Primitives are stunned

Chapter 218 Tree Wax and Wax Modeling

Seeing the tin ore in the furnace melting so fast, Wang Hao suddenly thought that the melting point of tin is much lower than that of copper.

Because of manpower, only one stove can be turned on at a time in the village.

So Wang Hao thought, if we practice tin mines first, preheat the furnace by the way, and then practice copper mines, wouldn't it be a great saving of time and materials.

Thinking of this, Wang Hao took the charcoal pencil in Wang Long's hand and wrote it down emphatically.

No kind of success is easy, and the same is true of copper smelting.Although Wang Hao understood the principle, it was the first time to do it.Therefore, bumps and bumps during the period are naturally normal.

What Wang Hao and the others need to do is to write down the problems encountered on the way one by one, and then find a way to deal with them, leaving a wider and smoother road for future generations.

The next day, it was another sunny day.

Last night, after a day of hard work, Wang Hao and the others finally extracted the tin ore.

It was supposed to smelt copper and tin overnight in a hot furnace to make alloy copper, but because Wang Hao didn't expect to extract copper and tin so quickly, he didn't have the tools for pouring.

Wang Hao knows that there have been several mature pouring methods on the earth a long time ago, but the one Wang Hao knows best about is the lost wax method.

Of course, all of this stems from his help in a small workshop at a friend's house that specializes in making sword handles during his college years.

When it comes to the lost wax method, one has to say that the pre-technology of this method is wax.

This kind of wax, whether it is paraffin wax extracted from petroleum, animal wax secreted from insects and bees, or vegetable wax extracted from plants and oils, can be used.

It's just that Wangcun currently doesn't have any of these front-end technologies.

Although Wang Hao currently has a way to extract biological wax from animal fat, but that process is too cumbersome and takes a lot of time, so Wang Hao abandoned it.

But it is not impossible.The Great Wilderness is a magical place, with too many animals and plants that do not exist on the earth.

In the Great Wilderness, if your tribe asked you to collect some resin today, but he did not specify what kind of resin to collect, then you are absolutely right to collect the resin secreted by the wax tree.

The wax tree is a very common tree in the wilderness. Its shape and leaves are somewhat similar to the locust tree on the earth, but the bark is smoother and the leaves are larger.

True to its name, the wax tree is a tree that produces plant wax, and the liquid it secretes will solidify into wax within a few days when exposed to air.

The resin of the wax tree not only burns, but like paraffin, it melts with heat and is very suitable for carving.

There are many ways to collect wax resin, except for those that are naturally secreted, Wang Hao and the others chose the simplest method.

Before breakfast, Wang Hao took his tribe into the Black Forest.

On the outskirts of the Black Forest, the small trees had been uprooted by the giant, leaving only those towering ancient trees that even the giant could not shake.

The creatures in this area, ranging from fierce tigers and beasts to small rabbits and poisonous snakes, have been frightened by the power of giant demolition during this period, and have already moved collectively to the interior of the Black Forest.

Compared with those giant trees that are hundreds of meters high, the wax trees are not very tall. Even the wax trees that have grown for hundreds of years are only 40 meters high.

But its trunk, which needs to be embraced by several people, is like a horned dragon, even if it is a giant, it cannot be easily shaken.

Thickness can only indicate the number of years it has grown, but it cannot change its density.

The ten centimeter long hollow bamboo tube, which is as thick as a little finger, was still easily inserted by Wang Hao into the bark at the root of the wax tree.

From the downward-sloping bamboo tube, a drop of bluish-white resin soon seeped out, condensed into a ball, and then dripped into the clay pot placed below.

A clansman imitated Wang Hao's method, and then said to Wang Hao with bright eyes: "Hao, this method is great. In the past, we could only climb up trees to find the resin. Congealed, now, we can draw directly from the tree, and we don't have to work hard to climb the tree."

Wang Hao smiled, but did not speak.These seemingly simple things, if no one takes the lead, often take a long, long time to be discovered and then spread.

If it is a small tree, these dozens of bamboo tubes that extract energy from it may seriously damage its vitality, but for this ancient tree, there is no such worry at all.

Along the bamboo tube, the blue-white resin embarked on a path they had never experienced before, and then at the end of the bamboo tube, it condensed into a ball and dripped into the clay pot.

When Wang Hao and the others came again, a thin layer of liquid resin had already been collected under each clay pot.

These resins were evenly mixed together, and finally, five altars of resins were collected.

If such a liquid resin reacts normally, it will take about three days to condense into tree wax.But for this, Wang Hao has his own way.

Add a small amount of water to the resin, then stir evenly, and put it on the fire to bake.

It's all done when the jar stops bubbling and the resin turns into a slightly cloudy liquid like egg whites.

If the resin is a bit too hot, submerge it in water and let it cool down quickly.

When it solidifies, it will not dissolve in water.

After the tree wax has solidified, it is time to carve the tree wax into the shape of the cast item you want.

But facing this step, Wang Hao scratched his head a little.

When he was in school, Wang Hao was good at art, but he couldn't pass the carving alone.

Maybe he wanted to carve a fierce tiger in his heart, but the result would definitely be a sick cat.

Due to the characteristics of the lost wax method and the insufficiency of existing tools, it is difficult to make something that is too fine with the current technology.

After much deliberation, Wang Hao finally decided that this batch of smelted bronze would be used to make farm tools.

Like shovels, Wang Hao can't make things that require high craftsmanship and the plane is too thin, but simple things like hoes, hammers, and axes are still no problem.

Each altar of wood wax was cut into four parts and distributed to four clansmen for carving.It's up to them to choose what they want to carve.

This kind of behavior is undoubtedly very wasteful, and there will be a lot of waste, which needs to be heated and solidified again.The improved method Wang Hao decided to explore slowly in the future. What he wants now is to be able to see the finished product soon.

In the end, a bunch of wax tools with different styles, rough shapes, and exaggerated appearance appeared in the hands of Wang Hao and the others.

He picked out some of the wax sculptures whose shape could not be seen at all, and were useless even if they were poured, and melted them. The rest were immersed in plaster water by Wang Hao.

The gypsum stones on the Great Wilderness are the same as those on the earth, they are all things that can be seen everywhere.On the mountain opposite the big river, if you want, you can move back a car at any time.

Grind it into powder, then dissolve it in water, stir well, and it becomes a white viscous liquid like soybean milk.

Various tools made of tree wax, after being soaked in, were taken out, and the surface was covered with a layer of sticky gypsum powder.

This is not over yet, after taking out the tree wax tool, Wang Hao sprinkled gypsum powder on it again.

Because of the presence of water, the gypsum becomes sticky and sticks to it and cannot come down.

In the end, each tool carved from wood wax was covered with thick plaster powder until it formed a plaster ball whose original shape could not be seen.

By the time all this is done, it's almost time for lunch.

Put these slightly damp gypsum balls on bluestone slabs and expose them to the sun. Wang Hao believes that these gypsum balls can be dried in the middle of noon.

Last night, because the materials were not prepared in advance, the stove was turned off.Since it was going to be poured at night, it was natural to start the furnace in advance to heat up the furnace. If the furnace was started after the gypsum balls were completely dry, who knew when the copper ingots would be melted away.

(End of this chapter)