The previously tested steel filling production method is because the melting point of wrought iron is too high and it is not easy to melt into a fluid state. Therefore, it is based on pig iron. After the pig iron is turned into iron juice, a large number of wrought iron pieces are thrown in, and then

At high temperatures, the liquid pig iron slowly boils the cooked iron pieces, just like hot water melting jelly. Finally, all the semi-melted jelly-like wrought iron is melted into the pig iron liquid. This process of melting raw and cooked iron requires sufficient heating.

It lasts all night.

Two thousand ring-headed short knives are probably enough to make steel bars, but considering that the carbon content of different knives among the two thousand ring-headed knives is different, if the melting is uneven during the steel filling, the quality of the steel bars that come out will be affected.

There is still a huge difference, which will cause huge interference to the test.

As for the steel filling technique, after one night of smelting, can the molten steel be mixed evenly?

I recall that when I was boiling steel, the molten steel in the clay pot was boiled overnight. The molten steel only flowed slowly and had extremely poor fluidity.

This made Li Mengxi frown. The uneven steel quality was a big problem.

And if you want to smelt a pool of steel with uniform carbon content as much as possible, then the method is probably to stir.

Stir it back and forth with an iron rod hundreds or thousands of times, and the molten steel will be well balanced and ready for testing.

Li Mengxi estimated that it would take at least three days to build the steel-filling pond with a hundred earthen kilns.

After the steel filling tank is ready, when casting iron, more than a thousand steel bars need to be cast, which requires three rounds of mold turning and takes at least one day.

After all the steel bars are cast, there is still one step, quenching.

What is more difficult than making steel bars is quenching. Steel bars can at least be cast to produce exactly the same finished product, but quenching, the quenching time is longer or shorter, the quenching temperature is higher or lower, the performance of the steel is very different.

.

Li Mengxi has realized that the most difficult part of the entire test is.

According to Li Mengxi's only understanding of quenching, the key to quenching is the temperature at which the steel bar is heated, and the quenching method.

To heat two thousand steel bars to the same high temperature, it is definitely not possible to rely on blacksmiths' manual operation. The error will definitely be huge, and it can only be processed uniformly in batches.

The method for unified batch processing is to build a huge heating tank like a huge barbecue table and put a thousand steel bars on it at the same time. During this process, the height of the heating tank should be as balanced as possible, and the charcoal should be spread evenly, so that

, it should be possible to achieve that the temperature of the entire heating tank is roughly the same from front to back.

Then, as many as a thousand steel bars were placed on the heating tank, heated for the same time, and on command, were taken out and quenched at the same time, and then quenched for the same time, and stopped at the same time. Only in this way could Li Mengxi feel that he could barely have steel bars with the same strength.

.

The key is to have a heating tank that is long enough. The key is that the depth of the heating tank is uniform. The key is that when placing the charcoal, the charcoal should be spread with the same thickness.

Among them, there are two solemnities, one is the groove and the other is charcoal.

The charcoal must be finely crushed to be spread evenly, just like dividing meat. When the army divides the meat, the meat is cut into large pieces, and the difference between the pieces is huge. But if it is chopped into minced meat, a spoonful of minced meat is the same as a spoonful of minced meat.

The difference between spoonfuls of minced meat is only a few tenths of a gram.

Therefore, the charcoal must be broken into pieces, preferably into powder.

After figuring everything out, Li Mengxi went to find someone again.

There are many craftsmen in the army, but thinking about it, in terms of construction level, only the guy who can build city walls has the highest level.

The expert who built the city wall is now building an earthen kiln outside the city.

When Li Mengxi found the builder again, he was carrying ropes, hoes, poles and other equipment, and was measuring the twentieth earthen kiln.

Li Mengxi came with a new construction task. He asked if he could make a ruler three thousand feet long. The requirement was that the pool should be generally level from front to back, without any convexity or concavity.

The builder nodded solemnly, "Yes."

"Can?" Li Mengxi's eyes lit up.

