Several people are checking the production progress of the glass factory, not only flat glass, but also the glass production line, and the orders sent from the Guangzhou station are mainly three different sizes of glass wine bottles. In modern glassware manufacturing, glass bottles are automatically blown into shape by assembly lines, and it is easy to make hundreds of standard bottles of the exact same size every minute. The Hundred Glassworks were still hand-casting—and it should be said that the apprentices were much better than some clumsy otaku traversing the crowd—and the best records of the day were only about two hundred.

"It would be nice to design an automatic bottle line." Zhan Wuya said, "How many workers do you need to meet the demand for such a handmade product." ”

"After the flat glass is annealed, you can talk about manpower." Wang Luobin's face was illuminated by the firelight, "That grinding takes manpower, and it is much more than making glass bottles." ”

As he was talking, Li Di led the soldiers of the Navy Company to tow the floating raft from Bopu with rowboats and transported more than ten barrels of things.

"The mills are here, sign for it." Li Di exhaled, drenched in wet - he had to jump down and push the raft before crossing the shallows, so as not to be smashed by the reef.

"These things are collected by the Navy. Digging sand can be a hassle. In the future, you will give us a discount for what you will make. Li Di did not forget to make a fool of himself.

"Well, the sand is all graded?"

"Divide it, from coarse to fine, with the sieve you provided. Sift it. There are three types of 3 barrels each. It should be enough for you. There are also 3 barrels of diatomaceous earth. ”

When grinding glass, use coarse sand first, and then. Fine sand, and then a special very fine blue glass abrasive, which cannot be processed by themselves, is replaced by the finest sand.

After this series of grinding, it is followed by handles on both sides. The roller is wrapped with a layer of wool felt, and then sprinkled with diatomaceous earth or corundum powder for zuihou grinding and polishing - there are local diatomaceous earth reserves.

The whole grinding is not only laborious and labor-intensive, so the glass factory is also tile. One of the earliest users of the steam engine in Bolton. In order to save manpower, the traversal naturally had to resort to this industrial artifact.

"How's your steam engine doing? Our mechanical group is going to be. Imitation one. Zhan Wuya finally openly made up his mind about Li Di's secret.

Li Di's steam engine. It is a small steam engine kit from the United States, and it is a toy for steam engine enthusiasts in the United States, and it is of the same nature as many people playing with ultralight aircraft components.

"It works, but the horsepower is very small, only 12 horsepower." Mr. Li said it took him almost three months to assemble the compact and lightweight structure that could be installed on the Navy's large rowing boats.

The mechanical team decided to refer to this machine, so the whole crew went to Bopu together and saw the machine that was housed in the Navy hangar.

"This can't be done, let's start with the simplest watt machine." Zhan Wuya said this after looking at Li Di's machine. The whole steam engine did not surpass their knowledge in principle, but many of the processing methods and materials used in it could not be supported by the industry.

"It's a very light machine, but unfortunately we can't make it." After seeing it, Billy Zhou said, "Its boiler is very delicate, the pipes are all steel, and many parts are welded......"

"Without welding, how do you make a boiler? There are also high-pressure fire pipes and rubber seals - it seems that I don't have many rubber parts, and besides, there are no ready-made specifications available......" Li Di was distressed.

"I'm Kao, where did you hear the weird talk?! To make a steam engine, you never need rubber to do any seals! Xiao Bailang spat at the foam, "Don't talk about Niukomen and Watt, even in the era of multi-expansion, I haven't used rubber seals?" ”

"It's really not needed," said Zhan Wuya, "as for the material, there is no need for steel, and there is no steel at all on the early steam engines, either pig iron or wrought iron, and it is okay to beat it by hand." Our materials and processing skills are enough to keep an eye on. ”

He sighed, "But we don't play riveting." If you don't rivet, you have to weld - you can't afford it. Zhan Wuya is not good at this - he has a full set of welding equipment, and he has saved some consumables, but there is no place to replenish welding rods and acetylene, so he uses a little less.

"Hehe, speaking of this riveting, it's not bragging, I'm probably the only one here who can do it." Billy Zhou said proudly.

"Will you?" Zhan Wuya remembers that this week Billy is just a mechanical maintenance worker, and his profession is sheet metal worker. Although it is engaged in aircraft maintenance, it is a profession that looks beautiful, but it is of little use to the public.

"There are still a lot of riveting in the aircraft. So I'm a little interested and often try it out for myself. Billy Zhou said.

