The barrel required for the third round of the examination has a uniform standard, one foot two high, one foot wide, round on the outside and round on the inside, and is the most common round barrel.

A wooden barrel that looks much simpler than the questions of the previous two days, but the insiders know how difficult it is.

First of all, a wooden barrel is made from multiple wooden strips hooped into a circular whole, plus a round bottom. The strips were all curved, and the making of curved surfaces was already a difficult task for these apprentice carpenters.

Then, the practical value of the barrel is very clear, which is to fill it with water.

The tightness between the sticks and the walls of the barrel and the bottom of the barrel must be sufficient to prevent water leakage.

The technical difficulty in this is greater.

Cooper has always been a special type of carpenter, which cannot be completed by non-skilled craftsmen.

Round and square are not the same, to make a wooden barrel, there are more than a dozen kinds of planers alone.

The outer surface is planed, the inner surface is planed, the wood surface is scraped and leveled, and the foot planer is grooved for barrel bottom installation......

If you don't learn all of this, you won't be able to make a qualified barrel.

And now the requirements in the examination room are more difficult than those of actual coopers.

It is not so easy for a wooden barrel to be able to prevent water from seepage and leakage. Coopers usually need to process it in more than a dozen processes to achieve the final result.

For example, the final barrel is not made directly from logs, but needs to be processed before it can be made.

First, it is steamed, degreased and dewormed, and then exposed to the sun to remove the moisture from the wood.

In this way, the final barrel can be durable, and will not easily deform and crack, and it will not take long to become obsolete.

Then, after the barrel is finished, in addition to polishing, it is also necessary to apply tung oil, and repeatedly soak it in water, using the shrinkage and expansion properties of the wood itself to make it tight, so as to achieve the effect of waterproofing.

But now, there is no cauldron for cooking wood in the materials prepared for them, and there is not enough time for them to remove the water inside. Even Xu Wen noticed that there was not even tung oil on the table.

There are only the simplest carpenter's tools such as axes, chisels, saws, etc., and they can only rely on their own skills, using the most basic techniques, so that the wooden strips fit together as closely as possible, and the water cannot be soaked!

Sure enough, this was also mentioned in the rules that Zhu Gantang announced next.

"After the candidate has made the barrel, he can signal to the examiner. The examiner will fill the barrel with water and let it sit to watch the results and count the time when water stains appear on the barrel wall. Each quarter of an hour is a batch, and each batch is added by ten points. The last barrel maker with water stains adds an additional 20 points. ”

Xu Wen was right, without pre- and post-treatment, it is impossible to achieve a complete waterproof effect with a wooden barrel made by carpentry skills alone. No matter how long it takes, it will always leak. This round of exams calculates the time of the water leak.

The later it is leaked, the better the craftsmanship and of course the higher the score.

The rules of the exam have basically been introduced here, and when the sound of the rock sounded again, Zhu Gantang struck with both palms and retreated.

Xu Wen retracted his gaze, put a piece of fir next to him in front of him, and stroked it.

The fir is a fast-growing tree that is naturally tall and straight, so it grows well and is therefore very mature.

However, all fast-growing wood species have a common problem, which is relatively light and soft, and the wood is relatively loose.

Normally, fir is not the best material for making barrels, far inferior to paulownia and camphor wood.

But when it is put in the examination room, it can still provide a lot of convenience for candidates.

After Xu Wen touched it, he picked up the fir wood and checked it, then put it back, picked up the axe, tried the edge, and gently chopped it down.

The bark of the fir tree is grayish-brown with very well-proportioned cracks on the surface and is relatively thick.

Xu Wen went down with an axe, and the bark fell in response, revealing the pale yellow wood flesh.

The inner wall of the bark that he split off was brown and red, without a bit of wood meat, which shows how accurate his axe was, perfectly cutting into the invisible gap between the bark and the wood flesh!

Axe after axe, the bark fell piece by piece, Xu Wen was extremely fast, and in a short time the whole section of wood was completely revealed.

Xu Wen put down the axe and tidied up the bark on the ground.

Fir bark can be used as medicine to treat lacquer sores, sores and abscesses, centipede bites and other diseases, and it is not a useless waste.

