Chapter 150: Artillery trial production

Different from the tranquility of the past.
The people of Qingzhou City obviously feel a little dignified in the atmosphere of the Equipment Department these days.
Because at some point, the soldiers guarding the Equipment Division suddenly increased several times, and all of them wore silver full-body armors with murderous aura. Anyone who was slightly close to the Equipment Division would be driven away immediately.
Everyone who enters the Equipment Department needs to show a token and undergo interrogation. Someone once saw a person who didn't have a token trying to get in, and was beaten by soldiers on the spot and taken to prison.
Among the various signs, many people are speculating about what happened in this equipment department?
And only Xiao Ming knew this best. At this moment, he arrived at the door of the equipment department and handed the horse to the guard at the door.
He came just at the right time, and Chen Qi from the Department of Machinery was leading the craftsman to pour the produced molten iron into the iron mold.
Although Qingzhou can produce high-quality steel, not all steel can be used to cast guns.
In fact, in modern times, until the emergence of Krupp gun steel, the cast guns of artillery were nothing more than three materials, copper, bronze, and iron.
Among them, copper naturally does not need to be explained. This thing is totally spending money. In the country of Da Yu where the mining rate is very low, this is almost the same as using gold to produce toilets.
Bronze is an alloy and requires different metals, including lead and tin. Similarly, the current lack of these metals in Qingzhou is not easy for Xiao Ming to achieve.
Therefore, he can only honestly choose cast iron cannons. Although this type of artillery has its drawbacks, the modern fifteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century is still the mainstream of artillery.
After all, relatively speaking, any product pursues cost performance, and cast iron guns obviously have a great advantage in cost performance.
"Your Highness, you can pour it out soon."
The iron mold of the artillery is erected next to the blast furnace. As long as the door on the blast furnace is opened, the hot red molten iron will be poured into the iron mold.
However, there are still many things to prepare before this. The casting of artillery is a delicate task. One failure will cause a lot of losses, and it will also greatly delay the time to cast the next artillery.
So before pouring the artillery, Xiao Ming instructed the craftsman to strictly follow the procedure of casting the artillery step by step.
Under his supervision, a craftsman began to paint a mixture of fine rice husks and fine sand on the inner surface of the iron mold. The preparations for these two things were also very strict. The rice husks were crushed into powder and sieved three times with a sieve. It takes more than ten times to get a uniform powder, and the sediment is basically the same, and the particles inside are basically the same size.
This is to avoid holes of different sizes in the gun body, and also to prevent the gun body and the iron mold from sticking together, otherwise the gun and the iron mold will be scrapped together.
After the first coat of paint is applied, the craftsman paints the second coat again, which uses fine coal powder ground into powder.
The purpose is simple, it is to carburize. As we all know, the higher the carbon content in iron, the greater the hardness of the iron. This layer of coal powder coating will penetrate into the outer layer of the artillery after the molten iron is poured, making the shell of the artillery become Hard, thereby reducing the rate of blasting of the artillery.
The brushing of these two coatings is also very particular, and must be evenly and carefully.
When the craftsman finished painting, Xiao Ming checked it again and asked the craftsman to take care of some defects.
Then let the craftsman tighten the iron mold with iron hoops.
At the same time, some craftsmen began to heat the iron mold to prevent the outer layer of molten iron from cooling too fast when the molten iron touched the iron mold, which would affect the carburizing effect.
After these tasks were completed, Xiao Ming asked Chen Qi's specially made ceramic core to be inserted into the gun mold.
Generally speaking, the production of artillery requires the use of clay cores, but learning from the experience of later generations, in order to maximize the quality of the artillery, he decided to use ceramic cores.
In this way, the inner side of the artillery can be rapidly cooled by injecting the ceramic core, thereby increasing the strength of the inner chamber.
And this process is also called tight water.
"Let's start." Xiao Ming asked expectantly when the preliminary preparations were completed.
Nodded, Chen Qi looked excited, and after busying for a month, the first artillery in Qingzhou was finally born.
At this time, Chen Qi suddenly felt anxious and happy that a woman was about to give birth.
With trembling lips, Chen Qi shouted: "Pour molten iron!"
With an order, a craftsman suddenly opened the door of the blast furnace, and the red molten iron with a hot breath flowed from the blast furnace's pipe trough.
Even though it was five meters away from the blast furnace, Xiao Ming still felt a burning sensation on his face.
And the craftsmen at close range are sweating, but at this moment, every craftsman has a sense of expectation in his eyes.
Chen Qi said to them that if the artillery is successfully cast, His Royal Highness said that everyone will reward one hundred taels of silver, which is an incentive for all craftsmen.
For these ordinary craftsmen, who is not pursuing a better life, but money is their greatest encouragement.
The red molten iron was slowly poured into the iron mold, and when the height of the molten iron was about to be level with the muzzle, a craftsman took a hammer and struck the mold lightly.
This is to make the molten iron deposit more uniform.
After the molten iron was completely flush with the muzzle, the craftsman responsible for cooling began to pour well water into the ceramic core of the iron mold.
At the same time, a craftsman stuffed a section of dried pig intestine into the ceramic core.
The water in the ceramic core needs to be replaced continuously until the molten iron on the inner side is completely solidified, and at this time, the cooling water needs to be replaced continuously.
In this era, Xiao Ming obviously couldn't find anything like rubber tubes, so he could only use dried pig intestines instead.
In fact, in ancient times, animal organs did replace the role of rubber tubes.
Even in the modern enema, the pig's large intestine is still used. It can be seen that the toughness of the pig's large intestine is still good, which can replace part of the rubber tube.
The craftsmen above were busy replacing the cooling water~EbookFREE.me~ and waited for a while. After seeing that the molten iron in the iron mold had solidified, the other craftsmen immediately began to take off the iron mold under the command of Xiao Ming.
At this time, the outer layer of the artillery was still red and hot, and a lot of raised burrs could be seen on the outside. The craftsmen responsible for cleaning the burrs immediately began to clean it, making the body round and smooth.
Xiao Ming finally breathed a sigh of relief after the work was over, and the rest only waited for the barrel to completely cool and solidify.
Chen Qi said at this time: "His Royal Highness, is this artillery as magical as you said? When will the artillery be pulled out to try its power? How much more powerful than my big Yuguo barrel?"
"You don't need to try to know the world one by one." Xiao Ming believes.
The fire tube of Dayu State is only shoddy. Although it basically has the prototype of an artillery, it is still not a little bit behind.
The effect is really not as powerful as the return cannon that the barbarians snatched back from the Western Regions.
(To be continued.) Enable new URL