He Zhiyuan asked Master Hou to gather the three craftsmen who were going to participate in the manufacture of this gun, and told them: "Masters, no matter what method you use to make all the parts on this drawing, you can make them. hxzw but be sure to do it strictly in accordance with the size marked above, and the error should not be too large. Now it's just an experimental exploration and manufacturing, give you ten days, and you can build it in ten days. ”

The three craftsmen found by Master Hou had their own division of labor, one specialized in forging large pieces of gun barrels, throughouts, and bayonets, and the other specialized in making small pieces such as plate machines, lighters, and lead bullets for gun heads. There was also a carpenter, who was in charge of the handle of the gun, the carpentry part of the barrel.

The three masters looked at the drawings carefully and said, "He Gongzi, as long as there are these drawings, it won't take ten days, and five days is enough." Five days later, the public was invited to come and have the gun tested. ”

"Okay, then I'll wait for your good news." He Zhiyuan said.

Then He Zhiyuan warned the three craftsmen: "The drawings of this gun must be kept secret, and if anyone leaks it, it will be a leak of military secrets, and it will be dealt with by military law." ”

When the three craftsmen heard that they were going to be dealt with by military law, they shrank their necks in fright, and hurriedly said, "Don't worry, Gongzi He, we will never leak it." ”

After the warning, He Zhiyuan took out a big sweet date: "If the three masters can make it on time and pass the gun inspection, each of them will be rewarded with one hundred taels of silver." The three of you are the masters of the firearms factory that is being built. In the future it will be responsible for the manufacture of such firearms, and later the manufacture of other firearms. ”

When the three craftsmen heard that a firearms factory was going to be built, one craftsman couldn't help but hesitate: "He Gongzi, I heard that there are only 1,000 households in our state, and even if you add the soldiers of the Inspection Division, there are only more than 2,000 soldiers. Even if there is one gun per person, it is only 2,000 guns. Where is the need to build a firearms factory dedicated to the production of firearms? ”

"You don't have to worry about this, after this kind of gun appears in the future, there will be more and more needs for this kind of gun, not only for Juzhou, but also for other armies." He Zhiyuan explained, and then feared that they would leak the secret, so he warned again: "However, after the three of you have learned the technology of making this gun, you must not teach the technology to others without my consent." Once the secret is revealed, I will not spare it!"

The three craftsmen shrunk their necks again, but they also said happily: "He Gongzi gave us such a high reward, and we were also in charge of the firearms factory, such a good treatment, a fool will leak the secret, even if it is a mountain of swords and a sea of fire, we will follow He Gongzi, and we will not leak the secret if we say anything!" ”

After leaving the ironworks, He Zhiyuan did not stop and went directly to the Institute of Physics in Hejia Town. The so-called Institute of Physics is now very rudimentary, with just a few masonry bungalows and a few sheds. There are a few strange tools in the bungalow, a few blacksmith stoves in the shed, and the facilities are very simple.

When Wang Zhixue heard that the master was coming, he quickly got up from a simple machine tool and came to the door to greet He Zhiyuan.

"Master, why are you free to come here?"

"I'll take a look at your research results, have you made a lathe?"

Wang Zhixue said ashamedly: "I made it, but the hardness of the tool is not enough, and the processed parts are too rough to meet the requirements." ”

"Let's go, I'll go

Look. He Zhiyuan said, and walked inside.

Wang Zhixue took the master to the machine tool just now, and He Zhiyuan looked at the so-called machine tool, which was indeed very simple. The power part is to use the pedal rotation of the pedal to drive the cutter head on the machine tool to rotate and move back and forth. Of course, this design is a sketch provided by He Zhiyuan, and Wang Zhixue and Liu & father and son have made some improvements, and finally it is what it is now.

He Zhiyuan asked: "What can be added to this lathe now?" ”

"Screws and nuts can be processed, but the cutters are not good, the hardness is not enough, and only some soft iron, wood and other materials can be processed. If the iron is a little harder, the tool will break down after two or three bolts and cannot be used. ”

After speaking, Wang Zhixue took out a few processed bolts, some of which were hard pine and some were iron. The hard pine wood is very smooth, the screws are even, and the quality is still good, which is also an improvement. The iron ones are worse, and the surface smoothness of the bolts and the uniformity of the screws are much worse than those of the pine ones.

He Zhiyuan asked them: "The biggest problem now is the knife?" If you have a tool with the right hardness, you can machine steel, right? ”

Wang Zhixue said: "Yes, the biggest problem is the tool, but the speed of the cutter head is also very important, the speed of the pedal is unstable, and the quality of the processed parts is also unstable." The faster the speed, the smoother the machining table, but the higher the requirements for the tool. ”

Liu Xing added: "We were going to use diamond as a tool, but it was too difficult to polish, and we didn't have two or three months to polish a suitable tool. The lathe has many tool specifications and styles, and it is unlikely that they will be polished with diamond. ”

He Zhiyuan said to them: "I have expected the problem of knives, yesterday I have asked Master Hou of the steel mill to test a new type of steel, if he can make good steel, this problem can basically be solved." ”

"That's great, as long as the knife problem is solved, the rest will be easy. I don't know how brittle this steel is, if the brittleness is too large, it is not good, it is easy to break the knife. Wang Zhixue was very happy when he heard that the tool problem could be solved.

