Old Harden, can you handle having your vision-shifting abilities on all the time?

The next morning at 8:30, Xu Xing arrived at the studio on time.

Swipe your card to enter, walk straight to your workstation, and then prepare all the necessary materials to start working.

He first turned on the constant temperature and humidity equipment to adjust the temperature and humidity of the work area to the optimal repair environment.

Temperature 24℃, humidity 55%.

Then, wearing professional anti-static gloves, he took out the three fragments of the celadon gourd-shaped bottle from the shockproof box.

Today's work begins with preparing the adhesive.

Ordinary glue cannot be used to bond porcelain; a special low-viscosity epoxy resin must be used.

This resin has high transparency, low shrinkage after curing, and excellent aging resistance, making it the preferred material for cultural relic restoration.

However, epoxy resin is not resistant to high temperatures.

Therefore, he planned to first prepare a special high-temperature resistant metal-inorganic adhesive to fix several key nodes from the inside of the porcelain bottle. After the glaze was repaired and fired, he would then inject epoxy resin from the inside to completely cure it!

Xu Xing quickly and accurately weighed and stirred the inorganic metal binder material.

Three minutes later, the entire mixture appeared uniformly translucent under X-ray vision, indicating that the curing agent molecules had initially formed a three-dimensional network structure.

This is the ideal mixing state, which ensures sufficient curing afterward without premature curing due to over-stirring.

He loaded the prepared adhesive into a special dispensing syringe with a needle diameter of only 0.2 mm, which is suitable for coating key nodes on the fracture surface of porcelain.

The next step is the core repair process: bonding the fracture surfaces.

Xu Xing secured the largest fragment of the bottle body to a specially made clamp, with the broken side facing upwards.

He carefully observed the fracture surface under a high-powered microscope to find the optimal starting point for adhesion.

Although the fracture surface is neat, microscopic undulations can be seen under a microscope.

These undulations are as unique as fingerprints; for two pieces to fit together perfectly, these micro-undulations must correspond exactly.

Xu Xing activated his X-ray vision, penetrating the microscope and the surface of the porcelain body to see a deeper structure.

With the aid of X-ray vision, he can not only see the surface undulations, but also the micro-cracks and stress concentration points about 0.1 millimeters below the cross-section.

He carefully cleaned the dust off the broken surface with a fine brush, and then wiped it with anhydrous ethanol to ensure that the bonded surface was absolutely clean.

After the ethanol had completely evaporated, Xu Xing began applying the adhesive.

He held the glue dispensing syringe in his right hand and used his left hand to support the fragments and keep them stable.

The needle moves slowly about 1 mm from the cross-section, and the extruded adhesive forms an extremely fine glue line that is evenly spread across the cross-section.

With the aid of X-ray vision, Xu Xing could see the flow of the adhesive on the cross-section.

After the first piece of the cross-section was coated with glue, Xu Xing immediately picked up the second piece.

This time, he needs to align and glue the two pieces together.

This is the most technically demanding part of the entire restoration process.

The broken edges of the two fragments must be perfectly aligned, with an error not exceeding 0.1 mm.

Once the glue has cured and the part is misaligned, it cannot be adjusted, and the entire repair will fail.

Xu Xing took a deep breath and his hands were as steady as a rock.

He slowly brought the broken edge of the second fragment closer to the first, stopping when they were about 0.5 millimeters apart.

Under a microscope, the outlines of the two broken pieces are roughly aligned, but fine-tuning is still needed.

Just then, Xu Xing activated his X-ray vision again.

This time, his gaze pierced through the microscope slide and the two fragments.

Under X-ray vision, the crystal structure, glaze thickness, and even the microscopic bubbles invisible to the naked eye inside the two porcelain bodies are clearly visible.

He saw several characteristic crystal arrangements inside the two fragments, which were fingerprints naturally formed during the firing process of the porcelain.

As long as these crystal features are aligned, the two fragments will fit together perfectly.

Xu Xing began to move his hands extremely slowly.

The first fragment, controlled by the left hand, remains stationary, while the second fragment, controlled by the right hand, undergoes subtle adjustments in three dimensions at an almost imperceptible speed.

0.1 mm, 0.05 mm, 0.01 mm...

With the aid of X-ray vision, the crystalline features gradually overlapped, and when the last feature point was perfectly aligned, Xu Xing decisively took action.

"Click."

A very slight, crisp sound—the sound of two pieces of porcelain fitting together perfectly.

Xu Xing kept one hand still in this position, and immediately used the other hand to gently clamp the bonding area from both sides with the clamp, applying appropriate pressure but not too much, otherwise the uncured glue would be squeezed out.

He set a timer to keep the bonded ceramic pieces under pressure for at least 15 minutes to allow the metal adhesive to initially position itself.

While waiting, Xu Xing didn't sit idle. He took out the No. 7 glaze formula he had prepared yesterday, but made a minor adjustment based on his thoughts last night.

He took out the glaze formula and, based on formula number 7, increased the amount of alumina powder added from 0.5 grams to 0.52 grams.

At the same time, he fine-tuned the firing temperature from 1280℃ to 1282℃ and increased the holding time from 15 minutes to 16 minutes.

These adjustments are very small, but enough to change the density and size of the microcrystals in the glaze, causing some variations.

Then, a new glaze was weighed and prepared, and three test pieces were made and marked as 7A, 7B, and 7C, which were then placed in the electric kiln.

During the firing process, he repeatedly activated his X-ray vision to observe the microscopic changes in the glaze at each stage of heating, holding, and cooling.

When the temperature reaches 800℃, the glaze begins to melt.

With X-ray vision and a special monocular adjustable high-magnification magnifying glass to help him see through the electric kiln, Xu Xing was able to barely see the diffusion of various metal oxides in the melt.

During the 1282℃ heat preservation stage, Xu Xing was observed every two minutes.

He observed that the microcrystalline nuclei gradually grew to form a uniform network structure, which is the source of the unique jade-like texture of celadon glaze.

After 16 minutes of heat preservation, the electric kiln begins its programmed cooling process.

Xu Xing noted that if the temperature inside the kiln could be maintained at 850°C for 5 minutes before cooling down further, the size and distribution of the microcrystals would be more ideal.

He noted that this discovery might be a key process parameter for future restoration of similar porcelain.

"Beep beep beep—"

The timer went off after 16 minutes.

Xu Xing turned off his X-ray vision and returned to the main workbench. The first adhesive had been preliminarily positioned, and he could loosen the clamps.

He used a cotton swab to apply a small amount of acetone and carefully wiped away the excess glue that had been squeezed out. Acetone evaporates very quickly and will not affect the glue that has not fully cured.

Next is the neck connection.

This part is more difficult.

The porcelain body at the neck is relatively thin, only about 3 millimeters, and the stress in this area is complex, requiring higher bonding strength.

Xu Xing repeated the previous process: cleaning the cross-section, applying glue, accurately aligning with X-ray vision, and applying pressure to fix it.

By the time the third piece of the neck fragment was perfectly glued together, it was already 11 a.m.

Liu Zhen and the others next door were not impressed by his hasty action and even looked down on him.

Antique restoration is a very serious and meticulous technique; it cannot be done so hastily!