Compared with burning ore, firing clay does not require extreme high temperatures. It only needs to be mixed with charcoal and firewood to achieve a low-temperature smoldering environment of 700 degrees. It only takes four hours to fire low-temperature ceramics. Finish. This kind of low-temperature smoldering pottery is the craft of the potters of the Ross tribe, and it is also the process of annealing glassware. After all, the main ingredient in glass and pottery is silica.
A brand new bonfire quickly rose up, and it was brighter than other bonfires.
Because what is being roasted in the core of the flame is a brand new stove, which is changing from wet soil to a hard clay stove.
This furnace can be built higher, with more refractory ores stacked in the interior, the clay furnace walls made thicker, and a special hole drilled for the bladder blower. A hole for receiving molten iron.
In this way, a small blast furnace of pre-Qin level is completed. It looks simple, but its performance is indeed excellent. That kind of blast furnace can already smelt molten pig iron.
Of course, the new furnace owned by Kawei is more primitive. It is not a blast furnace at all. No matter what kind of air is supplied, it cannot create a stable high-temperature environment of 1200°C. It reaches the limit of 1100°C, and this temperature cannot melt pig iron, and can only produce molten tin bronze.
Rurik was very tired. Although the construction of the wooden ridge had been completed, he just couldn't stand the strong smell of fresh pine trees. He rested in the longboat until the smell dissipated, as did most of the other children.
Compared to the discerning people, a large group of Ross warriors are not so particular about their accommodation environment. They made their bedding beside the campfire and fell asleep comfortably. Before they went to bed, many people ran to the river and used the river water to clean their sweat-stained bodies. Of course, this scrubbing was done with soap, and they gave themselves Perfect cleaning.
Some people who brought a change of clothes even gave their dirty clothes to the women in Covin and asked them to wash them for them. Here, the women of the Iron Squirrel Tribe, although they are weak, are now actually responsible for the entire logistical work of the builders.
They are the ones who cook and carve up fish, they are the ones who collect firewood, and they are the ones who wash clothes. This division of labor actually supports the construction of settlements, but these tribal women are not so willing. They were more than willing to wash the clothes of their own people, but the thought of washing the clothes of Rus warriors was a constant aversion. They can say that Rurik is a person worthy of respect and trust, but that of other Russians is questionable.
Rurik hid on the boat and fell asleep, and few people in the entire construction site stayed awake.
There are some people who are wandering around. They just get up to go to the toilet.
It was entirely because of the strong expectations in his heart that Kawei kept his spirit high and kept staring at the burning bonfire. The smell of the burned earth felt like a strange fragrance to him.
Invisible to the naked eye, dramatic chemical changes are taking place in the furnace.
In the inner chamber, a high-temperature environment has formed. It certainly cannot melt iron, much less the chromium it contains. But the 31% silicate content in the ore has melted and begun to penetrate into the clay, and finally merged with the pottery clay to become a high-temperature substance.
After all, Kawei could not resist the exhaustion and fell asleep in a daze.
The sky gradually turned blue, and some women who got up early had the task of cooking. Their noise suddenly woke up Kawei.
The young and promising blacksmith got up, and he was delighted to see that his furnace was completed!
Even though it had been smoked to a dark black color, after violently wiping off some of the carbonized ash on the surface with linen cloth, Kawei saw exactly the color he expected.
In fact, these clays have been burned into "blue bricks", which seem to have a light blue gray color. There are already a large number of glass crystals inside, and the whole thing is integrated into one.
The stove was still hot. Through the touch of the long iron tongs, Kawei was delighted to notice that the ore in the interior had completed its transformation into refractory bricks.
This also proves another extremely important thing: local ores can be processed using traditional methods.
Kawei was completely confident. Seeing Rurik's cautious attitude, he was also a little worried. By now, his worries were gone.
A young man was yelling excitedly, and his continuous roar woke up many people.
Rurik was also woken up.
"Damn it! You don't let me have a good rest so early in the morning?!"
He held his little head with his left hand and took Saipolava's arm away from his neck. Then he pulled out the right arm held by Carlotta.
Rurik sat up straight, poked his little head out of the colorfully decorated shield mounted on the side of the ship, and saw a shaggy-haired guy excitedly surrounding the dark stove. Jumping wildly, like a shaman dancing.
"Oh, it's you! Kawei! You succeeded?!" Rurik staggered and quickly jumped off the long ship that was deliberately stranded.
He quickly came up with the answer, which was also the answer he longed for most.
