After sending Tuohuan away, Guo Kang led a group of cheerful priests and continued to the foot of the mountain.
"Many of our equipment are made here." Guo Kang said, "Do you still remember the reflector behind the Giant of Light?"
"Making a regular-shaped overall spherical mirror at one time requires too high a craftsmanship. Therefore, it is not a whole mirror, but assembled with many flat mirrors." He told everyone: "Each mirror only has about two It’s a big palm, so it’s much easier.”
"You said those are all produced by ourselves?" Brother Dmitri asked in surprise.
"Yes." Tuohuan nodded: "I think it's too exaggerated to have to import paper from the Ming Dynasty. It would be too miserable if we couldn't even make glass."
"Don't underestimate paper either." Guo Kang reminded: "Europeans have been thinking about porcelain for three to four hundred years and using cutting-edge technology to burn it, but it can still be made. But the light-transmitting calligraphy and painting paper, at least It will be five hundred years later. If you really think so, the technological gap is bigger than that of porcelain."
"Now there are no sea routes, and land transportation is not convenient. Those papers are treasures collected by my grandfather. It took a lot of effort to get some from him and make the Brother Tian animation. When I was making samples before, We can only learn from the Europeans and use cow bladders for testing."
"Glass is already a rare technology that we are more proficient in than the East." He pointed out: "If we can't do this well, it's too much to say."
He introduced all the way and led everyone to the workshop.
"Mercury is often used here and is poisonous, so we can just take a look from a distance." He pointed to a workshop: "Let's take a look here first. This is where plate glass is made."
He led everyone along the stairs outside the workshop, climbed to the second floor, and looked at the scene inside in the corridor.
The door and windows on the first floor are open, and there is a huge furnace near the door, where several glassmakers are heating raw materials. Not far away, there was a row of pools filled with red-hot liquid. Next to it was a huge wooden bellows, surrounded by several people wearing black cloaks and strange beak masks.
"What are you doing?" Dmitri asked.
"In Roman times, flat glass was rolled out on a workbench by rolling it with iron rods. Later, this technology was lost, and now flat glass is blown. I don't know the specific process, either. Maybe only Venetians understand this now," Guo Kang said.
"This method requires too much process and is not easy to mass produce, so we did not try to imitate or surpass them, but used new ideas." He pointed to the pool: "Inside, there is molten tin."
"The fired glass is lighter than tin. It will float on the liquid tin and spread out on its own, thus forming a flat surface. Then we slowly cool the pool to obtain solidified glass."
"My heavenly father, how did you come up with this?" Dmitri was shocked.
"This is an idea that the ancients understood, but their heating capabilities were limited and they did not produce finished products." Guo Kang casually replied: "What we are studying here is the question of which liquid to choose - and it is not difficult."
"The liquid must be heavier than liquid glass, and at the working temperature, it will not boil or solidify. Like mercury, it boils too easily; and the temperature at which copper liquefies is too high."
"In this way, there are only a few metals to choose from. When I discussed it with other people, they also first thought of liquid lead."
Dmitri nodded, not surprised by this. After all, the Romans were familiar with this thing, and it was so normal to think of it...
"The problem with lead is that it smokes a lot when heated and is toxic. We thought about it again and changed it to tin, which is less toxic." He pointed to the furnace: "This is the current situation."
"Then how do you control this 'temperature'? Do you mean the degree of hot or cold?" Dmitri could only start with professional terms: "Can hot and cold also be quantitatively measured?"
"It may not be quantified specifically, but it can be roughly estimated." Guo Kang said: "We placed a long copper bar and a long iron bar of the same length in the tin pool. Both metals will become longer when heated. , but the elongation distance is different. We fix the metal bars together, let one end extend out of the pool, and then compare the length differences."
"There is a board next to the pool for comparison." He pointed to the edge of the pool: "They have also added a pointer now, which seems more convenient. It may not be accurate, but at least it can put the appropriate experience Record the temperature and do it in the future."
"But the environment there is very harsh. Staring into the pool hurts the eyes, so everyone wears black glasses. In addition, our tin is not very pure and will still produce smoke, so I suggest they use cotton as a filter to protect themselves. . That robe is used to block the tin splash."
"Indeed, it looks very professional." Tuo Huan agreed.
"I think these are necessary protective measures." Guo Kang muttered: "Actually, I think the finished product should be factory-style. Who knew they would make it like this..."
"This is what they do." He took off a hood with a glass lens and a metal beak sewn from the wall: "The beak is filled with pieces of cotton. They are very obsessed with this shape."
"Why don't those glassmakers bring them?" Dmitri asked.
"They are used to it, and they think it is troublesome to bring it up, which will affect their physical work. Although it is right next to them and they need people to carry the glass liquid over manually, they don't think it matters." Guo Kang shook his head and said.
"The management of our workshop is very irregular, but there is nothing we can do about it now. When we expand production later, I will see if I can build a partition wall to separate the two sides and leave a special feeding port for pouring glass."
"In addition, every time you make it, you have to blow it with special gas. After pouring, you have to cool the entire tin pool, which is very wasteful and the effect is very bad. A lot of glass is either deformed or directly exploded. In short, this There are many areas for improvement, and it is very troublesome to produce. It is still experimental in nature."
"The main product now is over there." He pointed to the opposite side of the workshop: "To put it simply, it is to blow a glass bottle first, then cut the bottle, heat it until it softens, spread it out on the workbench, and then flatten it. .”
"This is an improved version of ancient Roman craftsmanship. The advantage is that it is not difficult to make a bottle, and it is easier to go from bottle to glass plate than to directly press a pool of liquid glass."
"Limited by the blowing technology and the size of the workbench, we still can't make particularly large glass, but it is feasible to make one half a person tall. This is enough for now."
(End of chapter)
