Yang Fan fell into deep thought. Song Yingxing had not completely given up on the imperial examination and still had illusions about the imperial court.
Two evils are intertwined, and Yang Fan dare not take risks.
Although it is said that you should not trust the people you employ, but you should not use them if you doubt them.
First of all, Song Yingxing has no real relationship with him, so he is not his person.
There is no need to use him. At most, it is to help him. In order to familiarize himself with the quality of the products produced by the blast furnace, he should first practice with Yang Fan's iron drill.
Even if it is one's own people, employing people without any doubts refers to the results, not the process.
The results will appear only after repeated inspections and trials.
Once approved, people will be employed without any doubt.
Instead of just letting it go and using it.
Employing people without suspicion does not mean employing people without suspicion as a means to win over people.
If you don't keep it secret, you will lose your country.
If the minister is not secretive, his body will be lost.
Failure to keep a few things secret can cause harm.
In the battle between countries, you advance and I retreat, this technology changes the balance of power.
Far more important than Song Yingxing, I don’t know where he is.
Don't be cautious.
Yang Fan decided to build a new small blast furnace in the backyard.
Close it with a wall.
Specially used as a military industry workshop.
After it was completed, Lao Liu was assigned to take charge.
From now on, all weapons will be made there.
Don't worry about your own domestic slave.
The next day, the blast furnace was debugged and a large amount of iron ore powder arrived.
Yang Fan also made various arrangements, and the relevant raw materials also entered the warehouse specially assigned to Song Yingxing.
Song Yingxing devoted himself wholeheartedly to the cause of artillery research.
Facing the occasional explosions of firecrackers from Yang Fan's workshop, he shook his head and smiled bitterly. This boss Yang was really persevering.
Casting gun barrels is a dead end.
It is not possible to be opportunistic or take shortcuts. Nothing must be built in vain. You must be down-to-earth and not afraid of trouble.
Slow work leads to careful work.
In fact, there are solutions to the bubbles and cracks in cast objects.
As Song Yingxing said at the beginning, heat the wrought iron, wrap it on an iron rod, and beat it continuously. The air bubbles will be squeezed out and the cracks will disappear under the beating.
But this is too time-consuming. It takes several days to fight, and it has to be repeatedly quenched with horse urine.
Finally, a steel drill bit must be mounted on the iron rod and driven in little by little with a hammer. Because wrought iron is relatively soft, this little by little expansion of the bore also polishes and boring the inner bore. Just drilling takes a month.
, only in this way can a qualified bird gun barrel be made.
If you want to keep improving, there are even two-layer barrels.
Song Yingxing didn't come over to waste time, he was just as interested in Yang Fan.
Yang Fan directly closed the workshop, with servants standing guard at the door. Fu Liu led ten master craftsmen and twenty apprentices to form a firearms team.
From now on, he will be responsible for the research and development of firearms.
Three days have passed.
The three blast furnaces have fully resumed normal production.
Yang Fan's mold has arrived.
Yang Fan delivered the express delivery directly and carried it to the workshop.
Yang Fan carefully read the technical brochure given to him by Fatty Wu.
It provides a popular science introduction to the iron smelting situation in ancient China.
The iron ore in China is different from that in Europe. It contains more sulfur and phosphorus, which makes the iron hot and cold brittle. If it is brittle, it will be difficult to forge.
Iron ores are all iron oxides, such as ferric oxide, ferric oxide, etc. The carbon element in the charcoal and the oxygen in the iron ore are combined through combustion and turned into carbon dioxide and taken away, and the iron is reduced.
This kind of iron is pig iron, which is very hard.
However, iron ore contains high sulfur content, which makes the iron brittle.
When smelting, quicklime is thrown in, and the oxygen in the calcium oxide can react with sulfur to form sulfur dioxide gas that flies away.
Calcium will combine with impurities in the iron ore to form iron slag, which floats on the surface of the ironmaking furnace and can be removed by fishing it out or flowing out.
