A brand new furnace rose from the ruins.
Having learned the previous lessons and even holding the engineering blueprint provided by Rurik, Kawei was full of confidence. Of course, in order for the furnace to operate smoothly, Rurik himself simply took root at the construction site.
Keep training those kids? Of course.
Rurik assigned the task to his mercenaries, and they would conduct the most rigorous training for the children, but he really did not need to be there as a supervisor every day.
As a supervisor, he supervised the construction of the furnace, and as a technical consultant, he always answered questions for Kawei, who was holding a blueprint, and gave guidance to the construction workers.
With thirty strong mercenaries, they became a fairly cheap labor force. They mixed the clay and made it into lumps that looked like bricks. They stacked them layer by layer until they formed a chimney-shaped stove.
The clay has not yet undergone the long process of sintering; it is now nothing more than a very fragile being. If it has been burned for a long time, it will become a very solid existence.
Although it is strong, it will experience continuous erosion and damage from molten iron and slag during long-term use.
Just like the collapsed furnace before, although it has unexpectedly achieved everything a blast furnace needs to have, it naturally inherits the challenges that a blast furnace will face.
The collapse of the furnace was in the fragile waist area, which was burst by the molten metal.
Therefore, in the construction of the new furnace, Rurik's plan was to make a furnace with a thick bottom and a conical structure as a whole.
Just a cone-shaped structure and everything will be fine?
No! What Rurik needed was a furnace that could be used for a long time, not a defective product that would collapse again after only ten days and a half.
The most critical thing is the refractory material inside the furnace.
The furnace collapsed before, and Rurik analyzed the reasons for its collapse. Unexpectedly, Kawei still used the old idea of smelting bronze, so-called laying ordinary iron ore inside the furnace as refractory material. If only bronze was to be smelted, it would be perfectly suitable. But the smelting temperature inside the furnace must have reached the level of melting molten pig iron. The so-called refractory material has been melted into part of the molten iron.
Even the clay used as the furnace wall's high temperature resistance is greatly reduced under real high temperature conditions.
After all, smelting pig iron is actually a smelting miracle spontaneously created by the Russians. It is undeniable that Rurik played a very important theoretical role in this accidental miracle.
Now the real theoretical experts began to actually build the new furnace.
Even if it is an earthen blast furnace, in order to resist the erosion of molten metal, it must use more high-temperature resistant materials to make an extremely fire-resistant inner tank.
Are there any suitable materials?
In theory, ordinary clay added with some aluminum metal can be fired into cheap refractory bricks.
Where does aluminum metal come from? Corundum must be the best source.
But wait! The mountainous area near Roseburg is rich in iron ore and a small amount of copper ore. As for aluminum metal...
If corundum could be obtained, the construction of the furnace became rapid.
The fact is that Rurik could not find suitable refractory materials in the fjord of Fort Ross. However, the refractory materials were not lacking. It was one hundred and eighty kilometers away in a straight line from the Russian settlement of Alon-Olava Fort. The chromite there, itself is an excellent refractory material!
Presumably a blast furnace can smelt it into sponge iron. If it is smelted into molten metal, it may not be possible without 1800°C. As for the earthen blast furnace that burns charcoal or coal, the ultimate temperature it can reach in a short time is only 1450°C.
To obtain chromite, we had to send ships to the north to bring it back.
The solution to this key issue naturally falls on the shoulders of the Gould family.
Under Rurik's instruction, a cargo ship carrying a batch of catches left the dock of Gould's house, and her target was Fort Ailon-Olava.
Rurik bought all the fish, gutted them, and roasted them over fire to resist rot.
These catches are actually rewards for the Corvin people of Ironburg. Rurik wants to take away a batch of pure ore and buy the labor of his servants with fish and meat. Oh, of course he can issue an order ordering his servants to send an additional batch of ore as tribute.
Since he wanted to spread the idea called "Spirit of Contract" among the vast tribes, as a person of great status, Rurik felt that it was necessary to teach his servants about the contract, and hoped that other tribesmen could understand the contract. important.
The ship has already set out to sea, and even if the weather is clear and the waves are calm, it will take them five days at the earliest to return.
The furnace still needs to be built before the high-temperature-resistant chromium ore is laid in the furnace liner.
The stove mouth is designed to converge inward, and it can only allow a slightly thin adult to get in, while the internal space of the stove is obviously larger.
The narrow furnace mouth is to be able to lock in the temperature as much as possible while filling.
Rurik even hired a stonemason from the tribe who was good at carving monuments to carve a granite slab and cut a hole in the slab. This thing is the lid of the stove. It allows enough outlets for exhaust gas while ensuring the extreme temperature lock of the stove.
