 7 molds; 14 limestone; 2 bone chips; 4
lance iron; 9 coal; 9 molds; 18 limestone; 2 bone chips; 4
chain bp iron; 16 coal; 16 molds; 32 limestone; 8 bone chips; 16
plate bp iron; 24 coal; 24 molds; 48 limestone; 24 bone chips; 24

proposition for change 2 would be to flip the ratio of bone chips to flux from 4 to 1 to 1 to 4 by making 1 bone chip make 2 bone ash and 1 limestone and 1 bone ash
make 2 flux then leave the smelting and smith recipes unchanged to give us raw materials needed to make steel

dagger iron; 4 coal; 4 molds; 8 limestone; 0.5 bone chips; 0.25
axe iron; 7 coal; 7 molds; 14 limestone; 0.5 bone chips; 0.25
lance iron; 9 coal; 9 molds; 18 limestone; 0.5 bone chips; 0.25
chain bp iron; 16 coal; 16 molds; 32 limestone; 8 bone chips; 4
plate bp iron; 24 coal; 25 molds; 48 limestone; 12 bone chips; 6

and all of this also brings up the question why I flux weight 1.0 each and stack to 20 they should really be 0.1 weight

reducing the number of bones need keeps higher level player form needing to kill lower level mobs for days to get the need bone chips