The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 429 Shen Le: So do I still need to learn blacksmithing?
"Brother can't save you."

The doctoral student told Shen Le in a particularly cruel way. Shen Le was completely stunned:

"what?"

You are the ones who restore ancient ships!
You put together a rough outline of the ancient ship that was fished out from the bottom of the sea and put it in the museum for people to see!
You even built a replica of an ancient ship in the museum!
Now you tell me you can’t fix those nails and can’t help me?
"Brother, you haven't studied these nails before?"

"Of course I have studied it!" the doctoral student told him confidently:
"You know what we are researching! We are studying what these nails are made of, and how to preserve and repair rusty nails—"

We have not studied how these iron nails were driven into the ship, how many nails were needed for an ancient ship, and how they were fixed in place!
"Then you piece together the ancient ship—"

"Come on, it's not like you don't understand." The senior brother rolled his eyes simply:

"The ancient ship that was fished out from the bottom of the sea has not yet been completely dehydrated and desalinated. It is still soaked in water. We have put it together roughly, but it is all placed on a shelf. No one expects its strength."

As for the replicas of ancient ships?

What is required to reproduce the original craftsmanship of a replica of an ancient ship?
If you have glue, use glue; if you have bolts, use bolts; whichever is cheaper!
Museums have budgets, too!
It’s not for writing a paper or producing results, so why bother with these things!
"Re-scan all the wooden boards slowly and do the mapping carefully." The senior brother sighed and began to instruct him:

"All these ships have nail holes. After the survey is done, all the nail holes are marked. Then, based on the remaining nails in the holes, we can roughly match them.

——If you need more boat nails, I’ll give you a few contact information. Nowadays, there are still people in Fujian who use traditional craftsmanship to make boats, and they have boat nails for sale.”

Of course, how many boat nails to buy, what sizes to buy, and how to drive them in are another matter.

If you don’t check the information, scan it, or do the statistics, you won’t know where to start buying!

Shen Le sighed and went to work silently. His cell phone rang, and his senior sent him a large number of files:

"Baochuanchang Site - Archaeological Report on Liuzuotang of Nanjing Mingbao Shipyard"
"Excavation and Research of Song Dynasty Sea Ships in Quanzhou Bay"
"Surveying and Restoration Research of the Penglai No. 3 Ancient Ship";
"The structure of the Penglai ancient ship and its construction technology characteristics"...

They are all solid and bulky books, the kind that no one would read except people in the industry.

Shen Le casually clicked on "Surveying and Restoration Research of Penglai No. 3 Ancient Ship" and after reading it for only one minute, he felt a little dizzy:

This kind of surveying and mapping really involves carefully mapping out the three views of every component, from the overall to the details, from parts to structural forms!
He had followed his mentor in the past, doing restoration of ancient buildings, but none of them were as meticulous as this!
Of course, that was also an ancient building they built. It was not high enough to require the wooden components to be dismantled one by one and then put back together after being strengthened. They were not worthy of it...

There was no other choice, Shen Le had to roll up his sleeves and review the lessons he had not made up before.

Dragging them out piece by piece, one by one, letting the little Modou direct the little guys to scan, map and record.

The results of the surveying with the small ink fountain are transferred to the compass and the scroll, and then projected by the scroll.

Shen Le simply turned on the instrument made by the Special Affairs Bureau Research Institute, scanned the projection into the instrument, and made a three-dimensional image.

Then throw the three-dimensional drawing to the next door, spend some money, and let the junior students disassemble it into three-view drawings of each part, record the nail holes one by one, and count them one by one:
“船板右舷2，共有8个船钉，船钉间距分别为165、160、155、165、170、140、135毫米；

船板右舷1，共有8个船钉，船钉间距分别为170、160、160、160、155、160、155毫米。

龙骨板右弦侧，船钉间距分别为170、160、160、160、155、160、155毫米；龙骨板左弦侧，船钉间距分别为155、165、165、160、155、150、140毫米。

The square nails come in three different sizes, and the hook nails come in three different sizes…”

Shen Le's head was spinning as he looked at the data. He picked out the nails one by one, counted them, and took photos.

After calculating the number, he found that he would need at least three times as many nails to assemble the wooden boat...

"Okay, place the order." Shen Le edited the requirements and threw them directly to Lao You.

Let him take a few nails and go to Fujian to find those experienced nail makers and order a batch of nails:
"If you can forge by hand, do it by hand! I saw a paper saying that some shipwrights complained that machine-forged nails were not as good as those forged by hand. Handmade ones are stronger and more resilient!"

"Boss, there are tens of thousands of nails! How long will it take to forge them by hand?"

Lao You didn't understand. Shen Le didn't care and directly made a request:
"Anyway, I have enough money. Let them forge it for me! Hand-forge it! Mold shaping, mold stamping, casting, don't bother with it if you can. I'll pay you enough!"

"Then, Boss...the duration of the project..."

"There is no rush for the construction period..."

When it comes to the construction period, Shen Le suddenly becomes depressed. He looks at the piles of strange-shaped nails in the box, half a foot long, one foot long, more than one foot long, and sighs:
"I've got these things sorted out, and there's still a lot to sort out..."

There were thousands and thousands of ship nails, each one was covered with rust. When each one was picked up and shaken, rust would fall off.

If you were to drive these nails back directly, you would be courting death. Shen Le selected some nails, put them into the instrument, and observed them carefully:

X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the main component of the rust on the surface of the nail was tetragonal lepidocrocite β-FeOOH, which was obviously a chlorine-containing corrosion product, indicating that the iron nail contained a high salt content.
Photographed using a super-depth-of-field 3D microscope system, it shows that the rusted surfaces of most iron nails are loose and porous;

Another CT scan showed that the interior of the nail was relatively dense and of good quality, so it could still be used...

"Oh, so many ship nails need to be dehydrated and desalted. It's a huge project." Shen Le looked at the ship nails and sighed.

Desalination is not like rust removal. For rust removal, as long as you are willing to put in the materials, you can just throw the nails into the rust removal liquid, turn on the power, and the rust can be removed in one day and one night, and it will be absolutely bright and shiny.

However, desalination requires soaking in deionized water for at least three months. Electrochemical desalination, which involves soaking the nails in sodium hydroxide solution and using a constant current, is only applicable to mineralized cultural relics.

Shen Le sighed and continued to call his senior brother, Doctor, Lao You, and the Special Affairs Bureau:
"Help me, give me a subcritical water desalination device. This thing can be done in ten days!"

The subcritical water desalination device is the same thing that Shen Le used to desalinate the compass before.

Of course, this time, different sizes, temperatures and pressures are needed to desalinate the iron.

No matter what the design is, Shen Le can't handle this pressure vessel thing, he needs a professional...

With the help of professionals, the project progressed rapidly. Half a month later, the custom-made nails were delivered. After being dehydrated, desalted, and derusted, they were placed in front of Shen Le, revealing his worried face:
"This iron nail isn't strong enough... How can I make it stronger? Do I still need to learn blacksmithing?"

(End of this chapter)