Studying at Western University starts with a knife-forging competition

Over the next few days, the equipment and materials arrived one after another.

Frank arranged for the logistics department to pack the metallographic microscope, Rockwell hardness tester, belt abrasive, and bench drill into wooden crates and deliver them to the factory. Each crate had a detailed packing list attached to it.

When Lin Yuan unpacked the microscope, he found that Frank had tucked a handwritten note into the foam padding of the microscope. It contained several commonly used metallographic etching solution formulas. The handwriting was messy, but the proportions of each chemical formula were clearly marked.

The electrician from Matyo came on Friday afternoon to inspect the power distribution system.

The electrician spent two hours testing every circuit in the main distribution box and pasted a circuit diagram drawn with a marker on the box cover, marking the load limit of each circuit breaker and the corresponding socket location.

Two spare circuit breakers were reserved separately for the forging furnace circuit, and their locations are marked on the drawings—this was something Lin Yuan specifically instructed the electrician to do after receiving the equipment.

Lin Yuan designated the inner part of the factory as a forging area.

The furnace and anvil are placed on the ground first, and the power hammer is placed next to the furnace, with the interval controlled within one step—so that when the blank is reheated in the furnace, it can be clamped back onto the anvil without turning around.

The quenching tank is parallel to one side of the forging area, with an oil tank and a water tank each occupying a space. Next to it, there is a tool rack made of fireproof board nailed to the wall, with several spare iron pliers and steel brushes that he specially bought hanging on it.

The material rack is only half-built for now. Common materials and related consumables are placed on the top shelf, and the empty spaces below will be filled in later according to material categories when other orders are received.

The ventilation ducts were also renovated before the weekend.

Daniel arrived two days early to help, and together with the certified technicians, they removed the old exhaust fan from the factory roof and replaced it with a new high-temperature resistant centrifugal fan. The exhaust pipes were also resealed.

When the fan was being tested, Lin Yuan stood in the middle of the factory and listened carefully for a while—the noise was significantly lower than the old one, but the wind speed remained the same.

Daniel said that the old set of exhaust fans had been left unmaintained since the factory was removed, and the bearings had long since rusted.

After finishing, Daniel began to do his own work.

He swept the factory floor again and used a wet mop to clean out months of accumulated dust from the cracks in the cement floor.

He neatly arranged the scattered pliers and steel brushes on the tool rack according to their size.

After doing all that, he found a corner by the window in the office area, took out a well-worn Bible from his bag, and placed it on the corner of the table.

Outside the window, you can see the row of hickory trees next to the parking lot. At the end of March, South Carolina has begun to warm up, and the leaves are transitioning from light green to dark green. The wind blows in through the half-open window, carrying a faint scent of pine needles.

"Call me anytime if you need anything," he said, turning a page and looking up at Lin Yuan.

Matt was installing new LED lights in the office area at the other end of the factory. Standing on the ladder, he glanced in Lin Yuan's direction and said, "I have to say, this guy is more normal than either of us."

"What is the normal standard?"

"He doesn't smoke marijuana, doesn't play video games in the living room until 3 a.m., and goes to church on Sundays." Matt inserted the last light bulb into the slot, jumped down from the ladder, and dusted off his hands. "He's completely different from us."

"That's you. I don't smoke marijuana, and I don't stay up all night playing games," Lin Yuan retorted precisely.

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One afternoon in the second week, Lin Yuan closed the main gate of the factory and began processing the blank for Doug's short cross-blade.

This time he didn't use the blessed holy silver—the holy silver used for the sword in the finals was a considerable expense according to the system store's pricing.

Although Lin Yuan can afford the cost of a piece of holy silver, and the blank material forged from a piece of holy silver is enough to make a half-sword blank, enough to make about three short cross-blades. If he combines the cloud pattern steel-clad technique, Lin Yuan can even make four if he saves a little more.

The main reason he didn't choose Blessed Holy Silver was that he wanted to try out the enchanting materials given by the system quest last time.

This time, Lin Yuan didn't use blessed holy silver. He took a piece of industrial silver from the materials shelf. It was of high purity and had a smooth surface. He had purchased it from the materials supplier before.

He squatted down and adjusted the furnace damper. The blower started humming, and the flames emerging from the gaps in the coke turned from red to orange.

The sensation of the molten metal spreading out along the temperature field of the flames, he silently calibrated the temperature distribution inside the furnace.

The furnace needs to be heated to a temperature suitable for the fusion of silver and steel. This temperature is lower than the conventional forging window of 1084, but just above the recrystallization temperature of silver.

He set up a camera to the side of his workstation, adjusting the angle so that the viewfinder just covered the area between the anvil and the quenching tank.

The silver material is sandwiched between 1084 steel plates, spot-welded to fix it, and then sent into the forging furnace.

When the temperature was right, he used tongs to take the steel billet out and place it on the anvil, then swung the apprentice's forging hammer with his bare hands.

In the first round of forging, silver is pressed into the 1084 matrix in a solid state.

The heat from the molten metal spread along the interface, and he could clearly see the interface between the two metals gradually disappearing.

The silver did not melt into a liquid state before seeping into the steel; instead, it was directly fused with the steel under the combined effects of high pressure and temperature.

This round of hand forging was a bit easier than the final – the blank area of ​​the short crossbow is much smaller than that of the hand-and-a-half sword, so the coverage area of ​​each hammer blow is larger, and naturally there are fewer rounds.

