Chapter 438

A blast furnace has increased the production of 1,600 catties of pig iron, and the Wujia smelting workshop has six blast furnaces.

The abacus in the heart of the shopkeeper Wu crackled, as if he heard the wonderful sound of the copper plate crashing.

"The quality of these pig iron is quite good, there are very few impurities, come, a few of you get a piece of iron to go over, the old man has to do it himself today, try to see if you can fry good steel." After greeting the shopkeeper of Wu, the old Liu Tou, who was the chief craftsman of the Wu family's workshop, turned his head and shouted at the young strong men.

"Good ......," the young strong men nodded, and picked up a few pieces of pig iron, which were almost so cold that they could already see the metallic luster, and walked not far away, where a craftsman was sprinkling new coke on the stove, and then aligning the air vent of the hydraulic blower, and then starting a new round.

The so-called fried iron is what later generations called the steel frying method, which is to heat the pig iron to the point of melting or basically melting, stir it in the molten pool, and remove the carbon and oxygen contained in the pig iron with the help of oxygen in the air.

Under the conditions of lack of chemical analysis in ancient times, it was difficult to control the carbon content in the fried steel products at an appropriate level.

The quality of the varieties of fried steel requires high technology and rich experience. And this gray-haired old Liu Tou is the first steel frying master of Wu's shopkeeper's house.

"This old Liu Tou is the biggest treasure in our workshop, only he can directly fry pig iron into steel." Seeing the doubts on Wang Yang and Zhao Ji's faces, this shopkeeper Wu smiled and did not shy away from it, anyway, Wang Yang is now a shareholder of the workshop, as for the other one, but His Royal Highness the Prince, naturally there is nothing to worry about.

"Ouch, then I really want to have a good experience, but shopkeeper Wu, since you said that he can fry steel, why does our workshop only produce so much steel a day? And it's mostly mild steel......" Wang Yang couldn't help but ask with some doubts.

Shopkeeper Wu smiled helplessly and explained. "There's no way, frying steel with pig iron doesn't mean that you can fry good steel every time, it depends not only on your eyesight, but also on your strength, and it depends on the right time and place......

Hearing this, Wang Yang couldn't help but want to spit out, do you still have to see the direction and luck?

"Ordinary craftsmen can only fry wrought iron at most, and occasionally fry some soft steel. And only Lao Liu Tou can always fry five or six times of soft steel out of ten, and occasionally he can fry good steel. ”

Wang Yang nodded, understood, sure enough, it was almost as if he could only rely on luck, and sure enough, after the old Liu Tou stood in front of the stove, he looked like he was praying to God and worshiping Buddha, and several young craftsmen next to him also followed suit.

Well, science and superstition coexist harmoniously here. Seeing Wang Yang's face speechless. Then, under the blowing of the blower, the pig iron resting on the stove began to slowly turn red, and then gradually softened.

With the shouting of the old man, the two apprentices began to stir with tools, which were made of wrought iron.

With the stir-fry again and again, it is really a bit like stir-frying, but the firepower here is far more than the stir-fry.

Even Wang Yang, who was standing three steps away from the iron-smelting furnace, could still feel the hot heat coming to his face, but Zhao Ji ignored the heat, standing one step away from the old Liu Tou, his eyes lit up, and he looked very eager to try.

Nearly two quarters of an hour passed, and the old man finally called it a day.

After the steel bars pressed into strips cooled, Shopkeeper Wu skillfully picked up a piece, first rubbed the ash with his fingers, and then rubbed it on it, and then carefully looked under the sun for a while, and then showed a bright smile.

"Okay, good, good, old Liu, you have made another contribution today, and you really let you fry the steel, not bad......"

Wang Yang walked closer and looked at the steel bar, and tried the feel, hmm...... It is so thick and heavy that I really can't test it, but after being rubbed, I can see that its shiny metallic luster should indeed belong to steel, not wrought iron.

After testing, this does not belong to soft steel, it is naturally listed as good steel, and then the Wu shopkeeper collects these good steels, after all, the price of good steel and wrought iron and pig iron is absolutely different.

And after that, the old Liu Touren performed two more fried steel as if he was crazy, but this time, only wrought iron was fried.

Rao is so, this wrought iron with very few impurities has been unanimously affirmed by all the craftsmen, and the old blacksmith Chen, who came to join in the fun, believes that it is possible to make a steel knife of excellent quality with such a wrought iron bag sandwiched between the pig iron bars.

But Wang Yang seemed to remember something at this moment, walked quickly back to the room where everyone was staying, picked up the pen, and began to write a few rows of Arabic numerals on a clean piece of rice paper.

Zhao Ji, who came to the room with Wang Yang in front of him, was a little stunned and looked at the things that Wang Yang wrote. "Sir, what are these things you are drawing?"

"These are the Arabic letters, which were passed down by the Great Eclipse and used to ......count them," Wang Yang replied, closed his eyes, and began to think hard about the memories in his head.

Soon, he found that familiar memory, the carbon content of less than 0.0218 percent is called skill, and the carbon content between 0.0218 and 2.11 percent is called steel, and the content of 2.11 to 6.69 percent is called cast iron, also called pig iron.

It is no wonder that the ancients would use pig iron and wrought iron to engage in steel filling, or steel cladding.

"I see, I finally understand......" Wang Yang patted his forehead with a look of sudden realization. But he turned his face bitter again.

Although the carbon content of wrought iron is already known, the range of carbon content of pig iron is too large, so it is very difficult to master, no wonder the ancients could only rely on experience.

But with Wang Yang, a scientific madman, even if it is steelmaking, what is the difficulty?

In addition, Wang Yang expressed his dissatisfaction with today's steel frying platform, including that their smelting furnace must also be transformed. The frying table should be spatially isolated to prevent the carbon in the coke from entering the fried pig iron, so as to shorten the time of frying steel.

In addition to this method of frying steel, Wang Yang decided to experiment with the tongs pot steelmaking method. Graphite tongs made of graphite and refractory clay are housed in a small newly built furnace.

This is a small blast furnace, the height is no more than one zhang, this is a small test furnace specially built for Wang Yang's tongs pot steelmaking method.

"You only need pig iron and iron ore powder, so you can make steel directly?" These days, I have been following Wang Yang's side, and I have learned a lot about smelting, and I have learned a lot about the steel frying method and the steel filling method.