Chapter 4 Experiments
Seeing the prompts that appeared in front of him, Li Zhenhua's heart was shocked.
This is really great. With this analytical eye, it will be much easier for him to select coal that can be used for blacksmithing.
In just a short time, Li Zhenhua picked out a dustpan of iron and carbon from a pile of coal.
This is the best charcoal that has strong firepower and a long burning time.
After selecting the coal, Li Zhenhua carried a dustpan of coal to the stove and removed the refractory brick sealed on the stove mouth.
Then I took the blower out from the air outlet and tried it with the power on to see if there was any problem.
When he encountered the blower, his analytical eye had already concluded that the blower was good, but Li Zhenhua still tried it with his hands.
Reinstall the blower and take out a few pieces of iron carbon in the dustpan, just enough to cover the air outlet.
Li Zhenhua took a piece of newspaper, lit it, and threw it into a small stove converted from a milk powder bucket. Then he added a small pile of broken wood into it, and the newspaper ignited the wood.
Li Zhenhua then threw two pieces of carbon into the small stove. After a while, the carbon thrown in caught fire.
Li Zhenhua took the iron chopsticks, picked out the ignited carbon and put it into the big stove.
I pulled the unburned carbon around and then turned on the blower switch.
The fire in the forge blows in a large amount of air with the blower, and all the carbon is ignited.
Looking at the stove that had been lit for the first time, Li Zhenhua once again thought of the days when he and his grandfather were forging iron together. At that time, he was also responsible for lighting the stove.
Li Zhenhua stopped the blower and walked towards a room in the yard not far from the stove.
After just a while, when Li Zhenhua came out again, he was holding a bow plate in his hand, which is also what people often call spring steel.
This thing is now on the Internet, and is often made into knives in the hands of some master craftsmen. Of course, most of them are made into kitchen knives.
Li Zhenhua also used this spring steel to make a knife today. This decision was quite difficult to make.
Because his grandfather often warned him when he was here that knives are also dangerous weapons, so he should be careful when hitting.
Think about how to deal with it before tying it, otherwise it will be a big deal if it gets lost in the shop.
Li Zhenhua understood what grandpa meant, which was to tell him to respect weapons.
But what boy doesn't love weapons? Isn't there a saying that a man is a boy until he dies? Even an old man in his seventies or eighty has a playful heart.
So Li Zhenhua made an exception today. The worst he could do was hide the knife after he was done so that no one would know.
Besides, what Li Zhenhua planned to make this time was not a long knife, but a short knife. As for the style, he chose the simplest watermelon knife, which is also the most commonly used thing by the young and Dangerous.
The bow board Li Zhenhua chose today is only twenty centimeters long, but its width is ten centimeters.
So the first thing to do now is to burn the iron red, then shape the knife into a knife blank.
When Li Zhenhua was doing these tasks, subtitle prompts often appeared in front of his eyes, displaying various data.
The iron was put into the furnace, Li Zhenhua turned on the blower, and the subtitles appeared again.
It showed that the temperature inside the furnace increased from one or two hundred degrees to nine hundred degrees before stopping.
It seems that the maximum temperature of this furnace is just this, unless there is higher energy carbon or the furnace needs to be modified to further increase the furnace temperature.
The iron buried in the carbon in the furnace quickly burned red, and Li Zhenhua couldn't wait to pick it up with clamps.
Taking it out and placing it on the anvil, Li Zhenhua picked up the heaviest hammer and began to shape the red-hot bow plate.
When Li Zhenhua was hammering with a hammer, he felt nothing at first.
But the further he went, the smoother he felt. Compared with when he was wielding a sledgehammer, his skills had improved many times, and his hands were able to perform at their best without even realizing it.
Just as Li Zhenhua continued to strike the iron, a subtitle appeared in his eyes again.
What was shown above made him happy, because he finally understood the current state of Ingenuity.
‘Ingenuity: My brain says I can do it, my eyes say it’s too easy, my hands say it’s a piece of cake, I can do it (millimeter level)’
It was also from this point on that Li Zhenhua had the most intuitive concept of dexterity.
Although I know that my ingenuity has already played its role, now that the fire has been fired and the iron has been struck, I must finish beating the knife in my hand.
The hammer in Li Zhenhua's hand kept hammering on the raw materials, hitting it several times or more than a dozen times.
As the temperature of iron decreases, its hardness increases and the hammer cannot hammer.
The iron must continue to be fed into the furnace to be heated red, and then taken out to be beaten.
When Li Zhenhua knew what accuracy he had in his hand, he turned his attention to the air hammer lying aside.
Li Zhenhua also wanted to try to see if this ingenious function could work when using large equipment.
Put half of the knife-shaped billet in your hand into the furnace again, and continue to heat the billet.
Li Zhenhua turned around and came to the air hammer, and reconnected the three-phase electric wires of the air hammer to the switch. When he turned on the power, he heard the asynchronous motor of the air hammer start to operate, and the air was continuously compressed into the cylinder.
The hammer head of the air hammer kept moving up and down, and Li Zhenhua adjusted the height of the hammer drop according to the prompts from his eyes.
Ever since his eyes gave the hint, he knew that the function of dexterity could also be used with an air hammer.
At this point, the preparations were done. Li Zhenhua took out the blank, sprinkled it with some borax, used an iron brush to remove impurities, then placed it under the air hammer and stepped on the foot switch.
The blank is beaten by the air hammer, and the hands are constantly adjusting the blank.
From the eyes giving suggestions, to the brain receiving and issuing instructions, to the hands receiving instructions and starting actions, a series of processes form a closed loop.
The blank was also slowly hammered into shape under Li Zhenhua's hands.
The shape of the watermelon knife is very easy to make, and it was made by Li Zhenhua using blacksmith techniques.
If we directly use a large piece of bow plate to anneal it and knock it straight, then draw a knife shape on it and cut it out with an angle grinder, it will be done faster.
Li Zhenhua took the knife blank and put it into the furnace again, continuing to burn it red.
This time, he picked up a small hammer and used it to shape the blade. At this point, it could be said that it was almost the final step.
After repairing the shape of the knife, the next step is to quench the knife. It can be said that this step is also a test of a blacksmith's skills.
As for whether to temper after the quenching is completed, it depends on whether the blacksmith has the skill.
If you don't have the ability to temper, it would be better to keep the knife in its quenched state.
Chapter completed!