The excited Kawei no longer cared about Rurik’s nobility. He put his excited hands on the boy’s shoulders, shook him wildly and said: "The furnace is successful! We can smelt now! We are going to make a big profit Complete victory!"
Kawei's excited look was a little scary. Rurik hurriedly broke away and responded with an excited smile: "Since you succeeded, just calm down. I smelt. I want to see sponge iron and iron ingots soon! It would be great if you could make me an axe."
" Kawei said no more. , as a man of action, he took action immediately.
A great smelting began, but it did not attract much attention at first.
After all, it is iron smelting, that is the job of the blacksmith. Ordinary Russian warriors do not care about this matter. What they are most passionate about is fighting and plundering the enemy's wealth to enrich themselves. By then, all kinds of iron tools will not be readily available. ?
Those who are good at plundering cannot appreciate the hardships of blacksmithing, nor can they appreciate the joy of smelting.
Seeing the ordinary-looking ore finally turn into a tool in his hand, Kawei was really fascinated by the sense of accomplishment.
It’s like seeing your own child born.
Kawei first put red-hot charcoal in the furnace, and then threw in a large number of branches.
This is the first step in smelting, that is, "warming the furnace."
Out of experience, he wanted to preheat the furnace to a relatively high temperature environment. He quickly brought the leather blower he was carrying and aimed the blower at the air inlet at the lower end of the stove. As he began to work hard to control it, a very raging flame burst out from the top of the stove, like a roaring fire dragon!
Rurik and his young men watched with great interest. Everyone stopped to watch and thought about giving the blacksmith some help.
Perhaps the current situation shows people's worship of flames from the bottom of their souls!
A powerful force in the dark is encouraging Rurik to add more firewood to the already burning furnace.
The clay stove has become a fiery existence. It has been baked by Kawei for a long time. Its hard clay shell is hot enough to cook wheat cakes easily. Put a piece of fresh meat on it and soon it will be ready. It was cooked.
Even in his own blacksmith shop, Kawei did not dare to touch the stove with his bare hands. It was so hot that he simply touched it, and the skin on his fingers was instantly burnt white, that is, The so-called familiarity.
Based on this reason, Kawei prepared some fresh fish for experiment.
He stood on the bracket around the stove that was improvised using readily available wood. He picked up the fish with wooden sticks and observed the process of blanching the fish to judge whether the stove was qualified.
His technology is obviously weaker than that of his father Clavarson. If the old blacksmith were standing here, he would just stand next to the furnace and feel the heat, then look at the flames emitting from the top of the furnace, and immediately estimate the temperature.
Kawei felt that the time was ripe, and then a large amount of ore was thrown in.
The ore hit the burning charcoal, and for a moment it was like a flaming dragon. Rurik knew that he could not provide effective help to Kawei now. He and the guys were just spectators, admiring the fire like a fire. The ore throwing process of pouring oil.
The only ones who can really help are the young blacksmith Kamni and the other ten blacksmith apprentices.
At this point, smelting has reached its most critical moment.
Kawei and Klavason have long realized in their daily work that only by making the furnace hotter can they complete smelting better. These were just their experiences, until Rurik came up with his magical "atomic theory".
OwnWith strong arm muscles developed from long hours of blacksmithing and rowing, Kawei can control his skin blower very well. A large number of charcoal blocks were kept being thrown into the furnace by his blacksmith apprentices, and he was inflating desperately. Every time he blew fiercely, the furnace also spewed out a large amount of red flames.
What a long process! Rurik tried his best to keep watching with interest, but he had to say that the whole process of smelting was becoming a bit boring.
Until Rurik noticed that the flames sprayed out were no longer red, but bright yellow!
“The real high-temperature flame should be blue! They use the current technical equipment to achieve blue flame, and at most they can only achieve white flame. He created a special yellow flame that is close to white flame, isn’t that what it means? The furnace temperature is already very high!"
Rurik is no longer just a spectator.
He walked into Kawei and stood very close to the stove. He saw Kamne who was smiling at him reluctantly, and he had thrown away his linen shirt, and his arms were full of tendons. It’s Rehan’s Kawi.
Kawei seemed to be in a deserted state. He was doing his work with his head down, as if he was tireless.
Rurik coughed twice to attract his attention.
"The flame is almost white! Kawei."
"Really?" Kawei raised his head slightly to look at the flames, "It's yellow. Rurik, I don’t know what kind of white flame there is.”
“No! Only when the highest temperature is reached, the real white flame will be born. When the white flame is reached, most of the iron ore will be completely melted. You can cast iron just like smelting bronze.”
Rurik’s words were understood by Kawei as a very kind outlook.
