Chapter 95 Making a barrel

Soon, the flame in the blast furnace changed from orange to golden orange and then red orange. People who are far away can feel the heat wave.

This blast furnace has been improved, and the furnace temperature is much higher than before!

Even Zhang Yang can feel the change of furnace temperature. Now the temperature in the furnace is estimated to be more than 1,400 degrees. At such a temperature, it should be able to melt more iron in iron ore. Last time I made iron, there was actually a lot of iron in the iron slag, which is completely wasted, but it can't be said that it is completely wasted. It is still used. On the grenade.

In the morning, a furnace of iron water was finally refined.

The iron water did not flow directly into the mold outside. Lu Xing had made several large crucibles and arranged the crucibles next to the outlet of the iron. The iron water flowed along the pipe to the crucible.

"Brum! Stir!" With Lu Xing's order, the air outlet turned, and the strong wind blew into the iron water inside the crucible.

This wind does not cool iron water, but contains oxygen in the wind. It uses oxygen to oxidize silicon, manganese and carbon in iron water and reduce the carbon content to the range of steel. Most of the products of fried steel are low-carbon steel, but if it is well controlled, medium carbon steel and high-carbon steel can also be obtained.

However, the air contains nitrogen, which will make the steel brittle, so some other raw materials, such as concentrate powder, such as other metals, need to be added for blending.

What Zhang Yang needs most is high-carbon steel, because it is the most ideal raw material for manufacturing pipe.

The modern barrel is drilled through the drilling machine with chrome-moldenum alloy steel rods, hiatus holes in the gun, cutting the rifling, chrome-plated polishing of the rifling, and then heat treatment and fine forging of the barrel.

There is no need to think about chromium-moldenum alloy steel. These two rare metals can't be found by themselves for the time being. Even if they are found, they can't be used by themselves. Ironmaking is their own weaknesses, let alone alloy steel. In addition to alloy rigidity, only high-carbon steel has the highest hardness, which is most suitable for making its own barrel.

Whether high-carbon steel can be obtained depends entirely on the technical level of steelmaking personnel.

Lu Xing also knows that now is the most critical time. Stir-frying steel is like stir-frying. You can't get the heat. There are still a lot of impurities in it. If you stir-fry too much, you won't get the high-strength steel that the eldest brother needs. ( There is no such thing as high-carbon steel now)

Lu Xing was highly nervous. While watching people flipping the splash of iron, he directed people to throw the prepared concentrate powder into it.

Gradually, Lu Xing's face became ugly: "Brother, only two crucibles of fried steel meet the requirements, and the rest are a little problematic."

Two crucibles? That's a few hundred pounds, right? Zhang Yang was not very depressed. This improvement is much better than the last iron.

"If they do not meet the requirements, they are all cast into iron ingots and wait for the blacksmith to make steel for use. If they meet the requirements, they will be handed over to me." Zhang Yang said excitedly.

High-carbon steel, making gun barrels, my own professional knowledge, finally to show my skills.

In this era, it is just the era when the fire bolt has just begun to enter the military field. It uses smooth-mall guns. The barrel is an ordinary metal tube. The bullet is spherical. After the bullet goes out, it soon begins to deviate from the orbit. Only God knows where it will fly.

If you want to make fire bolts of practical value, you have to make a barrel with a rifling. The worm is the soul of the barrel. The bullet wants to fly out, but it is squeezed by the worm. The worm is in a circle, pressing the bullet to follow the circle, giving the warhead the ability to rotate. After flying out, it can remain stable.

The iron pipe is difficult enough to make, and it is even more difficult to carve a rif in it. From the iron pipe built last time, it can be seen that in this era, few craftsmen can make iron pipes that meet the requirements. Unless those professional craftsmen can make it. However, even if the iron pipe is qualified, there are seams. Because there are seams, the gunpowder cannot be stuffed too much, otherwise if the pressure is too high, it will definitely explode from the seams.

And the modern barrel has no seams. Without seams, it ensures that all places can withstand the same pressure to the maximum extent.

Since the technology of this era is not enough, it is natural to use modern technology.

The modern barrel is most commonly made by drilling a drilling machine to drill the alloy steel ingot out of a hole. And if the drill is rotated, it is very difficult and the accuracy is not guaranteed. Therefore, the drill bit is usually fixed and the barrel rotates. The wire splashed, and a hole came out. In addition, the barrel is forged with a professional and complex barrel precision forging machine. The simplest is to directly use seamless steel pipes.

Combining various methods, Zhang Yang decided to use seamless steel pipe.

Drilling machine? No, the barrel precision forging machine? What's more. Seamless steel pipe? Ideas can be made.

Seamless steel pipes can be made by hot-rolled, cold-rolled or centrifugal casting. Based on the existing equipment, it is relatively easy to manufacture by centrifugal casting.

With the general casting method, it is difficult to ensure the dense surname of the casting. There are many pores in it, resulting in insufficient strength. The so-called centrifugal casting is a casting method in which ** metal is poured into the rotating mold, so that ** metal is filled and solidified under the action of centrifugal force.

This is a bit similar to the dehydration bucket of the washing machine. When the clothes are put in, the drops of water will be thrown out from the inside and discharged from the outer wall of the drying bucket. If the molten iron is put in and rotated at high speed, the molten iron will be thrown out and attached to the outer wall. Control the amount of moltening is added, and a uniform seamless steel pipe can be made. Come on.

In the past two days, Zhang Yang has commanded Li Chengrui and others to make the molds needed for several barrel castings, and these molds are built on rotating discs, through several gear mechanisms below, and finally driven by hydraulic power.

