The World of Pirates

Chapter 10 The Blacksmith Is Not Happy
On October 1492, 10 in the Haiyuan calendar, Li Cha started to refine his sword.

Although iron is very common in nature and has a high reserve, the chemical properties of elemental iron are very active, and it becomes an oxide with a high melting point when combined with oxygen.

So in fact, in Richard's previous life, most of the time in history, humans have not even seen real "iron"—unless a large meteorite falls from the sky, it is possible to create one or two sharp daggers for the monarch of the empire.

It is generally believed that effective iron smelting first appeared in the Hittites in the 18th century BC - as recorded in the clay tablet of King Anitta in the 17th century BC, which was used to make crowns and scepters. Keep it a secret.....
Recalling the knowledge he had learned in his previous life, Richard decided to use the oldest method of iron smelting because of limited conditions.

First hammer the iron ore into small pieces, then add charcoal powder ground by charcoal, plant ash, water, and make it evenly like kneading dough, and then wrap it with straw paper into a lump the size of a fist.

Then Li Cha lit the stove, put a lump of processed iron ore on the fire, pulled the bellows, and smelted the ore, while constantly adding charcoal to clean up the carbon ash.

Half an hour later, Li Cha took out the ore, waited for it to cool down and knocked off the debris, and got a pile of sponge iron.

The melting point of pure iron is as high as 1500°C, and ovens burning wood and charcoal cannot melt it, and can only reduce iron ore to sponge iron full of impurities.

Li Cha stuffed plant ash and charcoal powder into the gaps of the sponge iron, smelted it again, and then took it out for forging, and glassy slag was continuously knocked out, which was silicon and other impurities.

Put it into the oven again for smelting, then take it out and beat it. With Li Cha's current strength of nearly 10 points, I can only see the hammer coming out like wind, the hammer points like rain, and the sound of "ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping" from the blacksmith's shop is a string.

After smelting and forging ten times, Li Cha obtained wrought iron with less impurities, which usually allowed him to enter the next process.

But because he was making a sword for himself, Li Cha's obsessive-compulsive disorder developed, so he kept firing and exercising repeatedly until he could no longer knock out impurities.

At this time, the sky was completely dark.And Li Cha worked hard all day, but the result was just a piece of iron the size of a palm.

"Goo———"

After putting down the hammer, Li Cha realized that his belly was groaning like thunder. It turned out that he hadn't eaten all day.

Turning off the fire in a hurry, Li Cha walked towards the seaside with the wooden knife in hand. Today's dinner has not been settled yet.

When he came to the coast, this time Li Cha didn't even take off his clothes. After taking a few steps, he plunged into the sea.

The sea is still the same as yesterday, with fish swimming back and forth, and there is no change at all because Li Cha caught a few fish yesterday.

Li Cha picked a few fat fish, swam to them, and suddenly stabbed out with his sword, the sword never missed.

With this move, Li Cha can change his job as a fisherman.

Too lazy to go back to the blacksmith shop, Li Cha simply lit a fire on the bank and grilled fish on the spot.By the time Li Cha felt that his stomach was [-]% full, the fish heads and fish bones around him had already piled up into a "hill".

The next day, Li Cha continued to smelt iron ore. Because of yesterday's experience, Li Cha smelted three pieces of iron this time.

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For seven days in a row, Li Cha went to fish in the sea when he was hungry, and continued to strike iron when he was full. He hardly slept and rested, and finally managed to scrape together enough iron materials needed to make a knife.

Looking at the iron piece in his hand, Li Cha pressed his fingers slightly, and the iron piece was pinched and bent in half.

Although Li Cha has worked hard to remove impurities from the iron, the carbon content in the iron has also dropped below 0.2%. It has become too soft wrought iron, which cannot be used as a sword.

Li Cha also needs to increase the carbon content in the iron, disrupt the overly neat lattice, and turn the wrought iron into a hard alloy steel.