People cannot imagine things they have not seen. Kawei has never seen the so-called "real white flame", let alone what it means.
"Just like this, can the ore inside be turned into sponge iron?" Rurik asked again.
"It must be possible, it just takes time. You know..." Kawei shook his head vigorously, and a lot of sweat from his hair was thrown directly onto Rurik's face.
Rurik even reached out to dip his hand and licked it again, feeling the strong umami taste. Looking at this man fighting hard, he was happy to have such a doer under his command, but regretted that there were too few doers.
"How much longer do you need?!"
It was such a sharp question that Kawei ignored his fatigue: "I think when the sun reaches the sky, work should be done. It's over. You know, my lord, there are unique substances in these ores."
"Okay, please continue."
What else can you do? Rurik could only sit aside and wait.
It seems to be just a one-man show by Kawei, a strong man. Could it be that a smelting exercise is going to tire him out?
No! You are not fighting alone! Not alone!
RurikHe sat up suddenly, and after a while, he called over a dozen mercenaries he could find who were working hard to cut wood.
Kawei, who was already showing signs of fatigue, initially did not want mercenaries who did not understand and probably did not disdain iron smelting to participate in his great work, but the pain of weakening his arms finally affected him. mind.
More than a dozen mercenaries began to demonstrate their power. They manipulated the blower frantically. The skin bulged and deflated, and the gushing flames also surged to the extreme, as if the furnace was a dragon egg, a young child. The fire dragon is about to fly into the blue sky.
Kawei was able to take a breather. He drank directly from the clean river water and washed his hair with the river water.
He sat on the wood next to Rurik, with his hands on his knees, and his violent breathing was really heart-wrenching.
"You know what? Rurik, I feel like my chest is going to explode."
"Your lungs are in pain." Rurik replied calmly, looking He doesn't seem to care about Kawei.
"Yes, it's really painful. Maybe I just put in too much ore, and my ambition was too great. I just wanted to smelt more in one go. I almost risked my life for this."
"Your work will be fruitful. Now tell you, what do you think of your stove?!"
"It is really good." Kawei became happy, His pain was relieved a lot.
Rurik's face still changed color, and he stared at the stove: "What I just said was not just a wishful thinking. Kawei, I think we should build a bigger and higher stove! We need to use a brand new stove At least eight leather bag blowers are installed for a group of strong men to operate. In this way, the temperature reached by the furnace can completely melt the ore."
Kawei completely forgot about this idea the first time he heard it. No more. "You...forget it. I don't question it anymore. I just want to ask if we can build it. Rurik, you must have been blessed by Thor. If you think it is possible, we should build a bigger furnace. ."
A bigger stove? Rurik chuckled: "That's called a blast furnace. The furnace will need a lot of modifications by then. Let me tell you! By then the charcoal will be mixed with sponge iron and become something like liquid bronze. You can cast them, but There is too much carbon in it. You already know my elemental table. You should understand that it is precisely because of too much carbon that the iron ore can be completely melted. The object cast in this way is definitely not suitable for weapons, but it can be used as a tool. "
Kawei heard that it was almost a fantasy, but then he touched the "element table" and the new theory of interpreting the world. Since many theories were completely consistent with the reality, he became more and more excited. Fa believed in this theory, so he chose to believe Rurik's explanation.
The idea is that as long as a larger furnace is built, has a better temperature-locking structure, and more air is injected, iron ore can be melted in the form of alloy substances. .
Rurik actually noticed that based on the existingWith the supplies, he could make a blast furnace, because Kawei's towering furnace already looked a bit like a blast furnace.
All he really lacked was a high-efficiency blower to pump oxygen. As for the blower, he thought of something.
A pair of blue eyes couldn't help but see the river that was very close at hand, and the summer floods became rapid due to melting ice.
The electric blower is also a fan! As long as it can drive a bearing to rotate wildly, its driving force can be an electric motor or, of course, a water wheel!
Waterwheel? ! That's not...
When I think of the Milanese at the end of the fourteenth century, they began to use water power on a large scale for moving and forging, thus quickly creating a group of "iron can" warriors. Thinking of this, Rurik felt that he needed to recreate it. In the final analysis, waterwheel technology is not complicated. It is just a mechanical transmission mechanism of several wooden shafts and wooden gears. Because it does not require high mechanical strength, it does not even require an advanced bearing system, and it has a great tolerance for mechanical structure tolerances. . Now, Rurik has started the idea of building a water tanker to alleviate the labor shortage dilemma of Elon-Olava Fort, and quietly regards it as an urgent project in the development plan.