The blacksmiths worked very hard. They were divided into two groups and cooperated with each other. Two people in each group would pull the bellows. If they were tired, they would change and let the second group continue. The blacksmiths in charge of hammering the iron blocks were also divided into two groups. Similarly, each group had two people. Each person hammered the iron blocks once to save physical strength. In this way, they could ensure a higher forging speed.
The pig iron blocks were not completely cooled down and were a little soft. Therefore, when they started hammering, it did not take much effort to shape them into the shape of an axe.
Ang Lee nodded with satisfaction. From the efficiency and movements of these blacksmiths, he could see that they were good blacksmiths. The only thing they lacked was some heat treatment skills. These skills were not difficult at all, but as long as others did not teach you, you might not understand it for the rest of your life. However, as long as others taught you, you could learn it immediately.
After some observation, Ang Lee discovered that when these blacksmiths were hammering, they kept adding fire to let everyone melt the pig iron to the most suitable temperature for forging. Then, step by step, they forged the pig iron into the required shape. After that, they did not further heat treat the forged axes. So, how could they get high-quality axes?
"It's not enough to rely on fire and brute force. Go get some well water."
Ang Lee could roughly judge the current temperature by the color of the axes. For heat treatment, the control of temperature was very important. A slight deviation would result in a completely different product quality. Different temperatures would result in different quality.
When it came to smelting, the higher the temperature, the better. Pig iron would have different states at different temperatures. As for how high the temperature should be, it depended on what kind of iron product was needed. Different requirements would require different processing techniques.
The blacksmiths of the Jiang tribe worked too hard. When they were heating, they seemed to have raised the temperature too much. In addition, in order to increase toughness, they needed to be quenched. However, these blacksmiths did not even master the quenching process. He really did not know where their ancestors learned it from. When they were hammering, there was no clear water.
"The blast is a little slower. The temperature is already too high."
Ang Lee said. He picked up the clear water and slowly poured it on the red axe. Suddenly, the newly forged axe made a sizzling sound. It was very comfortable to listen to.
"You need to add water to hammering! Why on earth is this? "
The second patriarch stood next to him and asked curiously when he saw Ang Lee pouring water on the hot axe.
He had traveled extensively for many years and thought that he had seen a lot. However, he had never seen how the blacksmiths of Central Sichuan hammering. Others did not show it to him to prevent the technology from leaking. he would occasionally see some, but most of them were clanking and clang and clang and clang. He had never seen cold water.
........ were very selfish.. they seemed to worry that their technology would be learned by others............ was. were very worried that their technology would be learned by others.. so they were all............ of them were..... but............ it.... com. afraid.
"So this is quenching! ....................................
...............
... What is quenching? "
The second patriarch was puzzled. The blacksmiths who were working were also confused. They lived in such a remote place that they did not even know how to quench. Their master must have secretly gone to Central Sichuan to watch others hammering. He only watched a part of it and thought that he had mastered the technology. Then he came back to hammering. He did not know that hammering required a lot of skills. It was not as simple as hammering.
What is quenching? The purpose of quenching is to transform the overcooled austenite into martensite or bainite to obtain martensite or bainite structure, and then temper at different temperatures to greatly improve the rigidity, hardness, wear resistance, fatigue strength and toughness of the steel, so as to meet the different requirements of various mechanical parts and tools. Quenching could also satisfy the special physical and chemical properties of some special steel such as ferromagnetism and corrosion resistance.
According to the scientific definition of later generations, quenching referred to the metal heat treatment process of heating the metal workpiece to a suitable temperature and holding it for a period of time. Then, it was immersed in a quenching medium to quickly cool it down.
Generally, the commonly used quenching medium was salt water, water, mineral oil, air, and so on. Quenching could improve the hardness and wear resistance of the metal workpiece, so it was widely used in various tools, molds, measuring tools, and parts requiring surface wear resistance. Through the combination of quenching and tempering at different temperatures, the strength, toughness, and fatigue strength of the metal can be greatly improved. The combination of these properties can be obtained to meet different requirements.
