Zhao Fuxiang's words silenced the cheerful crowd. Everyone looked at Zhao Fuxiang as if they were stupid. Zhao Zhikuan even wanted to step forward and strangle his unfulfilled son to death.

On the contrary, Zhao Fuxiang was very dissatisfied when he saw everyone looking at him like this. Zhao Fuxiang asked: "Why am I wrong? What does this have to do with making gun barrels?"

Seeing the unkind look in his grandfather's eyes, Zhao Heng quickly pulled Zhao Fuxiang and whispered: "Dad, just now grandpa was just testing. How can you ensure that the barrel of the gun is straight without a machine tool?"

Zhao Fuxiang thought it right, so he shut up and stopped talking. Zhao Zhikuan glared at his son and said, "Bring me an iron rod and show it to those who don't know how to do it!"

Zhao Fuxiang saw that the apprentice next to him brought a one-meter-two iron rod this time. The diameter of the iron rod was about five centimeters. It was full of holes. It looked like it was made by Blacksmith Wang. This time, Zhao Fuxiang really guessed it right.

, this wrought iron rod was really made by Blacksmith Wang last night, but because it is purely handmade, it naturally does not look good.

Zhao Zhikuan clamped the iron rod on the clamp. Because it was handmade, it was not straight, but that didn't matter. Zhao Zhikuan took it out and knocked it with a hammer to straighten the bend.

After everything was installed in place, the apprentice connected the machine tool to the turbine again. This time it was different from the wooden stick just now. The cutter head made a harsh squeaking sound on the iron rod, and circles of iron filings like steel wire rags began to appear.

Seeing that the surface of the iron rod was easily chipped away, Zhao Zhikuan's apprentices began to flatter him again, but this time before they could finish flattering him, they heard a loud noise and the blade of the knife broke.

Seeing this, Zhao Fuxiang was about to make fun of these apprentices for their poor craftsmanship, but when he thought that these apprentices were his father's lifeblood, if he made fun of them, he wouldn't slap his father in the face, so he quickly shut up.

Don't speak.

Zhao Zhikuan led his apprentice forward and took a look, and found that the knife had been broken from the root, and the head of the knife had collapsed. Zhao Zhikuan took the knife off and looked at the root. It was broken abruptly. He touched the knife with his hand.

Found it to be very hot.

Zhao Heng stepped forward, took a look and asked, "Grandpa, what happened?"

Zhao Zhikuan said: "There may be a problem with the temperature, but the book says that no coolant is needed for turning cast iron and other iron materials. Only steel materials need cooling. Why is the cutter head broken?"

In fact, Zhao Zhikuan didn't know that after being hammered by Blacksmith Wang, the inside of this wrought iron rod was already very tight and its strength was close to that of low carbon steel. And the knife that Zhao Zhikuan spent a long time grinding was made of high carbon steel, but in the Ming Dynasty it was not made of high carbon steel.

This technology can produce high-quality high-carbon steel, so there are bubbles inside the tool. Coupled with the high temperature generated during cutting, tool breakage becomes inevitable.

However, Zhao Zhikuan was well prepared for such an accident. He ordered his apprentice to build a temporary cooling mechanism to cool down the cutter head after changing the cutter head.

This cooling mechanism is very simple. It is a gourd filled with water, with a small hole drilled in the bottom, and water dripping from the cutter head to cool it. Zhao Fuxiang saw the gourd hanging so well that he did not laugh out loud, but his son Zhao

Heng noticed it with sharp eyes and quickly covered Zhao Fuxiang's mouth to prevent him from making any strange noises.

Although Zhao Fuxiang laughed at the crudeness of this cooling mechanism, it can indeed solve the problem. Later machine tools can indeed use water for cooling, but that cooling water is an emulsion with sulfide added. Although the cooling speed is much stronger than water, the principle

But almost.

The addition of coolant allowed the machine tool to work smoothly. As the tool head moved, an iron rod with a diameter of three centimeters and as bright as new appeared in front of everyone.

