Comparatively speaking, the blower is smaller and more delicate, the production is more difficult, and the process of supplying air is more laborious.

The bellows are simple to make, but they are larger, and it is a lot of trouble to move them up and down, but the process of air supply is extremely easy!

After weighing the pros and cons, I finally chose to make a bellows, and I believe that anyone would choose it in a purely manual situation.

When the blower supplies air, it needs to keep turning the fan blades quickly, which makes people worried, but the bellows are more friendly to me.

The bellows, a tool that almost every household could not do without cooking a few decades ago, works on a very simple principle, which is to use a lever to pull a piece of wood inside, which is used to catch the wind generated when pulling.

The wind generated by pulling back and forth of the pull rod is squeezed through the air outlet and blown into the stove at great speed, so as to achieve the purpose of blowing the fire!

Bellows is the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people, although it is difficult to get into the elegant hall, but in the past it was much trusted in the countryside.

I still remember when I was a child, there was one at home, and I often had fun when cooking, and it was not an exaggeration to say that it was a childhood toy......

Its basic structure includes: the cabinet, a sliding wooden lever and the wooden board inside, which can be said to be very simple, but what makes me more difficult is the wooden board inside, the cabinet I can use clay instead, and the lever is extremely simple.

After thinking for a long time, I plan to use a pottery plate to replace the wooden board that pulls the wind in the previous bellows, anyway, when I was a child, the bellows at home were also cylindrical, just enough to paint the gourd according to the scoop, but in the middle of it opened a hole to make my head big!

The fired pottery is not a clay blank, you can drill a hole with a little wood, its hardness is amazing and a bad one will be completely shattered, I have been thinking for a long time and I am just ready to use a sharp corner of the knife to slowly rotate, first grind a small hole out.

......

It took me more than half a day to drill a small hole the size of a mung bean, and my hands were almost cramping before I was successful, and it was easier to further expand the small hole, and I could do it when it was expanded to the size of a bottle cap.

The lever I had prepared in advance sharpened the end and attached it to the open-hole clay plate so that it wouldn't fall off from pulling, in which case I would have to redo it all over again.

The next is to mix the clay to make the box of the bellows, and the clay is rolled into a large piece of skin with a thickness of nearly one centimeter with a rolling pin and then combined into a circle, making a cylindrical shape slightly larger than the diameter of the disc and more than sixty centimeters in length.

It should be the least difficult because I've done a lot of bigger pots, buckets, pots, etc before that!

Make a disc seal at the bottom first, and then add layers of skin around it to keep it upright and shaped, and finally put the pottery plate in and out of the air inlet and outlet after the basic work is completed.

The next thing is to let it dry initially and then send it into the house to continue to dry, and it can be put into use after three to five days at most.

Originally, I still wanted to strike while the iron was hot, but it seems that I can't use it today, and I have to delay it for a few days!

After four days, the bellows box is almost ready for use, and there is no need to put it in the kiln for firing.

It itself is also used very infrequently, maybe less than once a year in half a year, rather than taking the risk of being burned out of it is better to become a disposable, anyway, the box is also very simple.

Before starting, I made a small hole four or five centimeters in diameter in the middle and lower part of the charcoal stove, and then took out the air-dried bellows and put them together.

Finally, the adjusted soil is connected between the air outlet of the bellows and the small hole of the charcoal furnace to form a small ventilation pipe to prevent the wind from leaking!

The actual homework did not take long and most of the time was spent making various tools in advance.

Especially after the tool is ready, it takes another hour or two to make a dagger mold before it can be officially started, this kind of thing is not the first time that the trial can be successful, I am ready to fail to improve!

......

Before adding charcoal, I tried the working condition of the bellows, and at first it was more difficult to pull because of the corners and corners, but after a few minutes of pulling and grinding these off, it was much smoother.

Placing the dagger mold in place of the water outlet, I started to light the fire and slowly add charcoal.

The iron products themselves are not much, so it seems to be particularly economical, only about a pound is thrown in, and the weight of a dagger is only half a catty, so there should be no problem in removing impurities and rust.

With the continuous pulling of the bellows to supply air to the charcoal stove, all the charcoal is ignited to reach the best burning state, I can feel the super high temperature from a meter away, and my forehead is already covered with sweat under its influence!

The iron placed in the furnace does not know its state, and all it can do is to constantly pull the bellows to raise the temperature inside as much as possible to reach its melting point.

Ten seconds, thirty seconds, one minute, finally the first drop of molten iron dripped from the water outlet into the mold, and my efforts were successful, and it was a success......

My heart is happy, the iron put in it finally melted, only to see the water outlet from time to time with the diversion groove drop by drop to roll into the mold, see this makes people work harder.

The reality is that when you do the same thing, you can see hope and the road ahead is completely different mindsets, and when you can see hope, you will work harder......