In addition, quenching could also make some special steel gain certain physical and chemical properties. For example, quenching could enhance the ferromagnetism of permanent magnet steel and improve the corrosion resistance of stainless steel. The quenching process was mainly used for steel parts. When the commonly used steel was heated above the critical temperature, all or most of the original structure at room temperature would be transformed into austenite. Then the steel would be immersed in water or oil to quickly cool, and the austenite would be transformed into martensite.
Compared with other structures in steel, martensite had the highest hardness. The rapid cooling during quenching would cause internal stress in the workpiece. When the stress reached a certain extent, the workpiece would be distorted or even cracked. For this reason, a suitable cooling method must be chosen. According to the cooling method, the quenching process was divided into four categories: single-liquid quenching, dual-medium quenching, martensite quenching, and bainite isothermal quenching.
Among them, single-medium quenching meant that the workpiece was cooled in a medium, such as water quenching and oil quenching. The advantage was that it was easy to operate, easy to achieve mechanization, and widely used. The disadvantage was that the quenching stress in water was high, and the workpiece was easy to deform and crack. The quenching in oil was slow, and the quenching diameter was small, and large workpieces were not easy to quench.
Dual-medium quenching meant that the workpiece was first cooled to about 300 degrees in a medium with strong cooling ability, and then cooled in a medium with weak cooling ability. For example, water quenching and oil quenching could effectively reduce the internal stress of martensite transformation and the tendency of the workpiece to deform and crack. It could be used for quenching workpieces with complicated shapes and uneven cross-sections. The disadvantage of dual-liquid quenching was that it was difficult to grasp the moment of the dual-liquid conversion. If the conversion was too early, it would be easy to quench the workpiece, and if the conversion was too late, it would be easy to quench the workpiece. In order to overcome this disadvantage, the graded quenching method was developed.
As for graded quenching, it meant that the workpiece was quenched in a low-temperature salt bath or an alkali bath furnace. The temperature of the salt bath or the alkali bath was generally higher, and the workpiece stayed at this temperature for a few minutes, and then it was taken out and cooled. This cooling method was called graded quenching. The purpose of graded quenching was to make the internal and external temperature of the workpiece more uniform, and at the same time, to undergo martensite transformation. This could greatly reduce the quenching stress and prevent deformation and cracking, so it was widely used.
Of course, in addition to these, there were also isothermal quenching, surface quenching, induction quenching, annealing, normalizing, tempering, quenching, cold quenching, local quenching, air quenching, wind quenching, salt water quenching, spray quenching, and many others.
In the future, with the explosive development of science and technology, there were too many ways to heat treat metals, and the quality of the metal products obtained was also getting better and better.
In the Tang dynasty, there were relatively few ways to heat treat metals, at least much fewer than in the future. But as long as there were enough, it was enough to build ordinary tools.
Ang Lee really didn't know how to explain to the second clan leader what quenching was, because this knowledge was too profound. If he really explained it all, the second clan leader would definitely not understand it at all. It would be like listening to a book from heaven.
Therefore, Ang Lee couldn't explain it according to science, so he could only say a few words to fool the second clan leader.
"This quenching! It is to make pig iron harder and tougher. This is quenching. "
Ang Lee said casually.
"Oh, this is quenching!"
The second clan leader obviously didn't understand, but he only needed to know that he could obtain more durable tools in this way, and that was enough.
In fact, quenching was a rapid cooling process. A large amount of cold water was poured on hot iron, which could make the hot iron react quickly and produce relatively stable martensite. In order to make the high-temperature austenite into stable martensite, the cooling speed must be greater than the critical cooling speed. In the process of cooling, there was a certain difference between the cooling speed of the surface and the core. If the difference was large enough, it might cause the surface to be transformed into martensite, while the core to be transformed into martensite.
