Development of productivity started in 1981

Chapter 9 Gun Making Continued

After dinner in the evening, Wang Jiankun returned to the blacksmith shop and began to carve the gun barrel. He first carved out the outer circle. Wang Jiankun wielded the knife very quickly, and the beeswax fell off in small pieces, and the outer circle took shape quickly.

After the outer circle is completed, we prepare to carve the gun barrel. According to the normal method of casting molds, it should be broken into two halves first, and then put together to make a wax mold after the gun barrel is completed.

But Wang Jiankun felt that it was just casting a low-pressure tube, and the diameter of the barrel was relatively small, only 3.5 mm, so there was no need to go through so much trouble. If he was not worried about people discovering his superpowers, he would not have to go through so much trouble and could have directly used his superpowers to build the gun.

In order to conceal his tracks and also to improve his hands-on ability, Wang Jiankun carefully carved the inner barrel of the gun with a small iron rod.

After the gun barrel mold was completed, Wang Jiankun handed it over to Cha Xiaoming and asked him to make the sand cavity.

I saw Cha Xiaoming first dip the wax model into a basin of gray liquid, then take it out and spray some finer dry sand on it, repeating this three times (this is to form a tight shell), and then put the wax model into the flattened sand mold, and press the sand tightly against the wax model.

After making the guide holes and air holes, start heating the sand mold. As the temperature rises, the beeswax begins to melt and flow out from the guide holes. After it has completely flowed out, put it aside to cool.

In this way, the sand cavity of the gun barrel is ready, and we are waiting for the molten iron to be poured. In order to save fuel and time, we have to wait until all the sand cavities are ready before pouring them together.

During this period, Yu Jianmin came over and asked Wang Jiankun for the drawings of the buttstock and grip. He wanted to find a carpenter to make them. Wang Jiankun gave them to him and asked him to find out how much it would cost and he would give him the money the next day.

To be honest, Wang Jiankun wanted to cut it himself, but he thought that in the future he would not just make a few products. If he wanted to make a lot of things, he would still need people's cooperation. And in order to improve social productivity, of course, the more people involved, the better.

Wang Jiankun reheated the beeswax that had just been heated, filtered out the sand, and poured it onto several sand molds. The approximate shapes of the parts had already been pressed out on them. After cooling, Wang Jiankun took them out one by one, preparing to carve out the wax molds when he had free time tomorrow.

In the evening, Wang Jiankun chatted with Cha Xiaoming and asked him what he wanted to do in the future. Cha Xiaoming said that he would first learn in the blacksmith shop for this year, and maybe when he grows up, he would go to the coast to try his luck. He heard that now with the reform and opening up, there are some small workshops in the coastal Zhejiang Province, and people from their village have gone there to work, and the salary is higher than that of the commune cadres here.

After listening to him, Wang Jiankun suggested that he practice his skills more and find time to learn some related smelting and mechanical knowledge, which might be useful when he finds a job.

After listening to it, Cha Xiaoming felt that it made sense, but he had difficulty with Chinese and chemistry in junior high school, so he asked Wang Jiankun if he could teach him.

Of course Wang Jiankun was willing. The more the assistant knew and the stronger his abilities were, the more help he would be to him. So Wang Jiankun began to explain mechanical drawing to Cha Xiaoming that night.

After teaching him, I found that Cha Xiaoming was not stupid. He was good at math calculation and spatial imagination. So I asked him why he didn't get into high school or technical secondary school. Cha Xiaoming said that he was very poor in liberal arts. He could only score more than 30 points in English and Chinese, and he just couldn't learn.

Wang Jiankun didn't say much after listening. Everyone has different learning abilities. He just encouraged him to specialize more in engineering, saying it would be good to become a specialist.

I don’t dare to study too late. I turn off the lights and go to bed around 10 o’clock because I still have busy work tomorrow.

The next morning, Yu Jianmin told Wang Jiankun that it would cost 1 yuan to hire a carpenter to make the buttstock and grip, and it would probably be ready the next day.

Wang Jiankun agreed, gave him 2 yuan, and asked him to give the carpenter 5 yuan, with the wood accounting for 1 yuan. Yu Jianmin was asked to keep the money, and he also asked him to tell the carpenter to follow the dimensions on the drawing, otherwise they would have to redo it.

Yu Jianmin quickly expressed his opinion and said that he must convey the message that the carpenter they hired was very skilled and did his work meticulously.

In the morning, Uncle Bing took Yu Jianmin to sharpen the blade, and Master Quan took Cha Xiaoming and Wang Jiankun to make a sand mold for the plowshare. He said that once the sand mold was completed today, it would be poured tomorrow.

In the afternoon, they started making hoes with iron billets. Wang Jiankun carved wax models while he and Cha Xiaoming took turns pulling the bellows. They finished all the wax models in one afternoon.

