Based on this theory, it is difficult to fire pottery with exactly the same size. What should we do?

It's very simple. If you burn a hundred of them, only three or two will be exactly the same. If you burn 10,000 of them, there will be dozens of them that are exactly the same.

So, Li Mengxi told the kiln manager that he would stop other work for the next few days and wait for the new mold to be ready to bake 10,000 pottery pots.

——

At the carpenter's camp, Li Mengxi discussed making new molds with the craftsmen.

The previous mold was too slender and impractical.

Then the new mold should be made as round as possible. The closer it is to the dome and the eggshell shape, the stronger it will be and the higher the yield will be.

It's incredible that the shape of the clay embryo is closely related to the efficiency of firing.

Considering that for [Large Industrial Technology], 10,000 pottery must be fired at a time, and considering that burning so many pottery just for testing purposes would be a bit wasteful, so in order to reduce costs, Li Mengxi decided to make the pottery larger.

In this way, after the test is completed, the pottery can be used elsewhere.

Finally, the new mold was made. According to the requirements, the mold had a big belly and a round body, much like the shape of a tripod.

At the same time, in order to facilitate the pouring of liquid, a port is left on the upper edge of the mold for easy pouring.

The overall volume of the mold can roughly hold ten kilograms of material and one bucket of water. This volume is based on experience when making medicine. The content of drugs in plants is too small. Three to five kilograms of bark cannot boil three or two spoons of medicinal powder.

Therefore, if too little material is released, it will be difficult to extract.

The new mold was made and sent to the kiln.

——

The problem of cooking utensil standards has been solved, and the overall process of papermaking technology has been sorted out. There is also the last step that is not unified. This last step is-papermaking.

Papermaking is very simple, just use a gauze net to pick up the pulp. But the problem is that making paper is simple, but making paper of the same thickness is difficult.

When making pulp, if the pulp is thicker or thinner, it will directly affect the thickness of the paper. If the thickness of the paper is different, then when you test the toughness of the two papers later, the error will be too big.

If the error is too large, then there is little point in conducting such a bunch of tests.

Therefore, copying the net must also be unified.

Li Mengxi found someone to make a net. He planned to use the same fabric and bamboo strips to make a net of the same size.

When making a net copy, Li Mengxi thought about how to make paper with the same thickness. The pulp copying method would definitely not work. The net copy is so big that if you go down and fish it out, you will not be able to count the amount of pulp copied, which is very inaccurate.

Think about it another way, do papers of different materials with the same thickness have the same weight?

The answer is that the weights are not the same. Some plant fibers are heavy and some are light. Therefore, the thickness is the same but the lightness is different.

Since the weights are different, what does paper with the same thickness have in common? The answer is volume.

is the volume of paper and the volume of pulp.

From this point on, there is a way to control the thickness of paper. You can get a test tube, and the test tube holds the same amount of pulp. Then pour the pulp from one test tube onto the copy net, and then use a scraper to smooth it out.

In this way, if the same volume of pulp is laid flat on the same size net, the thickness of the paper will definitely be the same.

In terms of use, the paper used for writing and printing books does not need to be so delicate at all, and it does not need to be exactly the same thickness. However, in an important usage scenario, papermaking technology with exactly the same thickness plays a vital role.

For example, paper money. When making money, it is extremely important to control the thickness of the paper money. Suppose that thousands of paper money can be made to have exactly the same thickness. In this way, if someone wants to make a counterfeit, it will be very difficult for him to do so, even if he really does.

I made counterfeit coins and compared them with real coins. After comparing them, I found that the thickness was different, which directly exposed the other side.

In this important industry of coinage, the most advanced papermaking technology has its place.

After finding a way to make paper of the same thickness, all that's left is making the tools.

The tools include a large number of nets with the same specifications and a large number of test tubes. Since test tubes are difficult to make, Li Mengxi wanted to find bamboo tubes instead. However, bamboo tubes have different textures and thicknesses, so it is difficult to find a bunch of the same bamboo tubes.

After much deliberation, I either resorted to pottery-making technology and burned a bunch of pottery pipes, or resorted to iron-casting technology and casted a bunch of iron pipes.

A moment ago, I realized that because pottery shrinks during the firing process, it is difficult to fire products with exactly the same specifications.

Taking this into account, the test tube can only resort to casting.

Because it is difficult to make scales on iron pipes, we simply don’t need to scale them. We might as well fill the pipe with a full pipe every time we hold paper pulp. In this way, each type of pulp will be a full pipe, and there will be no error.

There is one last question left.

For a large paper that is three feet wide and four feet long, how much pulp is needed and how much iron pipe is needed to make it just enough.

