Daming: The system rejected my request for salted fish

"Even if you use charcoal fire to slowly bake it, it will take at least a month for the clay mold to dry completely, and the finished product will take at least two months."

After hearing this, Wei Wu suddenly remembered that both the Ming and Qing dynasties used clay molds and a small amount of lost wax method to make cannons.

These two methods of casting cannons not only require time, but even the lost wax method has requirements for temperature.

To be honest, Wei Wu felt a little strange. With the wisdom of the ancients, they would not have thought of using iron molds to cast cannons. Why not use it?

Thinking of this, he simply asked directly.

"Why not use an iron mold to cast the cannon? One mold can cast multiple cannons, which not only saves costs but also saves a lot of time."

Hearing this, Yang Chao showed a bitter smile on his face.

"Sir Vice President, it's not that we don't use iron molds, but the barrels cast with iron molds are strong but too brittle."

"At first, it was fine, but after using the artillery for a while, the barrel would crack and explode, and there were many cases of the gun exploding."

As soon as Yang Chao finished speaking, Wei Wu immediately found the key point of the problem.

"When you cast the cannon using the iron mold, didn't you anneal it?"

"What is annealing? Is it quenching? If it is quenching, we have this process."

Hearing this, Wei Wu covered his forehead helplessly, not knowing what to say for a moment.

Annealing treatment is to reduce the hardness of the material, thereby improving the toughness and cutting performance of the material after forming.

Quenching treatment can increase the hardness of the material, but the toughness and plasticity will become much worse.

Not only did the craftsmen not anneal the gun, they also quenched it. No wonder the gun barrel exploded many times.

Because the heat dissipation effect of the iron mold is much better than that of the clay mold, the molten iron will condense too quickly when it cools.

Once the condensation is too fast, the molten iron solidifies into the so-called white cast iron, which is hard and brittle and not suitable for making gun barrels.

The iron mold dissipates heat quickly, and they use quenching to cool the barrel extremely quickly. It would be strange if it didn't explode.

After a while, Wei Wu recovered and sighed softly before continuing:

"Annealing is not quenching. Annealing is the process of continuing to heat the molten iron to keep it red hot after it solidifies into a shape."

"Maintain this state for about an hour, and then let the material slowly cool down to make it more resilient."

"And not only did you not anneal it, you quenched it instead. You know, although quenched iron is hard, hardness also means it's more brittle!"

Although Yang Chao was not a blacksmith, as a firearms craftsman, he was very familiar with the cannon casting process.

Now, after listening to what Wei Wu said, he finally understood that this was the problem with the iron mold cast cannon.

"Okay, go back to the ironworks and have them make the iron mold first, then anneal and cast the cannon according to the method I told you to."

"Time is running out. You must make me a falconet and a red cannon within five days. I need at least one of each."

"Remember, you must use a micrometer to accurately measure the dimensions of the barrel and sub-cannon to ensure airtightness for greater power."

There are many kinds of artillery that appeared in later generations, but Wei Wu chose the falconet and the red cannon.

The falconet is a breech-loading smoothbore cannon that was introduced to the Ming Dynasty from Portugal during the Jiajing period.

For the Ming officials at that time, this was simply their dream lover.

The falconet has four major advantages, the first of which is its fast rate of fire.

This type of artillery consists of a main gun and a sub-gun, with one main gun and three sub-guns.

When firing is required, you only need to load the sub-gun into the main gun, and then replace it with the second sub-gun after firing.

At the same time, when the third sub-gun is ready, the first sub-gun can start loading gunpowder and shells again.

It is very similar to the three-stage shooting method that appeared in later generations, where the gun is changed but the person is not.

The main gunner aimed, fired, and the two assistant gunners loaded the ammunition and handed it to the main gunner.