Chapter 182: Improvements in the Orichalcum Clockwork Process

The alchemy workshop is a common production model in Black Snake Bay, similar to the blacksmith shop and stonemason workshop they had seen in Jeanne d'Arc before.

An alchemy workshop will often purchase a yard near the source of raw materials or in a place with convenient water and land transportation. This yard will serve as the venue for alchemy ceremonies, storage, and even accommodation.

A normal alchemy workshop is basically run by four or five alchemy apprentices and one or two master alchemists.

Most of the time, the smuggling channels for alchemical products are controlled by the secret party, so in many cases, these alchemical workshops sell goods directly to the secret party.

Larger secret parties like the Ruoan Party and the Silver Rose would even provide subsidies to the alchemists in the alchemy workshops during the off-season, which actually gave them a semi-state-owned feel.

Of course, there are also private alchemy workshops, most of which are affiliated with a large wizard family.

Alchemists do not have much ability to protect themselves and most of the time they need to rely on the protection of powerful forces.

Horn did not dare to make a decision immediately on whether to set up a peat alchemy workshop in Daze Township. Instead, he assigned some saintly followers to Pasrick and asked him to investigate with several secret party members who escaped with him.

Without investigation, there is no right to speak. If a project is launched without any hesitation, the probability of problems is extremely high.

After arranging Peat's affairs, he made an agreement with Jeshka and Victor to select the people who would go to Autumn Island tomorrow.

After all these scattered items were decided, the aroma of grilled fish and fish porridge had already spread to everyone's nose.

Horn smiled and said to the people present: "I have already eaten. You must be greedy after smelling the aroma. Let's go eat."

"Brother, I have something else to say."

"Eat first, eat first. Don't talk about things on an empty stomach." Horn pushed Jeanna away, urging her to eat first.

Sitting back in front of the fire, looking at the dancing flames in front of him, he continued to think about the current developments.

If the peat alchemy workshop can be successful, then the problems of food and meat will be basically solved.

In fact, if peat could be used instead of wood and other fuels to cook salt, the problem of salted fish could be solved, and there would naturally be no need to build a pottery workshop.

However, Horn still decided to set up a small pottery workshop. After all, items such as pots, pans, and bowls are in short supply.

Using a branch to fan the fire in front of him, Horn turned his head towards the distant mountains.

He didn't notice it before, but after walking these few days, he suddenly discovered a geographical hotspot.

Daze Township is located at the junction of South Mound, Lower Rive and Longsand counties, with mountains and swamps blocking the roads connecting the three counties.

If you want to walk from Upper River and North Mound to Longsand County, you will definitely be blocked by this mountain swamp. No matter which way you go, you will have to walk an extra 100 kilometers or even 90 kilometers.

If Horn could clear the giant spiders from the Wild Spider Forest, pacify the local beastmen, and widen the road, the merchants wouldn't have to take a detour.

Through the shorter route of Dazexiang, Upper Revel, North and South Mound, and even Norn can easily transport goods to Longsand, while Zhendark Castle can transport goods to Black Snake Bay and Cassia County.

This couldn't help but remind Horn of the gravel wool trade route that Sissi had mentioned.

In the past, if the raw wool of Broken Stone wanted to go south, it would first go to Upper Rivershire or the neighboring North Moundshire, then go down the Nauan River to Flying Castle, and then travel by land.

Then go upstream along the Yaxi River, take the land route to Jeanne d'Arc, then go downstream along the canal to the Ibe River and head south.

But if Dazexiang can be opened up, then they can go directly to Jeanne d'Arc whether they go by water or by land, saving at least one third of the journey.

However, if the wool trade route is changed, Feiliu Castle will be in big trouble.

However, Qiumu Island, located on the only way to Daze Township, has an excellent geographical environment. It may become a transit station on the Jeanne d'Arc route and become an important sub-city.

"Brother, I'm done eating." Jeanna's words interrupted Horn's thoughts. She came over hurriedly, wiping the oil off her mouth with a handkerchief.

Are you eating so fast? Horn looked at Jeanne blankly: "Don't you need to take a break after eating?"

"Brother, you can't rest now." Grabbing Horn's arm, Jeanna pulled him into the camp.

After passing those tattered tents, we saw Brock and Rector busying themselves at a simple workbench.

Horn immediately understood that there must be some breakthrough in the orichalcum mainspring. "I saw your forging method earlier." The old dwarf was still as honest and dull as before. When he saw Horn coming, he spoke directly, "Mix the molten iron and molten copper together, put them into the mold and cool them into alloy bars, then shock the alloy bars until they are white-hot, and then give them to the blacksmith forging."