Before the single-sheet paper pulp could be tested, Li Mengxi realized another problem.

The question is, is it better to have larger paper or smaller paper? Is it better to scrape the pulp evenly with larger paper or smaller paper?

This question seemed extremely simple, but Li Mengxi couldn't figure it out.

Whether it is paper or other things, whether it is easier to be uniform if it is larger, or if it is smaller, it is easier to uniform. After thinking about it, Li Mengxi came up with two completely different answers.

If the relationship between paper size and paper uniformity is the same as painting a wall, then naturally it is easier to paint if it is small. The larger the wall, the more area will be painted. Every time the brush is applied, there may be errors. The larger the area.

, the greater the error.

However, if we think about it from another perspective, when we were looking for people to test the medicine before, why did a group look for ten patients? This was to reduce the error. If there were only one or two patients, it is very likely that these two patients happened to be physically strong and just right.

It heals quickly. But the probability that all ten patients happen to be in excellent physical condition is much smaller.

Therefore, the problem of paper uniformity is related to the size of the paper and the problem of reagent. There is no doubt that the larger the paper, the easier it is to make the paper uniform.

Li Mengxi's brain was about to freeze. No matter how he thought or felt, it might be better to be bigger or smaller, it all made sense.

Ordinary people would not bother with such minutiae, but Li Mengxi was different now. Starting from papermaking, many technical improvements in papermaking were all made from minutiae. Because of this, when encountering the unknown, he did not dare to give up lightly.

In the end, Li Mengxi still couldn't figure out whether it was better to make the paper bigger or smaller. He asked the craftsmen the question, and the craftsmen said there were both big and small.

Li Mengxi sighed, and he had no choice but to take out a pen and paper, and solemnly wrote down this ordinary question, so that he could seek the answer later when he had time.

Then, Li Mengxi began to measure the amount of paper pulp consumed in making a sheet. He found a small spoon and scooped twenty spoons of pulp into the spoon. Then he poured twenty spoons of pulp on the copy net and used a wooden board to scrape the pulp and spread it out.

.

At this time, the problem appeared again.

The first problem is that twenty spoons of paper pulp is not enough for making paper. The second problem is that the tools are too rough and the edges of the broken boards are too sharp, which scratches the net.

Li Mengxi thought that it would be best to change the material and replace it with some smooth stones or clay scrapers. Wood would also work, but the wood would have to be polished smooth.

This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! Also, the pulp is sticky and easily sticks to the scraper, and it is even easier to stick to the copy net.

This adhesion problem will be difficult to solve unless polymer materials are obtained.

If the adhesion cannot be solved, then change the test process. During the test, you can make a few sheets of paper first. After some pulp fibers are adhered to the net and scraper, you can do it later. The error caused by adhesion will be very small.

Already.

This is extremely important. The first piece of paper made with a new tool will have a lot of fibers stuck to the copy net and a lot to the scraper. As a result, the first piece of paper must be much thinner than the following papers.

Twenty spoons of paper pulp was not enough to make paper three feet wide and four feet long. Li Mengxi took another twenty spoons and finally it was enough.

Use a wooden board to scrape the paper pulp back and forth on the copy net to spread it evenly. After a while, lift the paper and take it aside to dry. The dried paper is checked to be of appropriate thickness.

The amount of pulp used for a single piece of paper has been tested. Forty spoons of pulp are used for a large paper.

After filling another forty spoons of pulp, Li Mengxi found some bamboo tubes and tried them one by one. Finally, a bamboo tube as thick as a finger and as thick as toothpaste was nearly full.

Taking this bamboo tube with a capacity close to that of the bamboo tube, Li Mengxi went to the blacksmith camp. He asked the blacksmith camp to make a mold according to the size of the bamboo tube, and then cast hundreds of iron pipes of the same size.

Fortunately, the iron pipe is not big. If it were bigger, it would not be cast.

The scraping net, the iron pipe that replaced the test tube, and the scraper naturally had to be made by the carpenter camp.

At this time, Li Mengxi thought whether the thickness and length of the scraper would also affect the uniformity of the paper. It should have a certain impact.

In order to reduce errors as much as possible, Li Mengxi went to the carpenter camp again. He asked the carpenters to use the same wood to make scrapers of the same size, length, and thickness.

Who knows if the different types of wood scrapers will affect the thickness of the paper? Who knows if some wood may have rough texture or a lot of grease, which makes it easier for fibers to stick to it.

Therefore, it is necessary for wooden boards of the same material, same thickness, same size and even the same shape to have uniform specifications.
Chapter completed!