By mid-March, after hundreds of craftsmen working day and night, Liu Yan's glass workshop was finally completed.
At the same time, under the command of Shi Sixheng and his two sons, the craftsmen built twenty crucibles in the glass workshop - all of which were fired by Shi Sixheng using the best porcelain clay from a specialized crucible craftsman. After the glass kiln was ignited, the crucible was burned in the kiln for two days. It burned white hot before Shi Sisheng was sure that the raw materials could be put into the crucible for firing.
When Liu Yan heard the news, he happily came to the glass workshop outside Lingshan Acropolis, where he prepared to guide the firing of the first furnace of glass. Also for preliminary experiments, Liu Yan asked Shi Sixheng to lead the craftsmen to place slightly different raw materials in different crucibles: some crucibles only have soda ash, limestone and quartz, and some crucibles have a ratio of these three main raw materials. Different, some crucibles add a little borax, and some add a little feldspar.
In Liu Yan's memory, firing glass is nothing more than these raw materials, but Liu Yan has no judgment in his mind about which one has the best firing effect. He must go through field tests to see which one. This recipe produces the best glass in the end.
Thanks to the guidance of Shi Sixheng's family, Liu Yan knew where to buy ingredients such as borax and feldspar. He sent his subordinates to buy them separately and quickly bought all the required raw materials.
Next came the on-site firing. Liu Yan led Song Guan, Shi Sixheng and other craftsmen around the glass kiln, while some craftsmen and apprentices performed the operations in front. However, although the manpower and raw materials are now available, it is still quite troublesome to make glass:
First, gravel with a very pure texture is used as the most basic raw material. After it is heated and melted, it is made into a glass solution through several processes. Then, saltpeter is added to the heated glass solution to remove the color. This is because the glass contains trace amounts of The iron element is green, especially ferrous iron is green, while ferric iron is not significantly green.
After Liu Yan directed everyone to add saltpeter, the saltpeter oxidized the ferrous iron into ferric iron, and the glass became colorless and transparent.
Not only that, the glass needs to be clarified after it is fired, which means adding a clarifier, such as salt, to the hot glass liquid.
When the clarifier evaporates when heated, it will form large bubbles. When these large bubbles rise, they bring out small bubbles, which can reduce the bubbles in the glass and thus clarify it.
Liu Yan's stove design was very successful, and Shi Sisheng and his team of craftsmen were very capable, so it took only one day to burn all six pots of raw materials into hot glass liquid.
After these glass liquids entered the annealing channel for annealing, Liu Yan personally checked the color of the glass test products and found that the transparency of the glass with borax in the third crucible was the best. He had found the optimal glass formula.
In the second furnace of glass, Liu Yan fine-tuned the optimal formula found in the first furnace until he found a more perfect formula, then gave up and started making the finished product. It took a full day. The cold wind was raging outside, but it was in full swing inside the workshop. Liu Yan felt faintly dizzy from heat stroke and had to take everyone out to "blow the air" midway.
When firing the third furnace of glass, Liu Yan moved out the molding machine that had been made in advance.
This so-called mold press was actually used to make large flat plates of porcelain when firing porcelain. Liu Yan took it and slightly modified it, reducing the pressure and turning it into an instrument for making glass products.
Moreover, Liu Yan used wrought iron to make the molding machine, and then applied a layer of charcoal powder mixed with tung oil on the molding machine to prevent the mold from adhering to the glass. After a crucible of molten glass is poured into the annealing channel and cooled down, some of the molten glass is poured into the mold. Craftsmen press the mold press to force the glass liquid to form in the molding press. After the glass in the molding machine has cooled, a round glass is produced.
The transparent glass is made and looks very beautiful when placed on the table, exuding a luster that should not belong to this era.
Song Guan, Shi Sixheng and others exclaimed the magic after seeing it. They followed Liu Yan excitedly and looked left and right. Many craftsmen were so excited that tears filled their eyes. Glass technology in this era is comparable to real money. They Being able to participate in it is equivalent to relying on a wealthy life for the rest of your life.
"Sir, it's done! We've done it!"
At this time, everyone around him, including Song Guan and Shi Sixheng, had faces full of surprise, and looked at Liu Yan with admiration in their eyes.
In this era, glass is an absolute luxury. The craftsmen have never seen such a large transparent glass. If you sell it outside, you will definitely get a good price.
However, Liu Yan was not as excited as everyone else. After all, he was used to seeing all kinds of exquisite glass products in later generations, and he would not be made to laugh by a glass.
At this time, Liu Yan picked up the glass and took a closer look, but found the shortcomings: there were some bubbles in the wall of the glass. These bubbles not only hindered the appearance, but also made the glass fragile. It breaks easily when used.
So Liu Yan thought about it and felt that the clarification work should not be done thoroughly.
Liu Yan was determined to get rid of these bubbles and make truly perfect glass products, so Liu Yan gathered everyone and continued to work.
At this time, the sky outside had turned dark. Liu Yan ordered Song Guan to prepare dinner. Everyone was here, continuing to make glass and eating to fill their stomachs.
Soon several craftsmen brought meat buns and some side dishes. Liu Yan shared the portions with everyone and stood next to the crucible to eat.