Before the second relapse, he did something else.

He took out the enchanted material labeled "Sharp" from his system storage.

The broken fang gleamed with a very faint, frosty white light under the workshop's fluorescent lights. The tip of the fang moved through the air with almost no resistance, as if the blade itself was cutting through the airflow.

He placed the fangs in a mortar and pestle and ground them into an extremely fine powder, following the system prompts.

The pale white powder gleamed faintly under fluorescent light, its particles so fine that the crystal structure was almost invisible.

He dipped his fingertip in the powder, examined it against the light, and then transferred the powder to a small porcelain dish.

After the steel billet has been initially fused, he uses tongs to lay the billet flat on the anvil.

He placed the porcelain dish next to the anvil, scooped up some powder with a small spoon, and sprinkled it evenly along the surface of the blank.

The powder didn't splatter or smoke the moment it touched the hot steel surface; it simply melted quietly into the oxide layer, just like ordinary flux, disappearing without a trace like snow falling on hot stone.

He sprinkled two layers to ensure the powder evenly covered the entire length of the billet before putting it back into the furnace.

Once the temperature returns to the target range, remove it, place it on the anvil, and then lower the forging hammer.

The feel of this round of hammering was different from before.

The feedback from the fused forging process told him that the additional material had entered the lattice between the silver-iron alloy crystals, causing a gain in stress transmission and edge chipping resistance that he could not yet fully explain theoretically.

However, in terms of feel alone, the rebound after the forging hammer falls is crisper and more decisive than usual.

After the rough blank was made, Lin Yuan roughly ground the surface of the blank to see the effect.

The rough-ground blanks exhibit a bluish-gold luster under the light.

It wasn't the intense, flamboyant golden yellow of gold, nor the cold, pale shimmer of the sword from the finals. This cyan-gold was paler, more grayish, and when spun in the light, its surface would shimmer with a very thin, bluish-green halo.

The billet hasn't been forged yet; the cloud-patterned steel structure will be added in later processes. But the current effect is enough to make Lin Yuan stop and take a closer look.

He flipped the blank over in his hand—the bluish-gold color extended evenly from one end of the blank to the other, without any breaks or dark spots, blending perfectly with the silver-iron alloy matrix.

He jotted down a few lines of data in his notebook, then took some photos of the billet and sent them to Doug with a brief note: "Preliminary forging complete, but not yet pickled and folded."

Doug's reply came quickly, all in capital letters: THAT COLOR. DON'T LOSE IT.

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The following afternoon, Lin Yuan brought the billet to Professor Robert's workshop. The metallographic microscope in the factory was not yet ready, so he wanted to use the professor's old Zeiss microscope to examine the microstructure of the billet's cross-section.

Robert didn't speak immediately when he received the billet. He held it up to the natural light by the window and slowly turned it over with his wrist. The bluish-gold luster became even more pronounced under the combined light of the fluorescent lamp and the high window. His fingers gently traced the surface of the billet.

"The color is different." He placed the blank on the workbench, took off his glasses to wipe them, put them back on, and looked at it again. "It's different from that sword. That one was a cold gold, this one is more bluish."

"The recipes are different. They are all old family recipes, but different proportions of ingredients will result in different colors when fired."

Robert nodded, not pressing for the specific proportions. He opened a drawer, took out a magnifying glass, and squatted down to carefully examine the surface of the billet for any visible inclusions or pores. After the inspection, he set the magnifying glass aside and gently tapped the edge of the billet with his fingertip, producing a crisp, short sound.

"Silver and iron have extremely low miscibility, and conventional processes simply cannot produce a silver-iron alloy with this level of uniformity. Using powder metallurgy, silver and iron powders must be mixed and sintered under high temperature and pressure—the temperature must be at least over 1,000 degrees Celsius, the pressure tens of megapascals, and the holding time four to six hours. Even then, the yield is not high, and the finished product is prone to porosity." He took off his glasses and slowly wiped the lenses with the hem of his shirt. "You forged it directly in the air with a forging hammer. And now you've changed the formula, resulting in a different color."

He put his glasses back on and pointed to the blank: "If you're ever willing to compile this process into a systematic technical document and publish it in a journal, I can recommend you. But I reckon you won't be."

"There are some things that are indeed not convenient to disclose publicly," Lin Yuan said. "But if you, Professor, do metallographic analysis on this sample and publish a paper, you have to include my name. Just as the second author will suffice."

"No problem, let me cut a piece to study it. I'll see if I can publish a paper later. I'll send it to the Journal of Metallurgy and Materials and give you the corresponding author title." Robert chuckled, took a small hacksaw from the drawer, and cut a small sample piece along the edge of the billet.

That scrap piece, about the size of a fingernail, was cut from the excess material of the blank and does not affect the structure of the finished product.

He put the sample into a small plastic bag, wrote the date and number on the outside of the bag with a marker, and put it in the refrigerator.

Low-temperature storage can delay surface oxidation, resulting in a cleaner polished surface when performing metallographic analysis.

After closing the refrigerator door, he picked up the turquoise-colored blank again, looked at it for a while in the natural light, and then put it back on the worktable and pushed it in front of Lin Yuan.

"You told me last time that you didn't want to pursue graduate studies. Now I think it's not a matter of whether you want to or not—what you're doing is research in itself; the only difference is that your lab isn't at the university."