In less than ten minutes, the dagger's mold was full and began to spill out excess molten iron, of course, I only threw a pound of iron into it, and after not much spillage, it stopped, things went more smoothly than I expected, and I was worried about failure due to various situations before I started.

......

After the dagger was made, there was no other mold that needed to make tools, so today's ironmaking work had to be temporarily stopped.

But I was not idle, I was working hard to make the molds I needed in the afternoon, and I will carry out the next refining tomorrow.

While I waited for the dagger to cool, my mind was fluttering with various metal tools, thinking about what would be the next tool to do.

Because there are so many tools to be done, it seems that there is no shortage of them, and I don't know which one is the most urgent for a while!

All kinds of metal tools can allow me to do more with less when doing the corresponding things for their function, so the current state of mind is to want them all (ahem, provided that there is enough iron for me to melt).

For the time being, I think the second tool should be an axe, and I feel that it is the most urgent need at this stage, and if there is any iron left, I will consider other things.

Half an hour later, the molten iron in the mold solidified and cooled and opened the mold, and a silver dagger was presented in front of me, although the blade was still stained with some dirt and burrs, but it could not hide its temperament at all, and my love for it!

The total length of the dagger design is about 20 to 25 centimeters, the length of the blade is more than ten centimeters, the thickness is very thick, and the back of the knife should be three or four millimeters because of the fear of breaking if you don't pay attention to the occasion when you usually use it.

In addition to the full material of the blade, the knife handle is much simpler, in order to save the iron knife handle is also like a blade of a piece of iron of the same thickness, but there is no design edge.

It is planned to cut two pieces of wood and tie them to both sides of the knife handle, which can achieve a similar effect and may be more conducive to hand protection.

The blade I just took out looked very ugly, and after removing the dirt and burrs on it one by one, it looked much more pleasing to the eye, except that it was still very dull and had no handle, I could already imagine how it looked like it was following me into battle!

Sharpening a knife is a very delicate job and requires a certain amount of skill, and the most difficult thing for me to sharpen a knife with a thickness of more than two millimeters is to sharpen it.

......

It took nearly two hours to finally complete this step, and there was hardly a dry spot on the whole body.

But the result was not bad, the knife handle was made and fixed, and finally I got the first qualified iron tool since I went to the island!

The small blade of the door buckle grinding can be honorably laid off, although it is very grateful for its contribution, but when there is a better replacement, it can only be beaten into the cold.

Looking at the dagger in his hand, he can't put it down so much that he is obsessed, or how to say that men like weapons, whether they are hot weapons or cold weapons!

In the afternoon, I started making molds for axes to prepare for the next furnace tomorrow, and I would like to put them in the house for storage when the dirt tools are not overburned in the open air, so I want to put them in the house and store them while the iron is hot as soon as possible.

The weight of the axe is about a catty, and if it is too light, the efficiency of cutting trees and chopping wood will be relatively low, and it is too heavy and very laborious, which needs to be calculated in advance.

After the axe mold was made, I made a mold for a kitchen knife, and I thought that the amount of iron that had not yet been refined should be enough to make both tools.

In fact, there is a shortage of tools now, but in comparison, I still choose sharp weapons, which not only have a greater effect on ordinary production and life, but also are very necessary as self-defense tools.

Thinking that the tool of self-defense for more than half a year is a wooden stick, if there is really a relatively big threat, it can be said that it is sitting still......

The mold of the axe is made quickly, and the material of banana trees is no longer used, but the large pieces of dry clay that are usually used are polished directly with a dagger to make the shape of an axe.

And dig a hole in the middle to install the axe handle, the clay hardness is higher after drying, and there is no need to worry about the problem that it will deform after pressing into the mold.

Sure enough, everything requires knowledge, and it is not only faster than the previous production method, but also more labor-saving, and calculating the shape in your mind and then carving the appearance with a dagger is almost a meal of effort, and the pattern of the axe and kitchen knife is made.

......

The next day, the iron-making operation continued, and it was complicated, but in fact, the steps were quite simple after having the tools.

In the past, the biggest problem when doing one thing was that it took a lot of time to make the corresponding tools, but it is much easier to have ready-made tools, and with the addition of metal tools, when you encounter other tools in the future, you can also greatly reduce the time!

Half a day later, the polished axe also joined my team, and I felt a kind of heroism of "I have an axe in the world", and all the trees on the island will be defeated by my men in the future.

When the kitchen knife is polished, it is almost dark, and it takes a day to make two sharp weapons, which is not low, but the achievement is definitely very high!!

Originally, there were still two or three catties of unrefined iron left, but I found that nearly two catties of them were absolute pure iron, with a melting point of more than 1,500 degrees, which was obviously not something I could achieve with this local method.

So when it doesn't exist, there is only less than a pound of iron left, and it is not enough to make a dagger after refining it, and the iron-making work will come to an end in a short time.

The results have been fruitful, and I have finally moved from the Wood Age to the Iron Age, but it seems that I will be so excited that I will have trouble falling asleep tonight......