Today, Li Jingshan got off work and went to the jewelry workshop again. She wanted to find out what was going on with the consignment jewelry.

Sales are not satisfactory. She kept a total of jewelry to sell there, and now she has only sold two pairs of plum blossom inlaid red bean earrings.

"Those jewelry looks novel, and there are a lot of people who ask, but they think that the silver jewelry is too plain, and it would be good if it was golden." Uncle He explained, "People still like the yellow and clear colors, and they are festive. ”

Li Jingshan remembered that Sister-in-law Zhang had said something similar. She looked at the samples placed in her uncle's booth, which were all golden jewelry, and very few jewelry of other materials.

Uncle He said: "From the palace to the people, we only recognize gold, and the head of the jewelry should also be bright in color and luxurious in style. So, white silver jewelry is not easy to sell. Girl, I think you should take these jewelry back. ”

Li Jingshan had to pack up the ornaments and walk back slowly. When passing by some jewelry shops, she paid special attention to the display in the store, and sure enough, it was full of gold jewelry, inlaid with brightly colored gemstones, and the design was gorgeous and graceful.

Not long after she crossed over to the Dalang Dynasty, she didn't know the trend preferences of the Dalang Dynasty, and her understanding of the jewelry industry was limited to all the knowledge of the original owner of this body. At the beginning, Miss Li followed her father to learn jewelry design and creation, and her father said that she would do whatever she wanted, and she didn't need to think about what kind of jewelry was the market demand. So she didn't know anything about it.

Now that I have personally tested the jewelry industry, I know how poor my understanding of this industry is, and I don't even understand what kind of goods the market needs, so I rush into it, which is really naïve!

She walked and walked, and then entered the shop to pretend to be a customer, chatting with the guys in the store.

The guy in the store said, "Why don't you sell silver jewelry?" Hey, girl, you're a layman's talk. We have always loved only the golden and shiny colors, what gold pearls, red sapphires, the more bright and bright the color, the more sought after. Who is rare the miserable white silver? ”

The guy is also a person who can talk, and his eyebrows danced, "Let me tell you this, along with the beautiful jade, the white and shiny mutton fat jade is worth one less than the green jade." ”

"The common people like these dazzling lights, but what about those dignitaries?"

The guy raised his finger and shook it in front of his eyes, saying, "There is an old saying that 'what is good at the top, and what is good at the bottom' You know? This likes the luxurious atmosphere full of pearls, but it is not spread from the royal princes and nobles! So you see,"

He pointed to the ornaments placed on the counter and praised: "The heads of our jewelry are all lined with gold and embellished with beads and gemstones, and what we want is a jeweled effect!" I bought a set of noodles, but I spent hundreds or thousands of taels of silver. Those high-quality and superb jewelry heads are priceless! ”

Li Jingshan was secretly speechless, and asked again, "With such an expensive head, how can ordinary people use it?" There's always something for them to wear, right? ”

"Well, you went out and turned left, and you saw that spider alley, right?" This guy is also a warm-hearted person, and raised his hand to show her the way, "There are many small handicraft workshops there, and ordinary people who want to make bracelets and earrings go there to find a shop, ranging from a few small coins to a few taels of silver." If ordinary people come to us to buy jewelry, it will be kept as an heirloom from generation to generation. ”

Li Jingshan nodded thoughtfully and thanked the guy.

I visited a few more and got about the same information. When I walked to some small shops, I finally saw a few silver ornaments occasionally placed on the counter, the design was simple, the style was not good-looking, and the color was even more gray. She went in and asked, and the shopkeeper told her that silver jewelry was not welcomed, so naturally there were few preparations, and these were still ready to be cleared.

Coming from modern times, Lai Ching Shan has seen many jewelry items of various materials, and knows that in addition to gold, there are all kinds of beautiful materials to decorate.

It's just that now, she is powerless to reverse people's current narrow view of jewelry, so she can only cater to people's aesthetics first, and think about how to make jewelry good and cheap.

After Li Jingshan finished reading these jewelry shops and went home, she already had an idea in her heart.

Isn't it just to put a golden touch on the metal, there are many ways! As a senior scholar in geology and mining, metal smelting is also one of the necessary skills!

In modern times, there are many kinds of processes for coloring metal, such as gilding, gilding, and gilding. Gilding requires the gold to be pressed into a very thin sheet, and it is not firm, so it is excluded first. Gold plating requires a chemical solution, which is not easy to do at present.

Only the gilding process is relatively simple, and the metal can be applied with a mercury solution mixed with gold juice to make the metal attach a golden light. And the coloring is stable, and the finished product looks like real gold.

After some consideration, Li Jingshan decided to use gilding to color her silver jewelry.

The next step is to prepare the materials.

She reluctantly took out ten taels of silver and went to the silver village to exchange for gold. Yinzhuang's job asked: "Good gold can only be exchanged for eight coins, and average fine can be exchanged for one or two gold, which kind do you want?" ”

"Naturally, it should be pure gold." Li Jingshan replied. With those impurities of the dog's head gold, it is not good to gilt the jewelry, and the quality problem is not allowed to be sloppy.