Then, he measured the size of the wood with a ruler, drew the lines with an ink pen, and began to sawn the wood into boards.

The cedar wood was indeed very easy to handle, and the saw provided by Yue Mu Xuan was also very useful, and soon, pieces of wood appeared in his hand, a little thicker than the barrel wall slats required by the barrel.

Next is the planing.

This is one of the most critical aspects of barrel making in this exam.

This is basically the way to make a curved surface of the cedar wood facing the straight face.

The various tools are used interchangeably, each with extreme skill.

And this is one of the eighteen ingredient of fir wood!

The snow-white shavings fell one after another, and the woody fragrance filled the air, and Xu Wen was completely immersed in it at this time.

At this time, Zhu Gantang and the three of them had already walked down from the city wall and began to patrol the examination room.

This tour was different from the first one, there was no wooden hut to block it, and the candidates could see them coming, standing beside them and standing on their feet.

Most of the candidates have never seen the world, and when they encounter this situation, they start to get nervous, and their hand movements are a little deformed.

In this case, the examiners don't see it, and they will still stand next to them for a while before walking away.

Some candidates quickly regained their original concentration, while others peeked at the examiner from time to time and looked very uneasy.

"The craftsmanship of the craftsman is important, and the character is also important. After looking at a candidate who was affected by the examiner again, the three of them walked away, and Master Qin shook his head and said.

"Focus is the real thing. Master Song said lightly.

Zhu Gantang nodded and said with a smile: "Just like when we took the palace exam, the emperor sat on it, can we not be able to write articles? ”

Hearing the emperor's two words, the two masters were in awe at the same time, revealing envious eyes.

Seeing Tianyan in person is something that ordinary craftsmen can't think of!

"Huh?" Zhu Gantang looked up and saw a person, smiled, and walked over slowly.

They happened to come to the vicinity of Qi Kun, and Song Qin and the others also wanted to see the level of Yue Mu Xuan, the little young master.

Qi Kun and Xu Wen's progress was about the same, and at this time he had also completed the preliminary preparations, and was making the barrel wall with an outer planer.

He was extremely focused, and the three examiners walked over, and he didn't seem to feel the same at all, only the work in his hands in his eyes, and the movements in his hands were not deformed in the slightest.

Just looking at this concentration, the three examiners nodded secretly in their hearts at the same time.

The walls of the barrel barrel are not so easy to make. It is usually made up of more than ten or twenty wooden strips, each of which must have a certain curvature, and these curvatures are finally enclosed to form a perfect circle.

Generally speaking, even a very experienced cooper has to carefully measure and calculate, and then mark the material before starting to work.

Qi Kun did the same.

Clear traces of ink can be seen on the wooden bars, which are strictly regulated, and at a glance you can tell that this person has received a very formal education.

At the same time, he is also very skilled in the movements of his hands, and he does not hesitate to use the tools without the slightest hesitation, and he is full of self-confidence.

The shavings that emerge from under his hands are evenly straight, as if measured with a ruler, and the curved surface that gradually takes shape is evenly proportioned and smooth, perfectly matching the ink lines drawn in advance.

This technique must be practiced over many years.

"It's worthy of Qi Kun. ”

The three examiners stood by and watched for a while, but Qi Kun didn't notice it from beginning to end. In the end, they walked away, and Master Qin exhaled lightly, with a somewhat envious look.

Although most masters will be a little wary of their disciples, but to be honest, which master doesn't want a good disciple to pass on his skills?

And Qi Kun is simply a template for a good disciple in their hearts.

Zhu Gantang and Master Song nodded at the same time, obviously admiring the young man, but at the same time, their eyes wandered through the crowd, as if they were looking for others.

At the beginning of the exam, they thought that the head of the county for this apprenticeship test was none other than Qi Kun, but now, they were not sure.

There are people outside the mountains, and there are people outside the mountains, and the saying always makes sense.

On the first two days of the exam, they had already found two candidates with more potential.

On the first day of the exam, he used wooden strips to make a landscape wooden bench and used forty-one mortise and tenon joints, and on the second day of the exam, he organized and led twenty-one candidates to follow Lu Qingyuan to make a cool bed.

Who are these two people, and will there be new talents like this in today's round of exams?

This is something that several examiners are looking forward to very much.