But there is really no good way to remove phosphorus, except to remove it during mineral processing and prevent it from entering the furnace.
Yang Fan now mainly uses magnetic separation, which is much more effective. Phosphorus is not magnetic. After repeated magnetic separation, phosphorus can be removed as much as possible.
Iron is heavier than phosphorus, and the vibration of the mineral powder can make the phosphorus float on top. There is still a way to do this.
The effect can only be improved step by step.
In the past three days, Yang Fan has not been idle. While waiting for the new mold, he focused on training on new mineral processing methods.
Mobilize all those who can work. At the Dongshan Mine, women and children use dustpans to stir, and then adults use magnetic rods to repeatedly magnetically separate. The obtained low-phosphorus ore powder is sent to the warehouse of Xinghe Iron Works.
At present, the iron smelting blast furnaces in Zunhua, Suzhou, and Guangzhou are at the highest level in the world. The blast furnaces are all shaped like water bottles, also called bottle furnaces. A blast furnace can produce 3,000 to 6,000 kilograms of iron a day and night.
In the Ming Dynasty, a pound weighed 600 grams, which was 20% more than today.
It can produce 1.8---3.6 tons of iron per day.
Yang Fan's three blast furnaces are all three tons, which is one of the reasons why Xu Guangqi is very satisfied.
When the mold arrived, the craftsmen and apprentices looked at it curiously.
"Sir, these are molds made of high-quality steel. How much do they cost?" Fu Laoliu carefully stroked these molds like he was stroking his wife.
A true craftsman can't stop walking when he sees something good.
"Sir, this iron mold stuck after it cooled down after pouring. It cannot be removed."
Yang Fan took out a bag of graphite powder and said, "If you apply this powder on it, it won't stick. Then just use sandpaper to remove the powder."
"It turns out it can still be like this, my master is wise."
“What a wonderful idea”
"How much trouble has been saved by not using wooden and clay molds this time,"
"The clay mold still needs to be dried in the shade, so this time it saves time."
Fu Laoliu pointed to a row of large tanks along the wall, which were filled with oil. He said in confusion, "Master, why are there so many vegetable oils here?"
"This is for quenching. The iron mold cools very quickly. The mold can be removed in a while, and then the barrel is thrown into oil to cool. Then use iron pliers to take it out and heat it red for quenching. Repeat several times to increase the strength.
"
"What! Quench with oil, this, this, this" Fu Laoliu was stunned and speechless.
Yang Fan asked: "Why, oil can't be quenched?"
"Yes, it's more effective than water, but it's too expensive. The oil will burn and consume too much." Fu Laoliu said with pain.
The craftsmen said in their hearts that it would be great to eat so much oil.
Yang Fan smiled and said, "Don't waste it. This is the oil in the porridge you usually eat. I used it to quench the oil. In the future, there won't be much oil in the porridge."
"Ah!" All the craftsmen felt like they were in mourning, they were out of oil.
For the past ten days, I have been drinking porridge with a layer of oil floating on it every day. After drinking it, my face became rosy and my body began to show fat. I stopped drinking it all of a sudden, and I couldn't accept it.
"Okay, if this experiment is successful, everyone will be rewarded, and each person will be given a hundred coins." Yang Fan said as he gave them a chicken blood injection.
The craftsmen of "Master Shengming" were immediately full of energy.
"Input materials, start the furnace" Yang Fan ordered.
The apprentices immediately picked up the sacks, sprinkled a layer of charcoal and a layer of dephosphorized iron ore powder into it, and then sprinkled a layer of lime powder to make slag. In this way, three layers were combined and piled layer by layer to the mouth of the blast furnace.
"Master, the feeding is over," Fu Laoliu reported.
"Make a fire" Yang Fan ordered
The apprentices immediately lit a fire in the blast furnace and burned it layer by layer from bottom to top.
Half an hour later, the entire blast furnace was burning red.