The next step is to prepare the mercury. This one is more troublesome. In ancient times, there was no purified mercury to sell, so it could only be refined by itself.

Li Jingshan went to the pharmacy to buy dozens of catties of cinnabar, and went to the clay pot shop for a long time, but did not find a suitable container, so she had to draw a good figure and order a container with a large belly and a small mouth with a long mouth with the master of the ceramic shop.

The master of the ceramics shop was puzzled: "Girl, you are too big, and other people's medicine pots are all spouts upward, are you painting backwards and going down?" Don't you want to pounce on those potions? ”

Li Jingshan joked: "That's right, you just want to be the same." I'm lazy and just want the juice to flow out on its own. She didn't bother to explain that this was not a pot, but a liquid for distilling mercury.

While waiting for the pot to be ready, she bought a mortar, a copper rod, and other items. The rats moved the items back to the courtyard. After these items were bought, they went for about ten taels of silver.

She estimated in her heart that the gilded jewelry made would have to be sold at least 30% to return to the cost. However, even so, it is still much cheaper than pure gold jewelry, and the market potential is huge.

When everything was ready, she chose a special day for the evening errand, and when everyone had rested late at night, she closed the kitchen door and set the strange medicine pot on the stove.

It is not difficult to refine mercury through cinnabar, but the difficulty is that the mercury vapor is toxic, and how to prevent the steam from overflowing is the need to be careful to prevent it. The first time, she didn't dare to refine too much, so she only put one-third of the capacity of the distillation pot, and sealed the gaps in the lid with a towel soaked in water. Make sure nothing goes wrong before turning on the fire to cook the sand.

About an hour later, a dozen pearl-sized balls of mercury gathered in the basin where she received the mercury. She withdrew the fire. It took another half an hour for the whole container to cool down, and then she covered her face with a hand towel, carefully uncovered the lid of the container, and poured out the cinnabar inside. The cinnabar, which used to be red in color, has now turned into a dusty powder.

These refining residues are afraid of toxin residues and cannot be discarded at will. Li Jingshan packed them all in a large bamboo tube and sealed them, hid them in a pile of firewood and grass, and took them to the field to bury them when she went out to buy them the next day.

Clean up properly before starting to cook the second pot. After tossing and turning in such a night, only half a glass of mercury was made.

Li Jingshan put the painstakingly distilled mercury in a fine-mouthed porcelain bottle, then filled it with water, sealed the mouth of the bottle, and put it in a box to collect.

After doing this, the sky was already slightly white, and it was time for Li Jingshan to prepare breakfast for the entire courtyard. After a busy night, she let out a long sigh, lamenting that ancient times were really inconvenient. In modern times, going to a chemical company to buy a few hundred dollars of mercury is enough for her to get dozens of gilt jewelry.

Li Jingshan secretly worked for three nights, and finally saved up a mortar of mercury.

Next is to make "gold clay". In the afternoon when Li Jingshan was looking for a bad day, she took advantage of Li Jingjue's going to the school, closed the door in his room, and began to make trouble.

She cut the flakes of gold with scissors, put them in proportion to the mercury, stirred and ground them, and mixed them into a silvery-white metal clay, and the most important thing was the gilt clay. Li Jingshan put a mortar of gold clay into a basin of water, covered it with a piece of cloth, and hid it under the bed.

She had just finished it, and Li Jingjue had already come back from school and knocked on the door, "Sister, what are you doing in my room?" ”

Li Jingshan hurriedly opened the door and smiled mysteriously at Li Jingjue, "My sister is performing a spell of turning iron into gold, this is an immortal technique, so naturally it can't be seen by others." ”

Li Jingjue took a look into the room, and when she saw that there was nothing special, she sighed like a little adult, "Zi Bu is strange and confused, where did the gods come from!" "Go straight into the house and read the book.

Li Jingshan thought about it, if she really knew what kind of immortal arts, why bother so much, and she still needed to hide from others to do this craft. I couldn't help but shake my head and smile bitterly.

However, these preparations are only the beginning.

The next thing to do is to "wipe gold" and "sell silver". The gold clay is evenly coated on the surface of the ornament, the residual mercury is washed off with water, and then the ornament is buried in the grass ash of the stove, and the plant ash is heated by fire to evaporate the mercury.

Processes that require fire can only be done at night, so she wraps her mouth and nose in a towel and puts on gloves. While carefully controlling the heat, roll the ornament with a wooden stick so that it is evenly heated. Then take out the ornaments while they are hot and wipe off the silver surface with a towel and a brown brush. In this way, the original silver jewelry is gilded with a layer of golden yellow.

Li Jingshan took these ornaments under water to rinse, and after carefully polishing them with a brown brush several times, she looked carefully under the lamp, but she was not very satisfied. Although the jewelry is covered with a golden coating, it feels like the color is floating on the surface, not the luster of the metal itself.

Li Jingshan rummaged through what she had learned in her mind, but she couldn't think of what the problem was. After all, her original specialty was geology and mineral smelting, and such an artistic craft was not her forte. It's just that in the memory of this body, Miss Li doesn't have the slightest impression of gilding craftsmanship, which is a bit strange.