While pouring the high-carbon steel water obtained from stir-frying steel into the mold, it is driven by hydraulic power, accelerated by gears to make it rotate at high speed. In this way, under the action of strong centrifugal force, the molten steel is tightly combined. It has become a high-strength seamless steel pipe.

Whether a barrel that can withstand sufficient pressure depends on the quality of the raw material, high-carbon steel and steel on the other hand, and whether the mold rotates fast enough. On the basis of no other power, only replace it with hydraulic power for the time being, which makes Zhang Yang determined that he must get a steam engine. Only with power can he expand the scale and build a modern arsenal.

The barrel is finished, and another important task is to engrave the wire.

There are several kinds of wire drawing methods, extrusion methods and electrolysis methods.

The wire drawing method uses a special drawing knife, from shallow to deep, and cut into a rifle many times. It is inefficient and only suitable for small batch production of special barrels.

The extrusion method is to use the extrusion head to force through the light rifling to shape the metal to form a rifling. This method is simple and efficient and can improve the life of the barrel

The electrolysis method uses the barrel as the anode and the concave core rod as the cathode. In the sodium chloride solution, the metal is analyzed by electrolysis to form a bore in the cathousing part of the surface of the light. The general large and medium-caliber barrel bore is processed by this method

Comparing the three methods, Zhang Yang chose the extrusion method.

The first method is not suitable for large-scale manufacturing, and the third method, without this ability, electrolysis method, in this era, there is no electricity, so we can only use the extrusion method.

The key to the extrusion method, one is to require a button-shaped object with the opposite shape to the rifling, and the other is to require a huge pressure. Use a huge pressure to press and rotate the button-shaped object to squeeze the steel out of the holster. Moreover, this method is another hot rolling on the barrel, which can improve the strength of the barrel.

This is a bit similar to brushing the test tube with a test tube. The test tube is brushed thicker than the test tube. While stuffing it inside and rotating it, the test tube will be cleaned. If the test tube brush is replaced with a particularly hard hair, it will leave traces on the glass. Similarly, the steel pipe is equivalent to a test tube, and this button-shaped object is equivalent to a hard test tube brush. However, this hardness must be quite high to draw a deep mark on the steel pipe. While rotating and deepening, the steel pipe will be drawn out of the required bridle.

These processes are continuous. The molten iron passes through the crucible, stir-frying into qualified high-carbon steel, and then poured into the mold to turn into a steel pipe. At this time, the steel pipe has just solidified and is still red. Just by taking advantage of this heat, the resistance to carve the rifling in the pipe will be relatively small.

And the extrusion head of the squeezing rifling cost Zhang Yang a full 500 taels of silver.

This thing is harder than steel. Zhang Yang asked Li Bosheng that only the craftsman who made jade had this kind of thing. Zhang Yang guessed that it might be diamond or something. This thing was the key to making rifling. He told Li Bosheng that no matter how much it cost, he must buy it. As a result, the thing I bought it back, but it made Zhang Yang's flesh painful.

If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpener it. This thing, even a thousand taels, has to be bought.

If you want to get a greater pressure, you still need to help with water. The higher the water level, the greater the pressure. Even in modern times, there are more water presses. Therefore, Zhang Yang asked people to build something similar to a water tower, which was higher than the blast furnace. It stood on the watchtower and covered it with branches, so that people could lift the water to the watchtower, fill the water, flow down the closed waterway, and finally in the piston made of giant wood.

The lower it is, the greater the pressure, and the bamboo can't stand it. After the experiment, Zhang Yang used a thick giant wood with two people together. A fist-sized hole was dug out in the middle. The hole was made very smooth, and then the appropriate cork was stuffed in. In this way, after the water is drawn, the cork acts as a piston, and it will move under the pressure of water and live. The plug is connected to the extrusion head through a straight rod, placed parallel to the barrel, and then slowly rotates the barrel, and the holster is ready.

There is only one extrusion head, so there can only be one production line for the time being. However, due to the high efficiency, the rifling can be squeezed out before the steel pipe cools.

"Brother, you can start." Li Bosheng has turned the hydraulic power around, and the mold of the barrel has begun to rotate at a high speed. As long as it flows into the molten steel, it can become a high-quality seamless steel pipe in the process of rotation.

Everyone's eyes were focused on these strange devices. Zhang Yang slowly spit out a few words: "Okay, let's start making a tube!"

Li Bosheng's face was extremely excited. He touched the huge handle with his own hands, and the crucible began to slowly turn over. The fiery red steel flowed into the rotating mold.

Looking at the flow to the specified position, Li Bosheng quickly put away the handle, shook the bracket, and then cast the second rotating mold,

Four molds in a row, all of which have been cast.

In high-speed operation, the molten iron was thrown tightly on the outer wall, slowly condensed and turned into a seamless steel pipe.

"Stop rotating and transfer to the hydraulic press." Li Bosheng then gave the second order.

Li Chengrui carefully held the steel pliers, put the finished seamless steel pipe into the column of the hydraulic press, stuffed the extrusion head to the top of the steel pipe, and began to turn the waterway switch.

The huge water pressure came, the piston moved down, and the steel pipe was stretched out vigorously, propped out strips of rifling.

Li Chengrui rotated carefully, the piston moved down, and the steel pipe rotated. The first finished tube was finally born at the base!

Then, the second, the third... two crucible steel water made more than 100 barrels.

Zhang Yang looked at more and more barrels, with a smile on his face, and his hand was a bird. Laozi's rifle is the king of this era!

(There is a record of diamond in ancient China. According to the Compendium of Materia Medica: "Diamond sand can be drilled for jade to supplement porcelain, so it is called diamond." In ancient times, it played an important role in the development of Chinese jade carving culture.)