In Li Cha's previous life, the "carburizing method" has been used the longest in history: the wrought iron is beaten into thin slices and calcined in a charcoal fire, and the carbon element will seep in at high temperature to form a hard surface with high carbon content.

However, in order to obtain a satisfactory steel, that is, an iron-carbon alloy with a carbon content between 2% and 0.2%, the process of tempering has just begun.

Li Cha overlapped the iron sheet obtained by using the "carburizing method" and the wrought iron sheet, put them in an oven to soften them, and then repeatedly forged them with a hammer to fuse the two.

Wrought iron with less carbon content and fully carbonized pig iron are repeatedly folded and forged, and the two alloys are evenly mixed to form steel.

This kind of steel can be seen on the surface of the black and white layered pattern of two iron alloys, so it is called "pattern steel". This is the case with Damascus steel, and the same is true for Fuso knives.

But the problem now is that forging a knife is divided into core iron, skin iron, and blade iron, each of which has different requirements for the hardness, toughness, softness and other properties of the iron material, which is usually obtained through the experience of the knife maker to judge.

And Li Cha didn't know anything about this knowledge, and didn't know the specific alloy mixing ratio, so he had to keep experimenting to judge the properties of alloys with different ratios.

"Gah!!!" Thinking of this, Li Cha felt his head was getting bigger, which meant a lot of trial and error and complicated work.

However, Li Cha was not discouraged either, forging different swords and swords according to changes in materials, craftsmanship, and techniques. Isn't this the fun of blacksmithing?

Open the "Diary" on the property panel to prepare for recording, and Li Cha decided to use the control variable method to overcome this difficulty.

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January 1492, 11

After simply experimenting with the mixing ratio of several alloys, I combined the core iron, skin iron, and blade iron for the first time today, and started to create the shape.

In the end, because of too much force, the leather iron was smashed through by me, shit!

January 1492, 11

This time I tapped and stretched carefully, but because I didn't grasp the scale well, the blade was made too wide by me.

Come again!

January 1492, 11

This time I knocked out a suitable shape, but because I didn't deal with it at the beginning, the flexible core iron at the tip of the knife was finally exposed.

Next time I should backcut a triangle first so that the tip is made of tough leather iron.

January 1492, 11

The shape of the knife is roughly completed, but it failed because the temperature was not well controlled when the blade was covered with soil and fired.

Come again!

January 1492, 11

This time, the burning time of the blade was not controlled properly, and it was over-burned!
Come again!

January 1492, 11

It's still not right. After quenching, the curved arc of the blade is too large, which is not the same as the effect I want.

Where is the problem? ? ?
January 1493, 2

After a lot of hard work, I finally forged a knife, but when I tried it, it broke when I cut it!

Pretty! ! !
January 1493, 2

After adjusting the ratio of skin iron and core iron, it is necessary to re-test the timing of burning the blade.

I'm sorry! ! !

January 1493, 5

There is no forged sword today, because someone asked me to make a harpoon today.I wanted to refuse at first, but I thought it would be good to hit a few harpoons to change my mood.

Also, I should refine some more ore tomorrow.

January 1493, 9

After trying and scrapping nine knives, I finally made a barely qualified knife.But I found that I have grown taller now, and the size I set before is no longer suitable o(╥﹏╥)o
How silly of me, really!I knew it would be difficult to make a sword by myself, but I didn't expect it to be so difficult! !

Wouldn't it be better to buy ready-made ones?I actually thought about making my own.

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January 1495, 2

Inside the blacksmith shop, the fire was raging. Li Cha was topless and was swinging the hammer continuously. Every hammer fell on the red sword embryo with precision, and sparks flew everywhere.

From the enthusiasm at the beginning, to the madness at the end, and finally - he will not give up until he reaches his goal, Li Cha has now entered that crazy state again.

It has been three years since I came to this world. At this time, the sea is raging, and Li Cha is on Hongmu Island, addicted to blacksmithing, unable to extricate himself...
(End of this chapter)