"When the time comes, you'll know if it's a test, and if it's not suitable, let them continue to experiment, and they can always find a good way." After He Zhiyuan finished speaking, he asked Liu Xing again: "Master Liu, can your current lathe drill in addition to processing bolts and nuts and general cutting?" ”

Liu Xing replied: "It depends on how deep the hole is, it is more difficult to process deep holes, and the drill pipe is easy to break when drilled deep." If the drill bit is hard enough and the flexibility of the drill pipe is good enough, it is okay to drill deep gadolinium. ”

He Zhiyuan understood, speaking of which, it is still a problem of tool materials, as long as the material is fine, it is also possible to drill deep holes.

He Zhiyuan asked again: "If you drill holes in wooden materials, how deep can you drill with today's tools?" Have you ever tried it? ”

"I haven't tried it yet, if the master wants to try it, we can try it with a drill bit." Wang Zhixue said.

Then, Wang Zhixue and Liu's father and son were busy for a while, changed the knives, found a wooden stick about five feet long and fixed it on the lathe, and found two powerful workers to start pedaling and manipulating the simple lathe to drill holes in the wooden stick.

With the flying of sawdust

Splashing, the drill bit goes deeper, the hole in the stick is getting deeper and deeper, but the resistance is also getting greater, and the worker who pedals the pedal is getting more and more difficult. About the drill bit is more than three feet deep into the wooden stick, Liu Xing, who is operating the machine tool, asked the workers to stop, and they dare not drill forward again, and the drill pipe may be broken if they drill again. After that, the reversal exit borehole begins. Then turn the stick upside down and start drilling again from the other end.

It took about an hour to drill like this, and finally the two ends were drilled.

He Zhiyuan took the wooden stick that had drilled the hole, and looked carefully into the drilled hole, although the smoothness was a little worse, and the holes punched at both ends were also a little off. But as long as you use a boring machine to bore once, there is basically no problem. As for rifling, that's not a problem, using the existing broaching machine, the craftsman can carve the rifling, but it takes a little more time.

If you can make good steel with high hardness, there should be no problem with drilling the barrel. Now the problem is that this machine tool can not provide stable power, this problem is difficult to solve at present, before the invention of the steam engine, in addition to manpower, animal power, can only be used water power.

The second is the problem of efficiency, with this kind of manpower machine tool, it is faster than the force to do forging, but it still can not be greatly improved, if you engrave the rifling efficiency and forging is about the same. But this drilled barrel is much better in quality than a forged barrel, and the possibility of exploding the bore is basically zero. Another advantage is that forging requires experienced craftsmen, and there are too few such craftsmen nowadays, and it takes a long time to train and learn. But there is no such problem with the use of a drilling machine, as long as there is a drilling machine, find out a few ordinary migrant workers, and after simple training, they can work. Therefore, the lack of efficiency can be compensated for by the number of people.

So He Zhiyuan said to Wang Zhixue: "How many more machine tools do you have here?" I need at least ten of them now, can I build them in the near future? ”

"If the master needs it, he can make it. However, this kind of machine tool is still in the trial and error stage, and there are still many improvements, and it is too wasteful to build so many at once. ”

"The division now needs to make a thousand muskets in two months, and the barrel is the most difficult and critical part of the city, so there is no need to waste time in the short supply. So you're going to stop experimenting, build ten machines, and then find some people to make these barrels. He Zhiyuan said.

"The master is equipping Xu Qianhu's army with firearms? It was the futile duty to start building the machine immediately. When Wang Zhixue heard that it was going to be used to make guns, he immediately said.

Coming out of Wang Zhixue, he came to Liu Zhigang's side again, and the production of gunpowder was the strength of these Taoist priests. Saltpeter, sulfur, charcoal and other materials are ready-made, and the production is not complicated, just crush and mix these three materials according to a certain ratio. What he wanted to tell Li Zhigang was the granularization method of gunpowder. After the gunpowder is granulated, it can effectively prevent moisture, and more importantly, control the ignition rate after the gunpowder is ignited to improve the power of gunpowder.

The next day, He Zhiyuan came to the steel mill again and told Master Hou the size of the drill bit he wanted. Let him first produce this drill bit from the tested crucible steel, as well as the steel produced in the blast furnace steel, and the size of the steel bar to be forged.

When these are ready, it is now time to wait for the successful test of the high-hardness special steel produced by the crucible. As long as you have the ideal knives and drills, mass production of flintlock pistols will not be a problem.

(End of chapter)

The little people of the Ming Dynasty

The little people of the Ming Dynasty

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