Daming One Piece

Chapter 89 Big deal (Second update, please recommend, please collect)
"Let's cast!"

With a cry, the molten iron flowed out of the melting furnace, and the fiery red molten iron flowed along the casting trough to the casting port on the top of the sandbox. The same is true for the gaps in the wooden sandbox...

But only for a moment, hundreds of catties of molten iron were poured into the sand box.

After the casting was completed, Shi Yiwen ordered again.

"Don't rush to open the box again, wait until it cools down naturally, and then open the sand box!"

Even through the wooden boards of the sand box, the heat emitted by the molten iron can still be felt, and the billets in the sand box are slowly emitting heat to cool naturally.

How long does it take for the mug to cool down?
It takes about forty or fifty hours.

This is a very slow process.But Shi Yiwen was thinking about another question in his mind.

"Although this furnace is an old-fashioned furnace, it also uses a bellows to blow air. If the bellows are improved, first increase the blast volume, and then add a warm air duct, which will definitely increase the furnace temperature. In this way, the temperature of the molten iron will be lower. will increase, and the silicon content in the pig iron liquid should also increase, and silica is an important element to promote graphitization. The thermal conductivity of the sand mold is small, and the molten iron can have sufficient time to gradually cool from high temperature, and then naturally precipitate graphite , so that high-quality gray cast iron can be formed. The toughness of gray cast iron is much better than that of white iron, which can not only increase the gun chamber pressure and reduce the wall thickness, but also gray cast iron can be used for metal cutting..."

The reason why Shi Yiwen considered this issue was because the hydraulic workshop, as long as he went through simple improvements, he could produce a "hydraulic borer", which may be similar to the horizontal drilling machine invented by Jane Maudsley in the 17th century. There is a certain gap in the bore bed, but even the most primitive horizontal bore bore bed drilled the gun bore, which is definitely more accurate than the current casting.

This technology is not complicated if it is complicated, and it is not simple if it is simple, but you can definitely try it. After all, there is ready-made hydraulic power that can be used, as long as you design a simple machine tool.However, it seems that there is no need right now, after all, solid cannon blanks need more iron, and right now he doesn't have much iron.

Let's talk about it in the future when we have enough iron!

It took more than 50 hours for the cannon billet to cool naturally, and it was not until the third day that the cannon billet was completely cooled down. In the eyes of everyone expecting, when the sand box was opened and the casting sand was knocked out, although the cannon was broken, there was still Dozens of sharp thorns formed by cast iron flowing into the vent hole, but as the craftsmen knocked off the thorns and washed off the sand on the gun body with iron brushes,
The smooth cannon body was presented in front of everyone.

"Okay, good guy, this, this guy looks even more refined than the red-haired fan!"

"No, it's not worse than a bronze cannon just by looking at it."

"If it is polished a little more, it will definitely be no worse than a bronze cannon."

Amidst the divergent opinions, Zhang Hong, Li Junchen and others all stared at the cannon with complicated eyes. This cannon may not be big, but the impact it brought to them was far greater than that of the sloop.

Ships can be made anywhere. If they want ships, they can buy them from Fujian, Guangdong, or even Manila and Batavia. But what about guns?

Even if they want to buy it, and they are willing to pay a high price for it, it depends on whether they are willing or not.Why did they do everything possible to please the Dutch? To put it bluntly, it was because the Dutch had cannons in their hands!They could buy the guns they needed from Holland at a high price.

However, Shi Yiwen forged a cannon.

In the future, wouldn't he just cast as much as he wanted? Looking at that small melting furnace, how long would it take to melt a furnace of iron?How much is a furnace of iron?

"How much is a thousand catties of iron?"

Zhang Hong couldn't help but speak out.

"Even if it's shipped to us, it's only worth a dozen pennies at most. This cannon..."

Li Junchen was stunned for a moment, then said.

"Even if wages are included, it's worth around twenty taels of silver."

His words reached Shi Yiwen's ears, and he immediately said loudly.

"Master Li is just joking. These twenty or so taels are just raw materials. There are still working hours for casting the cannon, and there is also the profit in the factory. For a cannon like this, the ex-factory price is not 150 taels."

Then, he specifically emphasized.

"This is just the cannon body. If you add the cannon carriage, it will cost 200 taels of silver."

200 taels, is it expensive?

not expensive.In the past, they would have to spend at least seven or eight hundred taels of silver to buy such a cannon.

"200 taels, isn't that ten times the profit!"

In astonishment, Guo Huaiyi suddenly murmured.

"The iron we buy in Fujian is too expensive. It costs at least ten yuan a catty. If the iron in Foshan is at most seven or eight yuan, even if the freight is included, it will be much cheaper. By then, the profit will be more than ten yuan." Doubled..."

Guo Huaiyi looked a little excited. The reason why he was so excited was because he knew how easy it was to sell such a cannon.

There are more than thousands of sea ships in Ming Dynasty, which sea ship does not need cannons?Even if you only buy three or four cannons on each ship, that is a business of tens of thousands of cannons!
Tens of thousands of cannons!
Isn't it just a few million taels of silver!

By the way, there are also those earth kings, they must also need cannons. The market is so big that it is far beyond everyone's imagination.

For a moment, when everyone was staring at the cannon, what they were staring at was the cannon, which was obviously silver!

White silver.

Under the excited eyes of everyone, the iron core of the cannon was also pulled out, and the sand covering the iron core was also scattered when the gun core was pulled out. Although the sand was not completely removed, the craftsmen on the side Already anxiously stretching his hand into the muzzle, he first touched the barrel with his hand, and then said excitedly.

"Master Shi, the inside of the gun hole is very smooth, with only a little burr, just brush it with an iron brush a few times..."

Technological progress is constantly accumulating. Casting guns in this era also requires "washing" of the barrel, but this "washing" is very convenient to use on bronze cannons, which can make the barrel smoother. The cannon is often only symbolic, because it is impossible for white cast iron to be bored.At most, it can only grind away some larger protrusions in the barrel.

Still need gray cast iron!

Shi Yiwen said to himself in his heart.

Only with gray cast iron can the bore of the gun be drilled with a drill press to make the bore smoother.But what is certain is that the smoothness of the barrel of this gun is definitely better than that of its original Dutch version. After all, everyone is using white pig iron these days.

I just don't know if it looks like it.

Whether it looks good or not, you will know after a few shots!

(End of this chapter)