Because after processing, the iron rod

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It was very hot. Zhao Zhikuan cooled the iron rod with water and took it out. He found that the quality was perfect. Blacksmith Wang's hammering made the inside of the iron rod very dense, so there were no bubbles inside the iron rod and the outer wall of the iron rod was very smooth.

Everyone was sighing at the craftsmanship of the machine tool, but Zhao Fuxiang felt very distressed when he saw that only half of an iron rod of five or six centimeters thick was left after processing, and it would be drilled later, which means that it was only about three-quarters of the iron.

It was all wasted. Zhao Fuxiang looked at the iron filings left on the ground and said, "Dad, can you ask Blacksmith Wang to make the iron rod thinner? This is such a waste of iron!"

Zhao Zhikuan simply took Zhao Fuxiang's words as fart, as if he hadn't heard anything. Now that everyone is unskilled, they naturally have to leave a margin. Zhao Zhikuan asked his apprentice to take an iron rod again. This time the rod became one centimeter in diameter.

Zhao Fuxiang's heart bleeds when he sees that the iron rod that is five to six centimeters thick has become one centimeter thick.

Next is the most important drilling. In fact, turning holes was not a high technology in the Ming Dynasty. Many muskets in the Ming Dynasty were produced by drilling.

Zhao Shizhen, the weapons inventor of the Ming Dynasty, recorded in detail the production process of Lumi gun in the Ming Dynasty in the artifact manual, including a simple drilling machine design. Of course, the technology of the Ming Dynasty cannot be compared with that of later generations, but the principles are similar, using high carbon

Steel drills iron rods into deep holes.

In the middle and early Ming Dynasty, the barrels of muskets were rolled from iron sheets, and the two sides were forged by a blacksmith to be tightly connected. Although the three-eye blunderbuss produced was more powerful, it could not have as high a range as the drilled gun.

Zhao Shizhen invented the drilling technology after watching the Lumi gun produced in Turkey. Although drilling is time-consuming and laborious, it has many benefits. It not only increases the strength of the barrel, but also avoids the occurrence of explosion. In the past, rolled barrels were used

, due to different craftsmen’s craftsmanship, chamber explosion incidents occur from time to time, but the barrel can be forged after drilling, and the trachoma bubbles inside the metal are squeezed out, so that chamber explosion will not occur.

However, because the drilling machines of the Ming Dynasty all used manpower, the production speed could not keep up. Only more than a thousand Lumi guns were produced every year, and they were all equipped to the border troops. Naturally, a remote and remote place like Hainan was not equipped with such a sharp weapon.

Of course, Zhao Zhikuan would not build a backward drilling machine. Instead, he would use the C618 machine tool in his hand and make some slight modifications to make it a temporary deep hole machine.

Zhao Zhikuan installed the drill bit polished yesterday, which was the twist drill used for drilling holes in later generations, on the one-centimetre-diameter iron rod.

Yesterday, Zhao Zhikuan used the high-carbon steel shipped back by Zhao Fuxiang to make more than a dozen drill bits. In addition to the commonly used external circular cutters and thread cutters, he also made special twist drill bits for drilling. Of course, some other tools are too difficult to process.

Still can't figure it out.

The most difficult thing to process is the twist drill bit. It’s not that the drill bit has any material requirements, but that the twist shape is very difficult to process. In the end, Zhao Zhikuan used a grinding wheel to grind out the twist shape bit by bit. This is the task completed. Because the twist

Drill bits are very difficult to process, so only two were made. Now Zhao Zhikuan couldn't believe anyone, so he started preparing to drill holes himself.

Drilling with a machine tool is very simple. Just fix the drill bit in one place, and then use the light rod to control the rotating material to contact the drill bit. In this way, you can slowly drill a perfect deep hole. However, this technology will test the proficiency of the lathe. If

A little carelessness will damage the material, so Zhao Zhikuan is doubly careful. Of course, no one will use machine tools to process seamless iron pipes in the future. There are many such things on the market. The products of Laiyang Steel Pipe Factory even left China and went to Syria. You can imagine

And we know that seamless steel pipe is not a high-tech product at all in later generations.