The main components include magazine, trigger, aiming mechanism, locking mechanism, spring leaves and spring strips, high-pressure gas cylinder, gas push rod and lever.

Wang Jiankun designed a new magazine and high-pressure gas cylinder for this air gun, ready to be loaded with conical lead bullets with a diameter of 3.5 mm and a length of 6 mm. According to Zhizi's simulation calculations, the power is much greater than that of Cheng Hongbing's, and it can penetrate a 40 cm thick pine board within 1 meters, and has an accuracy of 60% within 80 meters.

After the gun is made, a batch of bullets will be made with lead. If customers buy an air gun, they can also get a bullet mold as a gift. When the time comes, they can buy lead and make their own bullets after buying it.

In the evening, Wang Jiankun and Cha Xiaoming continued to make sand cavity with the lost wax method. After finishing, they continued to study. Mechanical drawing was quite simple for Cha Xiaoming. He started with the simplest drawing. Wang Jiankun used sand to pinch a shape and asked Cha Xiaoming to draw it. After the drawing, he explained it. In this way, Wang Jiankun's teaching method was also improved, which laid the foundation for him to lead apprentices and assistants in the future.

The next morning, Master Quan and his four apprentices began to prepare for the pouring. First, they made a fire and preheated the crucible. Then they weighed some iron blocks and put them into the crucible. At this time, they had to use coke to heat the crucible, otherwise the iron blocks would not melt.

The coke was bought from the coal mine in Dexing, as were the iron ingots. Wang Jiankun knew that there were quite a lot of mines in Dexing, including the largest copper mine in Asia. It seemed that he could ask the master to help buy some copper in the future.

After waiting for a while, the iron block melted, and the soldier took a wrought iron rod to stir the molten iron. This was to remove the carbon and turn the iron into steel.

Master Quan saw that the temperature was right, so he asked Cha Xiaoming to stop blowing and prepare to pour the molten iron.

First cast the five plowshares, then cast Wang Jiankun’s gun parts.

The process is just like pouring boiling water from a kettle into a thermos bottle. The key points are to aim accurately, move quickly and keep a steady hand.

After pouring, all that was left was to wait for cooling. Wang Jiankun helped to clean up the crucibles, calcining furnace and other tools.

When it is almost cooled, disassemble the outer wooden frame and dig out the plow and parts inside. At this time, it is still quite hot and cannot be touched by hand. It needs to cool down before taking it out for processing.

After everyone went home for lunch, they came back to find that the parts had cooled down to room temperature, so Wang Jiankun took the parts and observed them.

Because these parts are made using the lost wax process, the surface of the parts is much smoother than that of the plowshare.

Master Quan took Uncle Bing to process the plowshare. Not only did they need to polish it, but the tip of the plowshare also needed to be carburized to increase its hardness. If it wasn't processed, it wouldn't last long and would wear out severely.

Wang Jiankun, Zha Xiaoming and Yu Jianmin were polishing these air gun parts. Wang Jiankun gave a part to each of them and asked them to be responsible for the rough grinding and get the main dimensions correct.

Although Wang Jiankun enlarged the size a little bit based on the expansion coefficient of iron, he made it larger for safety reasons. So when Wang Jiankun checked it, he found that it was a little too big and needed to be ground off a little.

Wang Jiankun himself developed the processing of springs. He had to use his ability to add some manganese to the cast springs, otherwise the elastic force would not meet the requirements.

When the two men had polished the main dimensions to the desired level, Wang Jiankun took over and continued fine-grinding, using his superpowers to make some places more precise. For example, the barrel was adjusted to be smoother, and the inner wall of the cylinder and the air compressor push rod were also adjusted to be very smooth, so that compressing the air would be easy.

It was already evening when they finished dealing with all these. Wang Jiankun went to Master Quan's house for dinner and then came back to continue. At this time, Yu Jianmin also brought over the buttstock and grip of the gun.

I didn't expect the carpenter to do such a meticulous job. Not only did he polish it smooth, he also applied a layer of varnish. The wood texture is very clear and it looks pretty good.

Using small iron nails to fix the gun body, buttstock and grip together, a handsome air gun appeared in front of the three people.

Yu Jianmin and Hu Xiaoming suggested trying it quickly. Wang Jiankun also wanted to try the gun quickly, but was embarrassed to find that he had forgotten to make bullets.

So testing the gun will have to wait until tomorrow, and now we have to hurry and make the bullet mold.

So Wang Jiankun began to hand-carve the wax block. The mold was divided into two halves, with 20 bullet grooves in the middle. Then 20 bullets could be cast at a time. The cast bullets could be polished by shaking them slightly in the sand.

After working until 10 o'clock in the evening, the three men finally finished the mold. It was too late, so they cast 100 bullets. It was not convenient to test the gun at night, so the three decided to go to the river early tomorrow morning to test it.

I hope everyone will collect it and give me a recommendation vote to encourage me, thank you!
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(End of this chapter)