I am an industrial worker during the War of Resistance

Chapter 22 Semi-automatic Bullet Production Line
"Old He, you're awake." Chen Changzai said with a smile to Political Commissar He, who had just opened his eyes.

Political Commissar He looked at Chen Changzai with some confusion, his mind still completely blank.

It took him a long time to realize what was happening.

He said, "How did I fall asleep here? Weren't we talking about building a steel plant?"

"Old He, you're too tired. You fell asleep while we were talking."

You can't do that again.

Do you know how scared your sister-in-law was by what you just did?

We still have to live to see the day of victory.

Work is important, but you also need to take care of your health.

At this moment, Political Commissar He's mind finally came to life.

After hearing Chen Changzai's words, he laughed and said, "You're criticizing me, aren't you the same?"

Wang Ling told me that the light in your room never goes out before midnight.

"Hahaha, Lao He, I'm younger than you, you're old. Hahaha."

"Hmph, bullshit, I'm only eleven years older than you, in the prime of my life, old my ass, you're the one who's old."

Hey, do you have anything to eat?

I feel hungry.

"I slept so soundly, and I even got hungry! Seriously."

"Yes, yes, yes, the porridge your sister-in-law made for you is on the stove, I'll go get it for you."

"Where are your sister-in-law and Wang Ling? Why aren't they here?"

"I sent them to sleep; it's already past midnight."

"Oh, I slept for so long, I didn't wake up until the middle of the night."

"What do you mean, 'sleep until midnight'? You slept for a whole day and two nights."

So you really need to get more rest in the future; you really can't keep going like this."

As they were talking, Chen Changzai went to the stove in the outer room, brought in an earthenware pot that was being kept warm on the stove, and placed it on the kang table.

Then he went out and brought back a spoon, a bowl, and a dish of salted radish mixed with chili oil.

Oil is an extremely precious commodity at this time of year, and salted radish mixed with chili oil is an excellent accompaniment to rice.

Then Chen Changzai rinsed the towel hanging on the rack in the warm water in the washbasin that was being kept warm on the heated wall, and handed it to Political Commissar He.

"Wash your face and cheer yourself up. Your sister-in-law put two boiled eggs in the millet porridge she made for you."

You should take good care of yourself.

While Political Commissar He was wiping his face, Chen Changzai ladled out the dry millet porridge from the earthenware pot.

The fragrant millet porridge was topped with a thick layer of rice oil.

Two peeled boiled eggs, snow-white and looking very tempting.

Political Commissar He, who was sitting cross-legged at the kang table, said, "Changzai, have a bite too. I can't finish these two eggs. Let's each have one."

"I've already eaten, you should eat quickly, I can't afford to go hungry."

Eat quickly, eat first, then take a nap. I still have some drawings to finish.

"I'm done drawing, so I need to go to sleep."

Political Commissar He saw that Chen Changzai sat down at his workbench after speaking and continued drawing blueprints without saying anything more.

We're all men, we all know what to do and when, there's no need to be overly polite.

So he simply used his only arm to hold a spoon and silently sip his millet porridge.

The blueprints that Chen Changzai is currently drawing are for a small-scale mechanical bullet production line.

A few days ago, Director Liu from the ammunition factory approached him and asked if he could help improve their punch press.

Now, thanks to the steam engine, their punch presses can stamp bullet casings.

But that punch press was actually made locally; it's an old machine from the late Qing Dynasty. Calling it cumbersome is an understatement.

It was unusually heavy.

But those were also two of the ammunition factory's most prized possessions.

After looking at the two punch presses, Chen Changzai said directly to Director Liu, "I'll redesign a new semi-automatic bullet production line for you."

There's no need to improve this old thing.

But you'll have to wait two days. I'll get it done for you once I've finished what I'm doing."

After hearing Chen Changzai's guarantee, Director Liu was so happy that his mouth stretched from ear to ear.

So after Chen Changzai finished all the blueprints for the steel plant.

Then they started drawing up the blueprints for this production line.

Making a bullet is actually very complex.

Manufacturing bullet casings alone is not something that can be done simply by having a punch press.

For example, in Lao Liu's ammunition factory, if they want to stamp cartridge cases, they need to constantly change the molds on those two outdated stamping presses.

Only then could they barely manage to stamp out bullet casings. But the production volume and the yield rate were so low that it was truly appalling.

Even so, this is still very valuable to the military.

To create a perfect bullet.

Its process is as follows.

First, use a stamping machine to stamp out a small round piece from a thin steel plate or copper plate.

Then, on another stamping machine, this small round piece is stamped into a small cup shape.

After that, it has to go through three more stamping and stretching processes to turn this small round piece into the prototype of a bullet casing.

Finally, the bottom of the cartridge case needs to be stamped to create the primer groove, flash hole, and bottom flange.

At this point, the internal metal structure of the bullet casing has changed due to repeated stretching and stamping.

Therefore, at this point, the cartridge case needs to be annealed.

After processing, the bullet casings need to be reshaped on a small lathe to make them all the same size.

Afterwards, the extraction groove on the bottom edge of the cartridge case needs to be finely finished on a lathe.

Finally, the process involves cleaning and polishing again, followed by copper plating and polishing.

The next step is to install the primer and load the propellant.

The final step is to seal the bullet armor, which is formed by stamping steel strips, into a lead core and then stamp it into shape.

After being plated with copper, it is inserted into a cartridge case and then stamped and locked.

Only then is a bullet officially formed.

Therefore, manufacturing a bullet is not a simple matter.

The industrialization and mass production of bullets is particularly complex and requires a large amount of machinery.

In fact, Chen Changzai had long wanted to design a bullet production line.

It's just that the conditions really didn't allow it before.

Without machine tools, it is extremely difficult to manufacture a qualified punch press.

Even if it is manufactured, its working efficiency is not high.

That's why Chen Changzai put all his energy into manufacturing machine tools from the very beginning.

Once the first machine tool is produced, its main task is to replicate it.

The first machine tool was an industrial mother machine.

It is through continuous self-replication and constant improvement in precision that it is able to produce more machine tools.

These machine tools are the foundation for producing industrial products.

It is also one of the foundations of industry.

Now, the arsenal has successfully developed the clutch disc.

Therefore, the power transfer case designed by Chen Changzai could be put into use.

Because there were no clutch plates before, a sliding sleeve was the only option for rigid power connection.
In that case, one steam engine could only power one machine tool.

Otherwise, several machine tools would share a single power source.

Because their working speeds and progress are different, cutting off power is very troublesome and will also affect each other.

Although Chen Changzai reduced the size of the steam engine and used a smaller steam engine to drive the machine tool.

But this is also very uneconomical.

However, after the addition of clutch plates.

The clutch of each machine tool will not affect the power source or other machine tools when disengaging power.

In this way, a single steam engine can drive several machine tools through a transfer case.

In this way, not only is the economy improved, but work efficiency is also greatly improved.

For Chen Changzai now, the production line he designed is incomparable to the fully automated production lines of later generations.

However, in this era, it can be considered quite outstanding.

Of course, compared to those established industrial empires today.

The line designed by Chen Changzai can only be considered a technological king in a remote mountain village.

But at least we've gotten started.

Designing such a line was not too difficult for Chen Changzai.

After all, when he was transferred from the explosives factory to the arsenal in his previous life, the first thing he did was deal with bullets.

These things are very simple for him.

　Thank you to all my friends who have supported me.

　　Thank you for your collections, tips, monthly tickets, and recommendations. I think that as long as I write carefully, I should be able to continue writing this book.

　　Thank you again to all my friends.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)