My system is not decent

Chapter 1801 Inheritance of ancient methods, production of copper mirrors

Song and Jin letter mirrors are rough in copper, with fuzzy decorations and rough lines, making them appear dull. Ming and Qing imitation mirrors are far less refined than Tang mirrors, and not as good as Song mirrors.

This time, Chen Wenzhe really saw all kinds of ancient bronze mirrors for bottle necks. In addition to the sea animal grape mirror, there is also a "Luo Jia Zuo mirror" pattern with a mythical animal mirror.

This kind of mirror has a diameter of 23.5 centimeters and a weight of 1694 grams. The real transaction price is 828 million.

There is also the "Huainan Qizhao" mythical animal mirror with a diameter of 25 centimeters and a transaction price of 563 million.

At a lower price, there is a double parrot mirror with a diameter of 30.6mm, a thickness of 0.8mm, a weight of 3643g, and a transaction price of 506 million.

Bronze mirrors like this worth several million have not been uncommon in recent years.

Some of these masterpieces are also hidden in museums.

In fact, many good things, whether domestic or foreign, are mostly hidden in museums, and not many are hidden in private hands.

Because at any time, private power is not as powerful as the state.

Of course, what Chen Wenzhe is talking about this time is definitely not the imitations in the fake village, but the real treasures.

Now Chen Wenzhe has seen a lot of bronze mirrors, but if he wants to restore all kinds of bronze mirrors, he still needs to learn from some museums.

For example, the EZ Museum in Beihu not only collects, but also studies the restoration and imitation of bronze mirrors.

Now, on the first floor of the exhibition hall of Beihu EZ City Museum, there are bronze mirror gifts with several patterns and structures neatly placed on the gift racks.

These mirrors include lifelike dragons, tigers and unicorns, dancing phoenixes and vermilion birds, vivid magical beasts, and graceful flowers and plants...

Its size, shape, radius of curvature, and manufacturing process look very exquisite.

EZ, known as the "Hometown of Bronze Mirrors", was one of the "Four National Centers for Bronze Mirror Casting" that was as famous as Yangluo, Shaoxing (ancient Kuaiji) and Xucheng in ancient times.

In addition to the bronze mirrors collected by the people, the EZ Museum alone has more than 3000 mirrors, covering various dynasties from the Warring States Period to the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

In 1995, EZ established the Institute of Restoration and Copying of Museum Cultural Relics to carry out research on casting techniques of ancient bronze mirrors, bronze pots, tripods, and statues, and further improve the production process of bronze mirrors.

They used unearthed artifacts before the Tang Dynasty as templates, and conducted research and experiments based on ancient documents.

The bronze mirror is a faulty craft, which can be explored repeatedly after years of experiments. Many staff members in this museum have gradually learned how to make it.

Of course, this process is not easy, because the production of a bronze mirror requires mastering 18 processes of bronze fan casting.

Including mold making, clay mold modeling, clay mold roasting, alloy preparation, melting and casting, post-casting processing, light transmission, etc.

That's it, they successively restored and copied more than 600 varieties of bronze mirrors.

The ancient method of casting mirrors is called "fan casting method".

In this method, a model is first made of clay, and various patterns or characters are carved on the back of the mirror.

After it dries in the shade, it is fired into a master mold, and then the clay model is turned over from the master mold, which is also dried in the shade and fired, and then the alloy is melted and cast into the model mold to form a device.

Because of the hot weather, the copper raw material will be deformed uncontrollably in the model.

Therefore, craftsmen generally cast bronze mirrors in the cold season and make processed blanks in summer.

Even in the cold winter, the chance of successfully producing an intact bronze mirror is only 60%.

Today's bronze mirrors are made by combining ancient bronze mirror casting techniques with modern technology.

Generally, it is 1:1, which restores the ancient technique and raw material ratio.

Taking the bronze mirrors from the Warring States period to the Tang Dynasty unearthed in EZ as the model, it was made through [-] processes including mirror casting, casting, scraping, grinding, polishing, and consecration (with tin amalgam).

Sometimes heat treatment is performed before and after raw scraping.

Among them, every step is handmade, from loess processing to raw material ratio, every detail is inherited from ancient methods.

Of course, there are also innovations in inheriting ancient methods.

The modern production of bronze mirrors is made of modern refractory brick kilns, the fire inlet is set at the upper part of the kiln, and the fire outlet is left at the bottom of the kiln.

The blower is used to force the flame to "go up and down" in the kiln.

The utensils fired in this way can be completely dehydrated without burning out.

This unique design is named as the draft downdraft kiln and has been granted a national patent.

It's a pity that the technology that the predecessors worked hard to re-research from generation to generation has become a problem for inheritance.

Therefore, many old craftsmen in modern times are trying to find successors.

This is not to say that no one is willing to learn these crafts, but that those who want to learn can't, and those who don't want to learn work hard to let them learn.

The goal of many veteran craftsmen today is to find and train the next generation of inheritors.

Among these people's thoughts, the first thing that comes to mind is definitely wanting to pass on the craftsmanship to their sons.

It's a pity that many good craftsmen are rich.

Such a family, can their children and grandchildren suffer that much?
Therefore, many families will not pass on the skills of their parents because they are not very interested.

For young people, any handicraft work is hard work and requires many years of patience and experience.

But if there is no love from the heart, it is difficult to persevere.

As far as Chen Wenzhe is concerned, he dare not say that his descendants will be willing to inherit his skills in the future.

Besides, there are too many top-level inheritances that he has collected now, so if his future descendants are willing to learn, how much can they learn?

Therefore, he now has an idea to set up a handicraft school specially to recruit interested students and train them specially. This can be regarded as making some contribution to the inheritance of the country's top handicrafts, right?

Of course, it's still too early to say this, at least he needs to get some inheritance.

And if you want to learn the top inheritance, you must take a look at the top handicrafts.

It's like a bronze mirror, but not all that was said before.

Like some famous bronze mirrors, there are quite a few found in China.

The more famous one, and what Chen Wenzhe still knows is a bronze mirror unearthed from the "consort's tomb".

In this son-in-law's tomb, not only the emperor was buried, but also a mirror was found, which was also something in the "Forbidden to Go Abroad" exhibition.

When it comes to "Spring and Autumn and Warring States", many friends know that it was an era full of wars, and there were constant disputes among the princes.

At the same time, a number of powerful vassal states emerged, among which "Qi" is the representative of the strong;
Some friends may ask, how strong was the Qi State more than 2000 years ago?

There are naturally many answers to this question, but if archaeological experts are asked to answer, it is mainly reflected in a "mirror";

And this "mirror" is by far the largest bronze mirror in the world.

Therefore, this mirror not only demonstrates the "advanced" skills of the ancients, but it is also listed as a national treasure-level cultural relic that is "prohibited from going abroad (border) for exhibition".

(End of this chapter)