The establishment of a construction company has all kinds of things to deal with, arranging management personnel, financial personnel, arranging craftsmen brought in by various chambers of commerce, testing their skill level and determining the shares of each chamber of commerce, setting up construction teams and recruiting workers, etc.

Although these things are not Xia Lin's turn to deal with, it will not start construction so soon for a while.

Xia Lin, who returned to the industrial park, was about to go to the Karl Institute to see the current research status of rotation, but on the dock of the industrial park, a ship that Xia Lin had a relationship with was moored: the Thorn Bird, which disrupted his scheduled plan.

However, the plan was disrupted, and seeing Captain Nick from the Thorn Bird on a small boat to the pier pier pier again, Xia Lin only had joy and joy in his heart.

"Fortunately, Lord Xia Lin, my Thorn Bird has brought you what you want!"

On the pier where the cold wind was blowing, Captain Nick, who was dusty and stubble, walked up to the pier from the boat, and immediately took off his captain's hat and made a noble salute to Xia Lin, and there was pride and pride on his emaciated cheeks.

"You've had a hard time, Captain Nick!"

Xia Lin also said to Captain Nick in a solemn tone.

In just over ten days, Captain Nick sailed from Hurgana along the Seine to the port of Dafa, from which he sailed west to find what he called the graphite mine, and hired miners to successfully mine the ore and come back.

Although Xia Lin has never sailed far, he can also estimate one or two of the hardships along the way, and in Xia Lin's opinion, Captain Nick is qualified to be proud and proud of this.

"It's not hard work, I can only say that it's not in vain, Your Excellency Xia Lin, I'll take you to the Thorn Bird to see if those black stones are the "graphite" ore you want!"

Hearing the sincerity in Xia Lin's words, Captain Nick nodded with some emotion.

"Good! These ores are really important to the New Leaf Chamber of Commerce, and I can't wait to see those ores now, so I'll trouble you!"

Xia Lin actually had the idea of confirming the type of ore as soon as possible, and when he heard this, he followed Captain Nick's words.

"Haha! You are my sponsor, this is not a trouble, if it is not for the funding of the New Leaf Chamber of Commerce, I may not be able to make a trip to the sea this month, please come with me!"

Captain Nick was very impressed by Xia Lin's attitude of respecting himself, and even enthusiastically took Xia Lin on the boat in person.

The berths in the industrial park were designed to dock some inland waterway vessels, not large ships such as the Thornbird, so Captain Nick and Charlin had to go up and down the Thornbird by a small boat.

With the help of the sailors, he climbed the rope ladder to the deck, and Charlin followed Captain Nick to the bilge, the structure of the Thornbird was very different from the river vessels that Charlin had ridden in.

The cramped corridors, the small rooms, the dim ship lights, Xia Lin was only about to approach 1.7 meters tall and had to bow his head slightly to pass smoothly, only to the middle cargo hold, the space was slightly larger, but the turbid air and the smell of various goods were mixed together, which made people feel more uncomfortable.

Arriving at the damp bilge loaded with ore, Xia Lin finally saw the raw graphite ore he had been looking for for nearly two months, the black-gray ore surface showed a semi-metallic luster, and the ore could be broken with a little force.

After performing a shimmering technique, Xia Lin saw that there were plate-like traces on the broken surface, and through these characteristics, he recognized that the type of ore was indeed the graphite ore he was looking for, and Xia Lin finally nodded with reassurance:

"That's right, that's the graphite ore I want, Captain Nick, now let's get it down to the Thornbird!"

"Alright, Andris, you can get some guys to get the ore out!"

Hearing Xia Lin's affirmative words, Captain Nick, who was still a little nervous just now, also breathed a sigh of relief, and immediately called his first mate to arrange.

got the twenty gold lunt per month provided by the New Leaf Chamber of Commerce, and felt Xia Lin's attention and respect for him, in return, Captain Nick

Naturally, he would attach importance to the first task assigned to him by Xia Lin, but fortunately, this task has now been successfully completed.

