The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 38 Putting into Operation
During the steelmaking process, a large amount of carbon infiltrates into molten steel, so what comes out is basically high-carbon steel.

Solution Zhu Linming is very clear that low-carbon steel can be obtained by adding rust, that is, iron oxide, and using the strong oxidizing properties of ferric ions to oxidize carbon in molten steel into carbon dioxide and discharge it.

After Xiong Zhong asked the craftsmen to try the method Zhu Linmi said, he got soft steel.

But this operation caused new problems, and the molten steel in the crucible became mushy.

After hearing Xiong Zhong's description, Zhu Linmei immediately understood that low-carbon steel had a high melting point, and the temperature of the crucible could not liquefy it.

Crucible steelmaking can only reach 1500 degrees, which is just above the melting point of high-carbon steel, while low-carbon steel needs to be close to 1600 degrees to be liquefied.Don't underestimate the 100 degrees. In history, it took nearly a hundred years for human beings to master the method of melting low-carbon steel.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with mushy low-carbon steel, but the carbon distribution is a little uneven.But Zhu Linming thought that she would not leave the iron yard anytime soon, so she might as well have a technical transformation.

The most direct way to increase the temperature of the steelmaking furnace is to increase the regenerative hot air chamber.

Then he thought, since he wanted to build a hot blast room, he might as well supply hot blast to the ironmaking blast furnace.

In this way, the furnace temperature can be increased to above 1200 degrees. At this temperature, the pig iron molten iron has good fluidity and can be pretreated for dephosphorization and desulfurization of the molten iron.One step closer to modern steelmaking technology.

So he asked masons to build three thick brick houses in front of the blast furnace.

Because there were no honeycomb refractory bricks, he made a simple one and asked masons to build refractory bricks into a continuous "field" shape in the brick house.

After the hot air chamber starts to use, these refractory bricks will be heated to more than seven or eight hundred degrees.Then the cool wind sent by the blower is sent into the furnace through the middle of a large number of refractory bricks arranged in the word "Tian".At this time, the cool wind has been heated to more than [-] degrees.

The outside of the hot air chamber was sealed with thick soil, and a set of simple hot air equipment was completed.

Zhu Linmi also ordered the craftsmen to make some thick cast iron pipes to connect the hot air chamber and the air inlets of the ironmaking blast furnace and steelmaking furnace.

He originally planned to introduce the high-temperature exhaust gas from the chimney of the ironmaking blast furnace into the hot air chamber for heat storage, which is also a common method in the modern ironmaking industry.

But the speed of the craftsmen making cast iron pipes was too slow, and six to 70 meters of iron pipes were needed to induce blast furnace exhaust gas. In the end, he gave up the idea of ​​saving energy and directly heated the hot blast chamber with coal.

Three days later, the hydraulic forging machine was first installed and put into use.

The water wheel rotates rapidly under the impetus of the river water, and through a series of transmission devices, it drives a forging hammer to strike the forging platform continuously, making a series of Dangdang sounds.

Chudi clamped a piece of red-hot iron and put it on the forging platform.The forging hammer fell, and sparks immediately splashed out.

He was caught off guard, and the iron block was quickly knocked out of a big hole.

He wiped off his sweat and speeded up his movements. After a long time, he was finally able to keep up with the speed of the forging machine.

Normally, two craftsmen need to forge for half an hour to hammer the iron block into strips. Now the first person in Chu relies on a hydraulic forging machine, and it only takes less than 3 minutes to complete the forging.

The astonishing efficiency left the surrounding artisans dumbfounded.Even craftsmen who reacted quickly surrounded him with a whimper, touching and knocking, which was extremely novel.

"Speaking of which, my master is really amazing! He can actually make a blacksmith out of iron and wood."

"This thing is faster than Liu Laosi's hand."

"That's right. Also, you see, it doesn't know how tired it is at all. No matter how fast Mr. Liu moves, he won't be able to last for an hour."

"Could it be that our boss is the reincarnation of Lu Ban?"

