The rise of the prince

Chapter 550 Blowing Process
The nice dark red gummies didn't last long.

Because the ceramic crucible that could not withstand the high temperature had cracks, Li Xingzhou keenly felt that the heat resistance of the container was not good enough, and the temperature could not keep up.

Sure enough, after a while, the jelly began to solidify, Zhu Rong hurried to add fire, but Zhou Li shook her head: "It's too late, it's too late, but it's okay, I'm used to it."

She said that she used tongs to clamp the small ceramic stove out, put it outside for a while, and then it shattered on the ground with a light tap, the ceramic pieces scattered, and the things inside fell out.

Everyone was taken aback. It was a thick lump, translucent like a stone, gray crystals, reflecting sunlight, very beautiful.

"Liuli!" Zhu Rong said in surprise.

Zhou Li nodded, and then said: "Indeed, it's just a failure."

Then, she changed to a long clay pot, put fine sand and caustic soda powder into it again and fired it.

The second time was even more of a failure than the first time, because the temperature was not reached from the beginning to the end, and the sand did not even gel, but the ceramic pot cracked and shattered first.

Zhou Li seems to be used to it. She said: "Success or failure can only depend on God's blessing. When you are lucky, you can succeed once a day. If you are unlucky, you will not succeed once in a few days."

Li Xingzhou nodded, he understood why colored glaze was so expensive.

The reason for this result, his seventh grandma, attributed it to the fact that God wants to tell the world that everything is not easy and that success cannot be easily achieved.

However, Li Xingzhou knew that it was because the melting point of silicon was as high as [-] degrees, and the silicon in the sand did not exist in the form of pure substances, but silicon dioxide.

The melting point of silicon dioxide is as high as [-] degrees!

It is impossible to heat and melt it directly. Li Xingzhou guessed that the purpose of adding caustic soda is to lower the melting point of silicon dioxide, but at least it should be lower than [-] degrees, or even lower, otherwise it cannot be processed by heating with charcoal fire. It further verified his conjecture about the composition of "mouth alkali".

The refractory temperature of ceramics is generally around 1000 degrees, which may make the sand melt and gelatinize just now, or it may not be near the temperature.

Therefore, whether it can be achieved is very dependent on luck.

If you are lucky, the ceramic crucible can melt the mixture of sand and caustic soda before the crack is damaged. If you are unlucky, the ceramic crucible will be damaged first, and the ceramic crucible will be damaged first with a high probability.

Moreover, he saw that Zhou Li's clay-fired crucible was also very particular. The wall of the crucible was not thick, but very deep.

If it is too thick, it will not be easy to transfer heat, and it will be even more difficult to reach the temperature where the mixture of sand and caustic soda melts. If it is too thin, it will be more prone to cracks and damage accidents. Each of these crucibles has a similar thickness, and it should be the best after several generations of research. Good thickness.

The deep mouth can slow down the heat loss and make the bottom easier to heat up.

but
His palace actually has a better plan, that is graphite crucible.

The main high-tech thing used by Wangfu to refine tool steel is graphite crucible.

The molten steel of around [-] could not do anything to the graphite crucible, this kind of refractory material was also one of the cores of the Wangfu industry.

The high temperature resistance of about 600 degrees is far from the limit of graphite crucible, because the melting point of graphite itself is as high as [-] degrees, and molten iron, steel, and glass are nothing compared to it.

At present, the palace does not have such a small graphite crucible, and the crucible for steelmaking is about the height of a person, so it is not suitable for burning glass.

In the anticipation of everyone, the time passed slowly, and before it was four or five o'clock in the afternoon, Zhu Rong refueled the fire many times.

Although the wait was long, everyone was very curious, so no one left.

Finally, the fifth attempt succeeded. Before the ceramic crucible was cracked and damaged at high temperature, the mixture of sand and caustic soda had been burned into a dark red colloidal fluid. The rotation is wrapped around one end of the iron pipe.

The iron pipe is hollow, about 1.5 meters long, sealed at the top, and has a small hole on the side, with a small section of bamboo inserted, and the inside is hollow.