The construction of the furnace is in full swing, and the final work can be carried out as long as the cargo ship transporting the ore returns to port.
Kawei and the mercenaries were armed with large wooden hammers and pounded the dry clay deliberately piled outside the furnace shell.
Since three days had passed since the furnace was piled up, the damp clay had naturally dried, and only tamping could make it stronger before it could be fired.
In this way, a small blast furnace with a taper of 80° and a height of two stikas has become successful just from the appearance.
However, a rain that was destined to come gave the unfinished furnace the initial challenge. Thanks to an immediately erected rain shelter, the hearth was protected from rainwater damage.
The rain really interfered with the transportation of chrome ore.
What can Rurik do? Even in such rainy weather, the children's training was forced to be suspended. They stayed in their homes one by one to wait for the rain to end. Only a few brave men from the entire Ross tribe rowed to several small, bare, deserted islands off the coast of Rossburg. They set up fish stems in the hope of catching a few fish.
Due to rain, production work in Roseburg was temporarily suspended. Fortunately, the rain only lasted for two days.
The rain was not heavy, but it swept across the entire Nordic world. If anyone loves it, it’s farmers everywhere. They were completely dependent on the weather and were worried that a late planting season would lead to a serious reduction in production this year. A rain that moistened the oat seedlings was a relief to the farmers.
With rain like this, is there anything else to do?
Rurik was happy to take Klavasen to his home for a long time as a distinguished guest. He was here to instruct the old guy to make a "centrifugal blower" out of hard wood. Secondly, he was also there to comfort Lily, whose due date was obviously not far away. Ya.
That was a rather embarrassing question. Rurik calculated and he could tell that Lilia's due date was mid-August.
He quietly informed Lilia of his inference, but what he got in return was the girl's extreme shyness.
Lilia even pushed Rurik hard and then apologized hastily.
"You can actually predict the day when a woman will give birth?" She tried to calm down and pulled Rurik back to her side.
"I hope my prediction is correct and that you and the baby will be safe."
A woman's most important day is approaching. Lilia is looking forward to the birth of a new life, but she is also very afraid of the horrific dystocia. She often prays silently to the statue of the goddess Freya enshrined in her home, in order to receive the promise of peace.
Now Rurik was sitting next to him.
She grabbed Rurik's hand, her eyes full of prayer: "I will be safe, right! The Russian god will make me safe, right!"
Rurik was a little surprised by the sudden situation, so he comforted him: "Yes. God will keep you safe. Odin, Thor and Freya are all blessing us. I prayed on the altar during the summer solstice Now, hey hey..."
"why are you laughing."
"You see, we are following Thor's guidance to build a large furnace that is destined to succeed."
Since they are generally superstitious, why not take advantage of them?
Perhaps only the complete success of the blast furnace can make Lilia completely put aside her fear and only have infinite enthusiasm for new life.
The Kravassins' living room was transformed into a carpentry workshop.
Even if he had a large amount of silver coins, he would rather bury them underground if there were no useful consumer goods. He was still a blacksmith, but because it was Rurik's assignment, the blacksmithing work in the blacksmith shop was completely suspended, and all orders for steel swords from the tribe were delayed.
He was sitting on the ground, working hard to make a centrifugal blower that was nearly half a meter high.
The key to this blower lies in its bearings and the impeller attached to the extractor.
Even if there is no ball bearing system, or even roller bearings, it does not mean that Klavasen cannot make bearings.
The blacksmith's two-wheeled cart has a hard-touch handle made of bronze. Although this kind of hard contact has poor resistance to wear, as long as you apply a large amount of seal grease to the bearing gap, you don't have to worry about its use.
Klavasen was piecing together the blower frame using traditional mortise-and-tenon construction, and it didn't take long just to make it.
The most critical thing is of course to install wooden blades on the made bearings.
There are as many as six blades, which are arranged at an angle relatively close to 60°, and they are installed on the wooden shaft in a mortise and tenon manner. To stabilize it, Klavasen also applied some rosin to the gaps.
Each blade is not simply a straight plate arranged at an angle, but has been chiselled to give it a certain curved surface.
Rurik knows very well that only a curved impeller can achieve optimal working condition.
When he saw the huge impeller of nearly 40 centimeters placed randomly on the ground, Rurik immediately thought of something other than a blower.
"Ah! This... put it on the boat, isn't it just a standard propeller?"
The huge impeller is installed in a pre-set bearing hole filled with seal oil. Klavasen did not forget to show off his masterpiece to the watching Rurik.