But it was different in the Ming Dynasty. You must know that the entire Ming Dynasty could only produce one

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There are more than a thousand gun barrels, so as long as Zhao Zhikuan succeeds, he will immediately become a technological pioneer of this era.

When all the disciples saw their master taking action, they gathered around to watch carefully. Zhao Fuxiang also squeezed into the crowd, fearing that they would be left behind.

Zhao Zhikuan slowly turned the light rod, and the gun barrel blank was fixed on the spindle and slowly approached the drill bit. After approaching the drill bit, circles of iron filings began to appear again, and the drill bit penetrated into the blank little by little.

Seeing the initial success, everyone was very happy, but before they were happy for a long time, the drill bit shook and suddenly broke through the blank, and a precious gun barrel blank was considered scrapped.

Zhao Zhikuan was not discouraged and tried two more times, but either the drill bit shook or the gun barrel blank shook halfway through the drill, resulting in a failure.

This puts Zhao Zhikuan in a difficult situation. In fact, the problem this time is very simple. The barrel is too long, and it will inevitably shake when the spindle rotates. The reason why the blank is processed is because the front and rear are fixed with clamps, so there will be no shaking problem.

But drilling can’t be fixed at both ends, right?

One apprentice thought for a moment and said, "Master, how about drilling the hole vertically?"

This is a good solution. Putting it vertically can solve the problem of part of the gravity causing the barrel blank to bend, but under the action of centrifugal force, the head of the blank will still shake, and the problem has not been actually solved.

Just when everyone was at a loss what to do, Zhao Fuxiang on the side said: "Everyone, wouldn't it be enough to add a wooden support in front?"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Zhikuan became more energetic and asked, "Come here, kid, and tell me what we should do."

Zhao Fuxiang is now considered a person. This is the first time he has been called a boy, but he has nothing to do. Who calls this person his father?

Zhao Fuxiang walked into the crowd, pointed to the part where the head of the blank was in contact with the drill bit, and said, "A bracket can be placed here. Wouldn't that be enough?"

When Zhao Zhikuan heard that it was feasible, he put a wooden bracket at the contact area, as long as the blank and the drill bit were not shaken. He started working on it as soon as he thought of it. There was a shortage of other craftsmen on the island, but there were plenty of carpenters. The large-scale construction work in the previous month had trained many qualified carpenters.

Zhao Zhikuan drew a sketch of the bracket, and soon the carpenter made the bracket.

This bracket is like a small stool, with the same height as the bottom of the blank. The upper part of the bracket is a ten centimeter-wide wooden board used to support the blank and the drill bit. In order to prevent the blank from shaking, the wooden board is also made into a concave shape, which can be used to hold the blank.

The blank is stuck in the middle.

After the bracket is made, it is very suitable to put it on. Although the blank will generate friction and heat when it rotates, doesn't it have a cooling mechanism? Just drop water on it, which can solve the problem of the drill head heating.

After everything was prepared, the machine tool was started again. This time with the support, everything went smoothly and the middle section was passed smoothly. When it came to the last ten centimeters, Zhao Zhikuan became more and more careful. Now that victory was in front of him, he must not fall short.

With a clicking sound, the one-meter-long drill bit was drilled in. Zhao Zhikuan quickly stopped the machine tool, took out the drill bit and carefully inspected the gun barrel blank. The barrel processed this time was perfect, with a length of 1.2 meters and a hole depth of 1 meter.

, one centimeter in diameter, and one centimeter in hole wall thickness. The most important thing is that because it is drilled, the inside of the barrel is very smooth, which will make the gunpowder burn fully, which will not only increase the range but also reduce the chance of exploding the barrel.

Zhao Zhikuan checked several sides with a vernier caliper, and finally said excitedly: "This time is very successful, we can finally make the barrel!"

The disciples around were very happy, and Zhao Heng and Zhao Fuxiang were also very happy. Zhao Fuxiang smiled and said, "Thank you for your hard work today! Each of you will be rewarded with one tael of silver!"
Chapter completed!