The construction requirements are extremely high. It is as long as three thousand feet, and it has to be almost horizontal from beginning to end, but it can be built.

"Yes." The craftsman nodded.

Li Mengxi smiled and said, "If we can really create it, we will be rewarded heavily!"

One zhang is ten feet, and a three-thousand-foot pool is three hundred feet long, which is longer than the city wall, so it cannot be built in the city.

Considering that in order to facilitate testing, Li Mengxi simply built a 300-foot-long heating tank directly near the earth kiln cluster.

Having a heating tank is not enough. You still need a thousand water tanks close to the heating tank to facilitate quenching, and you also need enough quenching tools, namely, iron pliers or iron clamps.

The blacksmith camp is making blacksmith tools, but after thinking about it, the tools made by the blacksmiths are only enough for their own use. Hundreds of blacksmiths cannot make a thousand pliers. And if there are no pliers, Li Mengxi doesn't know how to make them as quickly as possible.

Quickly remove the iron bar from the heating tank.

Therefore, the blacksmiths have to cooperate separately.

At the blacksmith camp, the captain of the craftsman was discussing with others where to build a new molten iron pool. At this time, the messenger brought a new military order.

The messenger said, "The military advisor has an order! In these two days, the blacksmith camp needs to make a thousand iron pliers for later use."

This order is a bit confusing. In the past few days, the craftsman camp has been doing nothing else but making handy tools for themselves. However, for iron pliers, two, one large and one small are enough for each person, and they don’t know how to make so many.

What is it used for.

But the military order has come down, so we can only follow it.

So the captain of the craftsmen went around in a circle and explained one by one. Each person made more than five pliers and finished the work in two days.

When the blacksmiths heard this order, they had little reaction.

Li Mengxi gave the blacksmiths a full seven days to make tools. This was too much time to make two more pliers. The pliers did not need to be very strong. Just hammer them casually and it would not take long.

After all this is arranged, the last preparation required is charcoal.

The heating tank is three hundred feet long, and carbon powder two fingers thick is laid flat in the tank. To facilitate heating, the heating tank should be as long as a steel bar.

Thinking of this, Li Mengxi suddenly wondered, "Yes, what is the appropriate length of the steel bar?"

In order to find out the appropriate size, Li Mengxi went to find a large crossbow. He took the rope and measured the length of the arm of the crossbow. The length was about three feet.

Considering that the steel bar does not bend as much as wood, the crossbow arm of the steel crossbow needs to be longer. Based on this consideration, the steel bar should be four feet long.

Ordinary swords are generally only three feet, and four feet is relatively long. Considering that there are only two thousand Huanshou knives, plus the loss during smelting, the iron material of two thousand knives will need to be cast into one thousand knives.

Steel bars are actually not enough.

Therefore, we had to ensure that it was four feet long and had enough iron material, so we had to make it as narrow as possible.

In the end, Li Mengxi determined the size of the steel bar, which was four feet long, one and a half inches wide, with a thickness of about 0.8 cents, one tenth of an inch, and 0.8 cents is about two or three millimeters long.

After the size of the steel bar is determined, the heating tank must be at least four feet wide. A four-foot-wide and three-hundred-foot-long tank is spread with half-finger-thick toner. On average, thirty kilograms of toner is needed for each foot, so one hundred feet is

Nine thousand pounds of toner.

No big quantity.

The charcoal may not be enough, and different charcoals burn with different intensity. Therefore, in order to reduce the error as much as possible, Li Mengxi asked everywhere and found that poplar trees were the most abundant in the army.

Therefore, they only used poplar wood to burn charcoal and burned nine thousand kilograms of carbon powder.

During the charcoal burning process, the kiln opening time or the length of the firing time also affects the performance of the charcoal. Good charcoal has strong fire power, while bad charcoal fire has small smoke and big smoke, so it is best to use nine thousand pounds of charcoal per

The kiln is finished firing.
Chapter completed!