However, in the next unloading process, they encountered some problems.

Because of the large amount of material to be stored and the tonnage of ocean-going vessels such as the Thornbird, the ship's edge height is very high, and it often requires a special dock for unloading.

However, the height of the wharf trestle in the industrial park is not up to the requirements, and it is impossible to erect the plank, so the ore can only be lifted from the ship to the small boat by manpower, and then transported to the flatbed truck at the wharf, which is then transported to the machine processing plant along the steel-clad rails that have been built for almost a kilometer.

The efficiency of this process was too low, Xia Lin waited for a long time, and the 1,400 heavy graphite ore mined by Captain Nick's specially hired personnel was only unloaded for four or five hundred heavy pounds.

Although it would take another day to unload all the graphite ore at this rate, considering that similar situations might happen in the future, Xia Lin thought about it and went back to his office to draw a simple set of drawings for a wooden gantry crane, and handed it to Master Halle for the machine factory to produce.

The structure of this wooden gantry crane is extremely simple, in fact, it is two columns and a main beam as the main structure, and then the lifting system is to take a group of steel rods as slide rails, two human ratchets as the power, these two ratchets can allow two people to rotate at the same time, and the weight of the weight that can be lifted by the design is only 150 kg.

Although it may seem rare, the biggest advantage of a gantry crane is that it can lift the cargo directly from the tall ship deck, and then move the cargo directly to the flatbed truck through the slide rails, which saves a lot of work in the middle, so it can greatly improve efficiency.

However, the process of installing this gantry crane is more complicated, and it is necessary to divide a suitable berth on the existing wharf for the big ship to berth, and then pour the fixed piles of the column with concrete on both sides of the berth.

Once built, the gantry crane will be located at the front half of the deck when the vessel is parked at the berth, which makes it easy to operate.

After spending a day arranging the production of the gantry crane, Xia Lin specially called a construction team to a vacant berth to prepare for the preliminary construction work of the installation of the gantry crane, and the graphite ore loaded on the thorn bird on the other side was also unloaded.

After completing the loading and unloading and transportation of graphite ore, Xia Lin did not hesitate to give Captain Nick an additional subsidy of two gold lundes, so that Captain Nick could use the money to take his sailors to the North District dock for repairs for a period of time, and then continue to set off to dig some graphite ore and come back.

In addition to being used to make electrodes, graphite is used in many parts of the industry, such as lubricants, crucibles, casting molds, and so on. There are also pencils that Xia Lin wants very much, which also needs graphite to be made, so the more versatile raw materials the better.

However, this kind of thing is indispensable, and the New Leaf Chamber of Commerce has signed a funding contract with Captain Nick, not an employment contract.

Moreover, it is really a burying talent for long-distance talents like Captain Nick to run these coastal shipping lanes, so Xia Lin once again put the plan of establishing a shipping company or even a shipyard on the agenda.

But now he has another job on hand, which is to make graphite electrodes from these natural graphite ores that have been loaded into warehouses, replacing the pure gold electrodes on the electric arc furnaces.

In Xia Lin's impression, the electric arc furnaces of the steel mills in the past generally used artificial graphite electrodes, because natural graphite had some problems, such as small reserves, difficult to mine, etc., but now he has a graphite mine on hand that according to Captain Nick, it is almost completely open-pit, so these are not problems.

The problem now is how to make graphite electrodes, which is a knowledge that Xia Lin has never been exposed to in his previous life.

However, based on his understanding of graphite electrodes, it is speculated that the use of natural graphite to make graphite electrodes should first ensure the purity of graphite.

That is to say, in the production process, the ore must first be crushed, the graphite ore is refined by chemical and physical means, and then the finished graphite with high purity is obtained through screening, and finally it should be pressed and formed.

And for the question of purity

, Xia Lin already held a master key in his hand at this time.