In order to ensure that the entire cross-section was transformed into martensite, a quenching medium with strong cooling ability needed to be selected to ensure that the core of the workpiece had a high enough cooling speed. However, if the cooling speed was too high, the workpiece would be deformed or cracked due to the internal stress caused by the uneven expansion and contraction of the workpiece. Therefore, the above two contradictory factors had to be considered, and the quenching medium and cooling method should be chosen reasonably.
In short, blacksmithing was not an easy task. There were many skills, and the mastery of skills was very important. If you mastered the skills, you could get high-quality tools. If you didn't master the skills like the local people, you would only get inferior iron products.
Of course, after quenching was completed, it didn't mean that the tool was completed. After this step, there was still a tempering process, which was an operation to prevent cracks from occurring or to reduce the brittleness of the steel.
During quenching, due to the rapid cooling of the temperature, it would inevitably cause the internal tearing of the iron tool, leading to a great increase in brittleness. A hard and brittle tool was obviously not a good tool. When used, it was easy to cause the result of cracking. Therefore, it was necessary to increase its toughness and reduce its brittleness. This process was called tempering.
Tempering was also very simple. It was to put the finished tool in an area where the temperature was not too high and let it stay warm for a period of time. In this way, the tempering step was completed.
"Wait, the finished axe can't be put here. It will become brittle. Just put it under the furnace. The temperature here is not too high or too low. It's just right for tempering."
Ang Lee saw that the blacksmith was about to put the finished axe on the stone table next to him and hurriedly stopped him.
"Tempering, it still needs tempering! It seems that it's really troublesome to make a good tool! "
The second chief said.
The blacksmiths of the Jiang tribe were also very surprised. Before, they simply boiled the iron until it was soft and then shaped it into the required shape. They didn't expect that there would be operations such as pouring cold water and putting it in a high-temperature area to keep it warm. This was something they never expected. They had reason to believe that the tools they made before were not durable because they didn't use these little tricks. Now, Ang Lee had taught them these tricks. They believed that the tools they made in the future would be as strong and durable as the tools in Central Sichuan. Their status would also be greatly improved and their lives would be more prosperous.
Ang Lee said with a smile, "How can this be called troublesome? This is just the simplest quenching and tempering. If you want to forge better tools, there are more ways, such as normalizing, annealing, quenching, cold quenching, local quenching, air quenching, wind quenching, salt quenching, and so on! Some of the requirements are too high, and the conditions here are too simple and crude. You can't process them at all. In addition, when you have nothing to do, you can also study how to forge better tools! Why do you always expect others to teach you? "
As soon as he said this, the second chief and the blacksmiths were so shocked that their eyes almost popped out. This was far beyond their expectations. They really didn't expect that there were so many techniques to forge pig iron. The complexity of these techniques was far beyond their expectations. They also thoroughly understood why the quality of the iron products they made was far inferior to those produced in Central Sichuan. It turned out that there was such a big gap in the forging process. This made them truly feel the huge gap in technology, so they admired the advanced technology of the Tang dynasty even more.
At this time, they didn't even dare to ask for details because they didn't understand what Ang Lee had explained before. They also knew that they didn't need to understand too much of the principles. They just needed to follow the instructions and forge some high-quality tools. That was enough. The most urgent thing they needed to forge qualified tools was high-quality farming tools and mountain-cutting tools. Of course, they also needed to continue mining tools. Now, they had already started mining iron ore and smelting it.
Whether it was mining iron ore or smelting iron ore, it was inseparable from a large number of high-quality iron tools. During mining, a large number of mining tools such as iron hammers and chisels were needed. During smelting, a large piece of iron ore was also needed to be smashed by an iron hammer.
A large number of iron tools were necessary for mining and smelting iron ore. If these tools were all bought from Central Sichuan, it would be too uneconomical. Of course, it was best to forge them themselves.
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