He exerted force with both hands, and the entire impeller began to rotate steadily.
"Look! It's like a rolling wheel. Oh, only the best craftsman like me can make it spin stably."
Rurik shrugged with a smile, listening to this old guy boasting about himself.
The rotation of the impeller is indeed quite stable. Rurik is still very worried about the wear resistance of the bronze bearings in direct contact. Moreover, the entire impeller is also quite heavy. To make it operate well, I am afraid that the effect is really good only with the manpower of a strong man. Okay?
The biggest advantage of the centrifugal blower is that as long as it keeps rotating, the wind will continue to enter the furnace. This is a technical advantage that other types of blowers cannot achieve. The key lies in how to keep the impeller rotating. Perhaps using a waterwheel or windmill to drive it is a promising development direction.
Rurik didn't want to take one step too far. Since there were many strong young people in the tribe, they never wanted to let go of any opportunity to make money. He could hire these cheap laborers at this stage.
The entire blower is placed on a huge wooden board, and eight feet are nailed to the lower end of the board for stability.
The huge impeller is covered with a larger wooden bellows. The bellows is nailed with a large number of wooden boards, and the gaps are sealed with rosin. It is a wooden centrifugal blower that resembles a giant snail shell that Rurik designed based on his own knowledge. A large hole is left on one side of the impeller, which is the air inlet. A long bearing protrudes from both sides, and the bearing outside the blower is covered with two wooden plates that tend to be perfectly round.
The wooden plate has been chiseled to accommodate the drive belt.
At the back of the wooden board that carries the blower, there are two thick columns that hold up another bearing system. The most eye-catching ones are naturally two wooden boards that are nearly one meter in length and tend to be perfectly round.
On the outer edge of the bearing, there are two large handles.
In a sense, its structure is similar to a spinning bicycle. It is not a fitness equipment, but it has a fitness function.
Two pieces of deerskin cut into strips are tied into a leather strap and fit tightly into a groove in a wooden plate.
The rear wooden disc has a diameter of one stika, which is close to one meter, but the wooden disc on the outer edge of the blower impeller is only one quarter of a stika.
When the rear wooden disc rotates once, the blower impeller can rotate four times.
On the sixth day, although the transport ship transporting the chromium ore had not returned yet, the blower Rurik longed for was successfully completed by Klavasen's masterful hands.
It stands like a holy object in the living room, making the sawdust everywhere on the board and the various processing tools no longer annoying.
The impeller is huge, and the air outlet is only as big as a man's clenched fist. It is designed to be well aligned with the air inlet of the stove. Likewise, the narrow air outlet is intentionally made so that the entire blower can compress the air to the maximum extent. Its essence is a turbocharger.
It’s finally time to test its strength!
Rurik crossed his arms and sat cross-legged at the outlet of the blower. In front of him were the Clavarson father and son who were holding the long handle of the rear bearing, as well as Kamnier and all the other blacksmith apprentices who were observing the grand event.
"Start?" Klavasen asked.
"let's start!"
Following Rurik's order, the proud blacksmith and his son waved their arms that were almost as thick as their thighs, gritted their teeth and began to turn the huge machine.
It can be said that this thing is the most complex machine they have built so far in their lives. It actually has two bearing systems!
Because the bearing system used is too backward, its torque is a bit large. Indeed, only strong men can drive it well. Fortunately, as long as it rotates, due to inertia, the operator does not need to continue to work hard to output.
The impeller was obviously making money faster and faster driven by the belt. Rurik's face was facing the air outlet, and the wind force he felt was also increasing rapidly.
In the end, he had to close his eyes and crawl away.
"Kawei, stop!" Klavasen roared, and hurriedly asked Rurik, who was covering his eyes: "My little master, are you okay?"
"I...I'm fine." Rurik rubbed his eyes vigorously, sat up straight, and couldn't help but give a thumbs up with a smile on his face: "The wind is so strong! Klavasen, we succeeded!"
"Oh, it's my honor if you are satisfied."
"You did a good job! I'm sure it's hundreds of times more powerful than the bladder blower it used in the past! Its wind force makes me blind, and it's more powerful than the strongest north wind in winter!" Rurik The rhetoric here is indeed a bit exaggerated, but the strong wind and stable air supply brought by this blower are completely high-tech machinery owned by the Ross tribe.
"Klavasen!"
"exist!"
"I have decided. You must make three more before the ore arrives!"
"Huh? So many?!"
"I know it's time consuming, but our furnace must have the best blower. It has to have one for each of the four air inlets!"
Klavason nodded reluctantly: "Okay, I will."
