A nation's industrial development begins with junior engineers.

"Dogtooth! Hurry! Look who I've brought!"

In the welding workshop, Master Liu pushed open the small door of the break room and started shouting loudly.

"Hey! Engineer Jiang!"

Gouyazi was squatting on the ground fiddling with something when he heard this. He looked up and saw Jiang Xia smilingly appear in front of him. He was so excited that his head was practically steaming.

Two dark hands rubbed hard on his buttocks twice, then he picked up the large tea mug on the table with both hands.

"Master! You're back, have some water..."

After his master took the teacup, he picked up a clean cloth and wiped his water cup hard twice. Holding his cup, he looked at Jiang Xia somewhat awkwardly.

"Jiang... Engineer Jiang, I... I wanted to make you a cup of tea, but... but we're out of tea leaves." Gouyazi's face turned bright red, his eyes filled with embarrassment, and he awkwardly gripped the water cup, wishing he could disappear into the ground.

"Tsk, what's the big deal? Come on, fill it with hot water!" Jiang Xia had already noticed that Master Liu's teacup was empty.

Tea is becoming increasingly scarce. A while back, you could manage to snag a few ounces with tea coupons and toss them into a cup to fool your taste buds. Now, tea is harder to find than pork…

Sigh, the people of Beijing are really pitiful. It's already the 21st century, and they're only now solving their problems.

After Gouyazi mixed the water, Master Liu patted him on the shoulder.

"That screw you made! Quick, let Engineer Jiang give it some pointers!"

"Hey! Good! I just polished it again..." Gouyazi handed over a few screws with both hands.

It's just an ordinary screw. Although the maker claims he's polished it, the density is still problematic. One end is higher than the other, making the screw look like it's severely worn.

"My little apprentice always likes to tinker with things. This thing looks inconspicuous, but he's been working on it for a long time. Hey, but he didn't do it during work hours. He made it during his breaks, filing it piece by piece."

Looking at Jiangxia, Master Liu chimed in, praising his apprentice incessantly.

Jiang Xia took it, glanced at it briefly, and then reached out and traced the spiral pattern.

"Double thread? High and low teeth?"

Hey, what the hell is this? To be honest, Jiang Xia has dealt with a lot of self-tightening threads. Straight teeth, reverse teeth, staggered teeth. He's even handled those self-magnetic bolts that became popular in later years.

But I've never encountered this kind of overlapping high and low threads before.

When designing the machine tool, Jiang Xia did pay attention to these fasteners, but the overall industrial level was limited, and they couldn't replicate some of the classic models from later generations.

Therefore, the first thing that machine tool operators do when they hand over their shift is to take a wrench and check the looseness of all the connecting bolts.

Although there is no torque wrench, there is a lower-end alternative: the classic red paint pen!

Draw a vertical line between the two nuts, align the markings on the two nuts, and you're done. But even so, it still can't prevent some strong men from stripping the threads of the bolts.

If this structure works well, the machining difficulty isn't too high. It only requires a slight modification to the gear hobbing machine. Should we add a cutting tool, or perform machining in two stages?

Gouyazi looked at Jiang Xia in silence, feeling a little uneasy. Little did he know that the little brat was already thinking about the processing difficulty.

"Jiang, what do you think of this?"

"Have you done an on-machine test? How did it perform?"

"Hey, I have it! I moved it to the belt-driven lathe..."

"A belt-driven lathe? That old thing is probably used by apprentices now, the data range is too narrow. Oh well, I'll go check it out first!"

Jiang Xia picked up the water glass and tested the temperature. Hmm, it's about right.

After drinking a cup of hot water, I followed Gouyazi to check on the use of bolts on the belt-driven lathe.

"How long ago was this bolt replaced?"

"Not long, less than a week."

The bolt was marked with a vertical line using a paint pen.

"A week? That's quite impressive. Are you sure this bolt wasn't adjusted after the replacement?" Jiang Xia clicked his tongue, looking at the bolt that hadn't moved at all.

"Hehe, Engineer Jiang, that's absolutely impossible!" Master Liu patted his chest. "I'll vouch for it with my decades of service; the parts that were put in there have never been touched!"

Jiang Xia examined the somewhat ugly screw in his hand more closely, and the more he looked at it, the more sense it made.

"Can the direction of force be adjusted by using different gaps between the threads?"

"This thing seems a bit superfluous, but if it were used in other places..." Jiang Xia thought of the big black fish from the navy comrades' side...

There's something going on!

"Comrade Dogtooth, do you have any records of the thread arrangement order and pitch?"

"Huh? No...no. I just figured it out gradually. I carved a new screw, then put it in the hole to test how difficult it was to turn..."

Oh, exhaustive search, is that right?

Recalling his own experience of exhaustively searching for materials, the young man couldn't help but look at this young man with even greater admiration. His patience and dedication in refining the threads again and again were truly impressive.

"Want to do an experimental project? A proper one..." The little brat pulled out a project proposal and pointed to the format on it: "Can you read? Write it according to this."

"The application has been submitted. I'll submit it for you. The department's application might not be qualified, but the factory's will be fine!"

Before Gouyazi could react, Master Liu slapped his back with his big hand, "Quickly thank Engineer Jiang!"

……

Hey, this factory is really full of hidden talents; there's something new to discover every day.

Back in the office, the boy with the shaggy hair shook his head and sighed.

"No, we need to speed things up. If we don't improve, we'll fall behind!"

With sunglasses on, I'm the coolest kid in the office.

The little brat kept moving the mirrors and focusing lens at both ends of the resonant cavity: "Focus, come out quickly!"

Finally~

As the steel mill gates became bustling again, a thin red light emerged from the ruby ​​at the front of this rudimentary laser emitter.

Hahaha~!

The little brat dared not look directly at it, using the corner of his eye to examine the thin red line.

A few specks of dust, carried by the cold wind, nimbly drifted into the world of lasers, like mischievous sprites.

As dust particles approached the laser, the previously dim laser path was instantly illuminated, resembling a dazzling galaxy flowing through the room. Each dust particle, upon passing through the laser, seemed to be imbued with life, flashing with brilliant light like a fleeting shooting star in the night sky.

The red line pierced through the window glass and went straight out.

The workers rushing to their early shifts were also drawn to this thin red line.

When the first coworker looked up and exclaimed in surprise, everyone else looked up as well, like chickens and ducks whose necks had been seized by fate, only able to open their mouths wide and let out a muffled "Ah?" from deep in their throats.

A moment later, the red line disappeared.

The discussion among the people then grew louder.

"what is this?"

"I saw it clearly! It came from Jiang Xia's office!"

"Quick! Go and find out what it is!"