In fact, in terms of the mechanical structure of lathes, Benz's solution is not dominant, and it is not even ranked in the top three.
The reason he got the biggest bonus of this stage was the cost.
This is related to his personal experience. He knows that steam engines are difficult to sell. The biggest dilemma is that they are expensive. There is no need to count the cost of knowledge, just the cost of materials, which determines that steam engines are definitely not cheap.
Since the project is an overall workshop design, we should avoid using one steam engine to drive one piece of equipment, and choose to use fewer steam engines to drive more lathes. This can also save a lot of manpower in the use of steam furnaces.
The disadvantage is that the steam furnace will be relatively large, and there is almost no other way to transport parts by land except railways.
After receiving the first-stage bonus, Benz teamed up with two other people who also received bonuses to carry out the second stage, which is the integration and optimization of the plan.
Because everyone’s plan advantages are different, there is not much room for debate, and a lot of time is saved. This stage is completed quickly.
I received a fixed bonus of 1,200 yuan, but my daily salary has not been adjusted yet because the advanced course exam is too difficult and I have to wait a little longer.
I was still thinking about the exam, but suddenly there was a job transfer.
The Manufacturing Bureau separated some people and formed a new government-run unit, Xincheng Heavy Industries.
Uncle Benz is also among the transferred personnel.
After a little struggle, he accepted the arrangement in less than a meal, because the Manufacturing Bureau had a lot of work related to magic equipment, and he couldn't participate at all. The functions of Xincheng Heavy Industry were different, and it was a purely mechanical equipment design and manufacturing unit.
And everyone's first task is to build the previously designed lathe workshop with the help of the magic forging machine and the mage.
Xincheng Heavy Industries' land is outside the city, more than three hundred meters away from the northwest outpost of Xincheng, and several hundred meters away from the Ice Wood cultivation point on the other side.
Although it is outside the city, the difference is not big, because something happened recently that everyone in the manufacturing bureau knows. The garrison began to install new types of magic firearms, and the previous ones began to flow into the city defense army.
This means that Xincheng Heavy Industry is still under the direct protection of the northwest outpost, and the outpost also has a sentry tower at the ice tree cultivation point, so the new unit is actually completely surrounded by fire.
More than half a month after the construction started, a high-ranking official came and planted the seeds of the legendary artifact, allowing this place that originally needed to transport water to directly access the groundwater, and surrounded the entire area with a wall.
It is very big. In addition to the factory land and material storage area, there is enough space for everyone to build a small independent building.
Then people from the Railway Bureau came and started construction at the door to build a railway access point for the heavy factory.
After a while, I discovered that the access point was built as a double-track railway, but now there is no double-track, and there is an extra ramp point.
After two months of construction, the heavy factory has basic functions and has received its first task - self-iteration.
Senior staff have all taken the "Precision Manufacturing" course and know how to improve processing accuracy. Self-iteration means using existing equipment to gradually improve manufacturing accuracy.
According to the requirements of superiors, the heavy factory needs to improve the accuracy of workpieces to 0.1 mm before it can start formal operations.
This requirement seems a bit high to everyone. I have never seen scales calculated in units as small as millimeters anywhere else, let alone 0.1 millimeters.
It's difficult to say, but it's not difficult, because "Precision Manufacturing" has made things very clear, and everyone knows what factors will affect accuracy.
For example, oil floating equipment has an oil interlayer in the base, which can bring the whole machine closer to the absolute level within a limited range. However, such complicated things are not used in millimeter-level precision equipment. Leveling with bolts is not required. That’s it.
But it’s not without problems. The difficulty lies in the tools.
There are only two types of knives that you can choose from, gemstone knives and diamond knives. As mentioned in the course, gemstones have better temperature tolerance and slightly lower hardness. Diamond knives have higher hardness and can cut the workpiece more smoothly, but the surface temperature exceeds 465 degrees. Performance will drop significantly.
There is no place to make these two outside. The heavy factory gets the raw materials and has to find a way to make the blades by itself.
Just two broken blades gave a group of people a hard time.
In the end, we coordinated with many parties, found a steam ball mill to grind emery abrasives, and added a few lapidary apprentices to toss the blades.
Next, step by step, from the entire batch of workpieces, manually select the ones with smaller errors, and improve the existing equipment bit by bit. At the same time, senior workers also followed the study of mechanical transmission modes that have less impact on accuracy, such as steam engines and transmission shafts. Make improvements.
The accuracy of the equipment in processing cylindrical parts soon increased to 3 mm. Relying on the workers' personal skills, workpieces with surface errors within one millimeter can be produced.
But as you continue to deepen, the difficulty increases rapidly.
The main contradiction at this stage became the vibration generated by the steam engine during mechanical movement, which affected the entire mechanical energy transmission system.
Moreover, cylindrical parts are the easiest of all workpiece types. It is more difficult to improve the accuracy of flat parts and special-shaped parts, which require time to grind little by little.
Fortunately, they are tolerant enough. The situation in the north is getting increasingly tense. Recently, some little devils even flew near Xincheng before being shot down by the city defense army. However, they did not put pressure on Xincheng Heavy Industry. They still do not need to do business and only focus on Just improve the accuracy.
The people at Xincheng Heavy Industries are not stupid either. In order to preserve the good life they have finally earned, and in the hope that the factory can help with the situation, they are working hard to push forward the progress.
However, hard work sometimes does not have much effect. The key to breaking the situation is the new material brought by the Research Bureau, a flexible material similar to leather. The biggest difference from leather is that it has good high temperature resistance and can withstand temperatures of more than two hundred degrees. No permanent deformation occurs.
I heard that it is a material processed by magic. Anyway, the people here at Heavy Industry don't understand, so they just use it.
The addition of flexible materials and their buffering and sealing effects immediately raise the accuracy to a higher level. The basic accuracy of turning workpieces has been improved to within one millimeter. Advanced skilled workers can already use this to produce workpieces with errors of less than 0.1 mm.
Planar parts are still fighting for millimeter-level precision, but the design team is expected to make breakthroughs in a short time.
After submitting the report this month, Heavy Industry will immediately receive the first batch of orders to manufacture seamless gun barrels, at least 10,000, and even 100,000 is not too much!
It was obviously a very important matter, but at the same time, there was a completely different order: workers were strictly prohibited from operating the machine tools for more than four hours continuously, and they were required to take at least two hours of rest between operations.
Although some people were injured during the construction of the heavy industry, there were no major accidents. I don't know why there was such an order, and everyone could only strictly abide by it.
The benefits were quickly discovered. Without any adjustments to the process or equipment, the yield rate was improved by just increasing the rest time.
However, the seamless barrel was not immediately created. This thing was much more difficult than imagined.
Because the inner diameter of the barrel is limited, and the boring tool holder is limited by the material, it will vibrate or even break if it is made longer, so we can only try boring holes at both ends. The problem is that when you do this, you often produce errors that exceed the numbers on the paper. Specifically, if you throw the warhead in, it can easily get stuck in the middle.
When asked about the problem, the reply was that it had nothing to do with them and that they had to wait for the iron factory to overcome the related issues.
However, with so many orders for gun barrels, the army is obviously in a hurry to use them, and the heavy factory cannot wait and organize senior technicians to give classes to everyone to exchange experiences and try to use manpower to improve the yield rate.
After half a month of tossing like this, a hundred seamless gun barrels that met the requirements were produced. However, for the entire order volume, the production capacity was obviously not right.