The sand and caustic red hot jelly-like substance were dark red, exuding scorching heat, and everyone avoided them one after another.

Prince Kang seemed to understand very well, took out a stack of thick linen towels, wringed them dry after getting wet in the pool next to it.

Over there, Zhou Li kept turning the iron pipe, and the red water drop jelly at one end also turned. She watched carefully without blinking, as if she was observing the color or something else, Li Xingzhou didn't know.

I just saw her observe for a while, and then immediately blew on the bamboo joint on the side of the iron pipe. The whole dark red high-temperature water drop jelly instantly expanded like a balloon, more than doubling from the size of a fist.

The onlookers were all stunned, not daring to vent their anger, for fear of disturbing Zhou Li.

A word flashed in Li Xingzhou's mind: glass blowing method!
He had only heard of it before, but he had never seen it before, but he did not expect to see it now.

The jelly after being released from the oven cools down quickly and slowly solidifies from the jelly, but it still glows dark red, indicating that the temperature is still high and the surface is still soft.

Prince Kang timely handed over a thick wet linen towel to his concubine, which seemed to have more than ten layers.

Zhou Li waited for a while, not knowing how she decided the timing, then she wet the sackcloth to hold the dark red glass, and then observed it like blowing up a balloon, while using the linen to restrict and change the shape of the glass.

The whole process is very fast and decisive, because the heat dissipation is fast, but the process is full of artistic beauty.

After about four or five minutes, the jelly was about to cool down, Zhou Li pulled out the iron pipe, and a glass bottle that was still glowing with heat was ready, showing a transparent light green as a whole.

Everyone opened their eyes and looked at the bottle carefully.

"This is a glassware worth thousands of gold!" Yan Shen said in disbelief.

Zhou Li nodded: "This time it's not very good, the raw materials are not melted enough, there are a lot of impurities, and the color is not that good, but I am very lucky, sometimes I can't succeed once in a few days."

Everyone excitedly ran around him, the seventh grandma, asking questions, after all, they had never seen such a thing before.

Li Xingzhou was full of emotions in his heart. He had heard of glass blowing, but it was very novel for the first time, and if this technology was in the palace, it would be like a fish in water and a tiger with wings added.

The biggest problem that restricts this craft is the heat resistance of the crucible. The reason why Grandma Seven said that when she is unlucky, she may only succeed once in a few days. Not a good price.

This is why Liuli is made of the two cheapest things, the sand by the river and the caustic soda used to wash clothes, but the products are more expensive than thousands of dollars.

Just because the success rate is too low.

But Li Xingzhou knew in his heart that this was nothing in the palace. If Grandma Seven's glass-making technology was combined with the technology of the palace, unexpected results would be produced.

That is cheap glass with high success rate and high purity!

The reason is very simple. One of the most confidential data in the palace is the ratio of the graphite crucible. The fine ratio is obtained through more than a year of continuous experimentation and improvement by Zhu Rong, Tieniu, Guan Zhong and others.

In the end, the data was collected, and he locked it in the iron cabinet under his bed. He had a key, and Shiyu had a key, and no one else knew about it.

As for the graphite crucible fired according to that ratio, even molten steel can't reach its fire resistance limit. Li Xingzhou estimates that it can reach more than [-] degrees!

Wang Fu can make large graphite crucibles for steelmaking, and naturally can make small crucibles for glass.

That is to say, for Zhou Li and other colored glaze master craftsmen, the technical problems that are impossible to break through are nothing in the palace, and what he needs is this craft, a complete glass blowing method.

Then combined with Wangfu's technology, cheap, transparent glass has no problems at all!
And he also has some ideas. When the glass is blown into a spherical shape, if it is cut from the top and spread into a flat container, maybe a block of glass can be produced.

Of course, now that there are so many people, it is not easy for him to say it on the spot.

After a lively afternoon, Zhou Li, who was surrounded by everyone, was very happy.

That night, after the sky darkened, the palace hosted Prince Kang's family.

. .
(End of this chapter)