While Liu Yan was eating the meat buns, he ordered someone to add more salt to the new pot of glass hot liquid. However, after adding more salt, the bubbles decreased, but it emulsified the entire glass liquid, and the resulting glass became no longer transparent, and became like the frosted glass of later generations, which disappointed Liu Yan.
Liu Yan frowned and thought for a long time, and decided to maintain the original amount of salt, but increase the stirring process!
So Liu Yan immediately ordered people to go to the city to find a blacksmith, and urgently made dozens of iron rods, asking the craftsmen to constantly stir the hot glass liquid in the crucible before the glass liquid cooled, and stir up as much foam as possible in the hot glass liquid. , and then add salt as a clarifier.
After adding the stirring process, Liu Yan directed the craftsmen to pour out the pot of glass and mold it. When a brand new glass was made, Liu Yan was pleasantly surprised to find that the bubbles in the glass were almost gone, and he got a crystal clear round bottom glass.
Looking at this completely transparent and almost colorless glass, Liu Yan felt like a large sum of money was waving to him.
Song Guan, Shi Sixheng and others were even more shocked and cheered.
However, Liu Yan unexpectedly picked up the glass, and then threw the quilt directly to the ground in front of everyone. With a crisp sound of glass breaking, Liu Yan looked at the stunned people and said coldly : "You must remember that this glass is nothing to me. You can make many at will. But if you take it outside, you can exchange it for real money and silver, and at the same time, you can also exchange your lives for it. Walk!"
"Since you all know the confidentiality regulations, no one is allowed to leak the glass production process, the raw materials of the glass, the temperature and process of firing the glass, etc. From today on, the glass workshop will implement a joint sitting system. If one person leaks secrets, the entire All the craftsmen will be fired, arrested and imprisoned, life or death!"
Everyone looked at Liu Yan, who was exuding murderous aura, and they were so frightened that they nodded repeatedly. Even Song Guan did not dare to say a word.
Then Liu Yan arranged for Song Guan and Shi Sixheng to make some glass products first, including glass wine glasses, and then matched them with exquisite wooden boxes to make twenty sets in advance. Liu Yan planned to give these twenty sets of glass wine glasses as gifts to first open up sales for his glass workshop.
First of all, Liu Yan would not neglect Yan Jizu, the governor of Shandong, Lu Xiangsheng, the governor of Shandong, and Liu Zeqing, the commander-in-chief of Shandong, and gave each of them a set of glass wine sets.
Later, Liu Yan sent people to send a set of glass wine sets to Lu Xiangsheng's general Lu Huaiying, as well as Jimo camp guerrilla generals Li Jiwen and Hu Zongming. In addition, Liu Yan also prepared several more sets of wine sets for the three of them. He entrusted the three of them to help send it out and help him publicize it.
As for the remaining sets of glass wine sets, Liu Yan gave them all to Song Gongming and asked him to find a way to send them out to attract business.
After Liu Yan's operation, he not only won the praise and joy of several superiors, but also opened up sales. The news that Lingshanwei produced exquisite glass products spread like wildfire.
Within a few days, people made a special trip to Lingshan Acropolis to buy Liu Yan's glassware. Most of them came to buy wine sets. At first, one or two people came to buy every day, then three or four people came every day, and finally the glass workshop was able to sell seven or eight sets of glass wine glasses a day.
Later, wealthy businessmen from Lingshanwei and surrounding counties also began to buy Liu Yan's glass wine glasses.
In just a few days, Liu Yan's glass workshop sold 296 sets of glass wine sets, 35 sets of glass tea sets, and more than 400 other various glass products.
Liu Yan priced the glass wine set at eighty taels of silver, the glass tea set at seventy-five taels of silver, and the prices of the other glass products ranged from fifteen taels to sixty taels. There are eight taels of silver.
Calculating such sales and excluding the cost of burning the glass, the glass workshop earned more than 28,000 taels of silver in less than a month.
With such a huge income, once the glass workshop is put into operation, the income will be close to that of the salt drying farm. In the foreseeable future, the glass workshop will become another major source of finance for Lingshan Wei.
So Liu Yan began to worry about the leakage of glass formulas. In order to prevent the leakage of formulas in the glass industry, Liu Yan began to design layers of production links to minimize the possibility of leaks.
From the beginning, Liu Ya subdivided the kiln and feeding process of burning glass into six steps, and assigned each step to different people to operate. Moreover, Liu Yan did not tell the worker who was feeding the materials what materials he was handling. He only told him to put the materials into the crucible according to their weight when they arrived. The raw material purchasing personnel only know what materials they buy, but do not know how to use these raw materials.
In this way, several production lines are formed without interfering with each other, which naturally greatly reduces the possibility of leaks.
In the glass workshop, apart from Liu Yan, the only people who knew all the secrets of glass making were Shi Sixheng, Song Guan and a few leading craftsmen. Liu Yan took all their family members to Lingshan Acropolis and arranged houses for them to live in. , the monthly settlement allowance was paid, which made several people burst into tears of gratitude. Liu Yan expected that they would not leak the secret, otherwise they should have imagined what the consequences would be.
In this way, if anyone wants to get Liu Yan's glass formula, they have to bribe all the glass workshop workers and all the raw material purchasers, which is extremely difficult. If the trend of technology from secrecy to diffusion is irreversible, Liu Yan hopes that the day of diffusion will come as late as possible in order to maximize Liu Yan's interests.
Some people died, but not completely...