Riveting is the most widely used metal joining method in the industrial era, it is more convenient than traditional forging, and it is strong enough. Especially in the field of shipbuilding, riveting was still the main shipbuilding process until World War II, and even giant ships such as "Yamato" were connected with rivets one by one, and only a few non-critical parts were welded jishu.

Since the 50s of the 20th century, welding jishu has changed with each passing day, and zuihou has replaced riveting in many fields, so that this jishu has been mastered by few people in modern times. Zhan Wuya remembers very well that when the Waibaidu Bridge was dismantled and renovated in Shanghai, the workers who installed the rivets took a lot of trouble to find it.

"It's all up to you!" Xiao Bailang patted him on the shoulder.

"No, I can't do the riveting work alone. You have to work in a group of 2~3 people. There is also a need for specialized equipment. Billy Zhou gestured.

"Okay, I'll transfer a few mechanical workers to learn from you."

Zhou Billy immediately started a *** in the shed of the machinery factory, and Zhan Wuya transferred a few iron plates and iron beams for him to demonstrate.

According to the order he had invoiced, the machine shop first manufactured a complete set of equipment for him: a hammer, a stove with bellows and rivets.

Generally, the material should be mechanically drilled first, and then the plates that need to be connected should be overlapped, the riveter is generally a group of three, a rivet heater, he first heats the rivet in the furnace until it is red, and then hands the rivet to the riveter with pliers, and the riveter knocks the rivet into the rivet hole.

Due to the poor portability of the stove, when building large rivets, the heater uses the method of throwing out the rivets when delivering them, so that whether they are thrown or received, they need to be done with acrobatic skills.

No matter how big the object to rivet is, even if it is a super ship like Yamato, its hull is built by riveters hammer by riveters.

"So, how many riveters do we have to train?" Zhan Wuya sighed when he saw that it took them several minutes to get the first rivet hole.

"Take your time, it's also jishu live."

Li Di witnessed this scene, and he had serious doubts about his expectation that he would be able to board a 10,000-ton battleship in his lifetime.

Billy Zhou probably saw everyone's disappointment and said, "Don't we have an air compressor?" ”

"Yes."

"If you have an air compressor, the riveting work can save a lot of effort, and this hammering process can be done with an air hammer driven by an air compressor. All it takes is one riveter. ”

"In the future, if the industrial level goes up, you can also use hydraulic riveting machines." Billy Zhou said, "But this is difficult, so let's make do with it by hand." ”

The first training course for riveters began, and at the request of Billy Zhou, some children were selected from the apprentices to become riveting heaters, which in the past was the position of riveting apprentices.

Mastering riveting jishu meant that the boiler, a key component of the steam engine, could be made.

No matter what form or principle of steam engine is used, a high-efficiency boiler is obviously one of the core components of the steam engine.

The role of the boiler is not only to provide power for the steam engine, but also to provide the hot water, steam and temperature needed in the industry - the high standard of living of the traveler is largely due to the boiler, without which the traveler would have to take a cold shower and eat a meal full of pots burned over an open fire......

The boiler itself is simple in principle, and the chassis boiler used by the Watt steam engine took almost 150 years and was still playing its role until 1850. Of course, its thermal efficiency is poor.

The mechanical department intended to replicate the more successful design of the time: the Lancashire double-flue boiler, invented in 1844, which was subsequently widely used – and after constant design and minor improvements in materials, it served modern industry until the 20th century.

The Lancashire boiler has a large capacity and can provide a stable flow of steam, it is an atmospheric boiler and cannot provide high-pressure steam, so it is relatively weak in evaporation power and is more limited in use. However, its jishu is simple and mature, and it is not difficult to manufacture - it is riveted with low-carbon steel plates, but it can also be made from rolled wrought iron plates, which is of great significance for the crossing of limited steel production capacity.

"Weishenme does not try to make fire-tube or water-tube boilers? This will not be more difficult than the Lancashire boiler. We can also use the boiler on the pot camel machine as a reference. ”

The fire-tube boiler was invented in 1829 by the Frenchman Séguin and the British company Stephenson, and was used in steam locomotives at that time. Fire-tube boilers and subsequent water-tube boilers are capable of generating very high steam pressures – important for large ships, locomotives and even power generation.

"Several pot camel machines are running 24 hours a day, and they won't be taken apart for your reference."

"We don't need to dismantle the pot, and we are also very clear about the structure of the fire tube and water tube boilers." Wang Luobin said, "The key is whether the material can pass the test? This is a high-pressure boiler, there is no reserve of high-pressure boiler tubes, and the performance of self-produced steel tubes-"