"Don't talk nonsense, Lu Ban is a carpenter. Didn't you see that the forging machine is full of iron parts? If you ask me, it's probably the rebirth of Zhuge Wuhou. This thing is comparable to a wooden cow and a horse!"

Xiong Zhong quickly recovered from his astonishment, and said to Zhu Lin: "The master is really ingenious! If there is a hydraulic forging machine, two craftsmen should be able to make a pair of armor in two or three days."

Zhu Linmi roughly calculated that according to this speed, forty or fifty craftsmen could complete the forging of [-] sets of half-body armor within two months.He hurriedly ordered to speed up the construction of the other two hydraulic forging machines.

By the afternoon of the same day, Lu Ning and others also completed the manufacturing work of the pedal boring machine under the command of Zhu Linmi.

But only one boring drill was produced.Firstly, high-carbon steel itself is extremely difficult to process, and secondly, craftsmen have never done this kind of novel shape of the drill, so the speed naturally cannot be increased.

The new boring machine is placed horizontally, like a huge "concave" character.

On the left side, on a sliding rail controlled by a screw rod, four consecutive wooden clips firmly hold the gun barrel.On the right is a slender boring drill, the drill bit and the gun barrel are facing each other.

One person sits on a stool behind the boring machine, stepping on a part that looks like a bicycle pedal, which is driven by a thick cowhide belt and rotates with a half-person-high iron flywheel.

The flywheel finally drives the drill pipe to rotate at high speed through a set of gears.

As the drill bit touched the gun barrel, fine iron filings splashed, and another person turned the screw on the slide rail that fixed the gun barrel.The screw is continuously screwed in, pushing the slide rail to advance slowly and steadily along the horizontal direction.

During the whole process, both the gun barrel and the drill bit were extremely stable, without any sign of skewing.

After drilling for a while, another craftsman wiped the gun barrel with a wet towel to cool down.It only took two quarters of an hour, and the drill had penetrated more than a foot into the gun barrel!
These firearms craftsmen from Fujian have been numb by Zhu Linmi's various inventions, anyway, they assume that he has learned some supernatural skills.

Lu Ning took out the drilled barrel and observed it carefully. The bore was smooth and straight, which was no worse than the work done by the most skilled craftsmen.

"According to this speed, the gun barrel can be drilled in half a day."

The craftsman in charge of stepping on the pedals also stood up and praised: "This is much easier than drawing a bow to drill holes. With this thing, you won't be tired even if you drill for a day."

Zhu Linmei called Lu Ning to him, and asked him, "If there are five or six gun beds, plus eighty or ninety craftsmen, can we produce three thousand flintlock guns in two months?"

Lu Ning nodded immediately and said, "If you don't rest on the boring machine, it will take less than two months to make it."

"Okay!" Zhu Linmin nodded, "You don't want to do anything else these days, just lead someone to make a boring machine."

A craftsman beside him cheered, and Zhu Linmi turned her head to look, and it turned out that the last trial-produced barrel was drilled with a boring machine.

Both the gun bed and the gun machine were ready-made. Several craftsmen hurriedly installed the gun barrel, and a brand new flintlock was handed over to Zhu Linmi.

The whole blunderbuss weighs less than ten kilograms, has a caliber of nearly 1.5 millimeters, and a length of about [-] meters. With a new-style butt, it looks very beautiful.

Zhu Linmei immediately took all the craftsmen to the barren beach next to the iron yard to try out the guns.

Lu Ning and others have tried the guns here many times, with wooden targets, brackets and other things readily available.

After the new flintlock was loaded with ammunition, it was tied to a wooden frame, and someone pulled the trigger with a rope from a distance.There was only a loud noise, and a six-and-a-half-cent lead bullet instantly blasted away more than half of the two-inch-thick wooden target.

Zhu Linmei nodded and said: "The barrel of the gun can withstand seven qian of gunpowder, which is enough for use on the battlefield. Let's use this gun as a model, and build another three thousand guns."

(End of this chapter)