"Yes."

Nabrook shook his head: "This method is very vulgar, wrong, and not spiritual enough."

Horn glanced back at Jeanna's confident face, then turned to Brock and asked, "Do you have a new idea?"

"I have to live up to the three gold pounds you gave me a month." Brock said dully, "Gilding was originally a skill of our dwarves, but later it was stolen by the shameless Norns. Anyway, everyone knows it, so it's no problem for me to teach you."

As he spoke, Brock opened a jar beside him, and inside the jar was a golden paste.

"what is this?"

"Orichalcum mud." Brock took out the can of orichalcum mud that looked like butter, picked up a piece of wood, scooped out a piece and smeared it on the surface of an iron spring.

After painting both sides of the spring golden, Brock took out a thin rope to separate the orichalcum mud that stuck to each other between the spiral springs: "The so-called gilding technology is to melt gold and mercury together, and use leather to squeeze out the excess mercury, and the remaining is gold mud.

Apply gold mud on the metal surface and bake it at high temperature. After a period of time, the mercury disappears and only gold remains.

I noticed that your orichalcum is also yellow, very similar to gold, and my dwarf intuition told me that this might work, so I tried it. "

Brock put the painted copper-plated spring into the furnace for baking, and used tongs to pick out another copper-plated spring that had been baked earlier.

"Originally I thought the orichalcum would only adhere to the surface of the spring, but after the mercury evaporated, the orichalcum actually seeped into the spring." Jeanna couldn't contain her excitement.

"Normally, gilded metals need to be coated with a protective layer on the surface to prevent the gold from penetrating into the base material, but I didn't have the right material, so I didn't apply the protective layer." Brock also felt a little emotional at this time.

"Maybe the essence of mountain copper is steel, so it can be combined with iron. I don't know why, but it just worked." Brock raised the spring and pointed to the part where the spring coils were stuck together. "Just polish it with a file."

Horn picked up the mountain copper spring with tongs in surprise and looked at it carefully in the light of the fire.

If this method is indeed effective, Jeanna won't have to spend a lot of time accompanying the blacksmith in forging.

By using the technique of orichalcum gilding, the process of developing the orichalcum spring, which originally required Jeanna's uninterrupted cooperation, was directly separated into two steps: making orichalcum mud and making spring.

Then in the future, Jeanna can batch produce large amounts of mountain copper mud and store it, and then she can get rid of the tedious process.

In this way, the manufacturing speed of clockwork guns will be further improved.

But when Horn thought of orichalcum, he became troubled. According to the formula of orichalcum, 1 pound of orichalcum required 14 pounds of refined iron and 2 pounds of copper.

Due to the high density of orichalcum, one orichalcum mainspring requires one-third of a pound of orichalcum.

Including the barrel, the mainspring box and the most important firing rod, each mainspring gun requires 6 pounds of cast iron and 2 pounds of refined iron (steel).

According to Horn's preconceived idea of ​​1000 holy musketeers, about 333 pounds of mountain copper would be needed. Taking into account the loss, 5000 pounds of refined iron and 700 pounds of copper would be needed.

Including the consumption of the barrel and firing rod, that is 6000 pounds of cast iron and 2000 pounds of refined iron.

The consumption of 1000 Holy Gunners alone is at least 7000 pounds of refined iron, 6000 pounds of cast iron, and 700 pounds of copper.

Previously, Horn had spent zero dollars on the purchases at Jeanne d'Arc and emptied out the armories controlled by the nobles and dukes, including outposts and blacksmith shops. He even deliberately allowed the soldiers to extort money, and only managed to obtain 6200 pounds of steel ingots, 7800 pounds of ordinary iron ingots, and 900 pounds of copper ingots.

After careful calculation, there is still a shortage of 800 pounds of fine iron.

The only thing to be thankful for is that the situation with the spearmen is fine.

By stripping the mercenaries, the Salvation Army obtained more than 1800 rifles and more than 900 daggers, plus those from the armory and those purchased, which was just enough to fill the main weapon gap for 3000 spearmen.

I'll go ask Paslick tomorrow for any good ideas. As a great wizard, Paslick's knowledge base is simply a huge treasure.

It's really a complicated process to start from the beginning. Horn is just blowing on the steam from the clockwork. Construction is much more difficult than leading people around to wire things.

(End of this chapter)