Chapter 355 What kind of pen to make (please vote and subscribe)
The success of the oil paper surprised Shu Da and Da Shu. They originally thought that Luo Chong's words about being more transparent were only slightly better. They didn't expect that if the finished oil paper was placed on other objects at a close distance, they could clearly see the things underneath.
This kind of translucent thing is undoubtedly a magical tool for primitive people who have never seen any transparent objects. If Luo Chong finds the right material to make glass in the future, who knows what will surprise them.
The two were amazed for a while, and listened to Luo Chong's explanation of the production process of white paper. Then they went about their own business, and Luo Chong stayed in this small workshop and continued to watch the workers produce white paper.
The first batch of 600 sheets of paper were all dried, and in the end only more than 570 sheets were intact. The others became defective products because they peeled the paper too hard or did not brush it flat on the fire wall.
The appearance of defective products is inevitable. Although it is still a pity, this is the first time after all. Everyone has little experience. Luo Chong is actually very happy that he can make a usable finished product in one go.
The papermaking experiment was successful. The next few days are naturally overtime production. The small workshop is running at full capacity. It can produce more than 1,000 sheets a day. However, the doors and windows of the Han tribe are very large, and the amount of paper required is not small. A family needs dozens of oil paper. If you want to meet the renovation of all the doors and windows in Hanyang City, you still need a lot of things.
For several consecutive days, the papermaking workshop has been making paper non-stop, and Luo Chong does not have to work personally, so he is idle again, but there are so many things that he needs to arrange. It is impossible to do nothing, so he started to study other things.
Paper has been made now, and the current output is okay. At most one week, the output of the papermaking workshop is enough to paste the doors and windows of Hanyang City, but there are still a lot of raw materials collected this time, which naturally cannot be wasted, so it has to continue making.
That is to say, when he returns this time, Luo Chong will definitely be able to bring a batch of extra paper, and what will these papers be used for? Of course, writing.
Paper has already appeared, so how far can pens be? But what kind of pen should be promoted in the Han tribe, which stumped Luo Chong for a while.
There is no need to think about fountain pens, ballpoint pens, etc., which are too unrealistic. First of all, with the current production level of the Han tribe, there are three kinds of pens that can be made by themselves with raw materials, but which one to choose makes Luo Chong feel difficult.
European feather pens, classical Chinese brushes, pencils, Luo Chong now has the conditions to make them, but he must first consider the problems that may be encountered in the future.
First of all, papermaking is a handicraft industry. In the entire manufacturing process, only the part of pounding raw materials can be replaced by wind or water-powered automatic machines. The rest, whether it is boiling materials or papermaking, must be done manually.
In other words, with the current level of technology, no matter how much the production process is improved, the output of paper will not increase much, so the cost of produced paper is very expensive. If the tribe becomes privately owned, ordinary people may not be able to afford it.
Since ancient times, paper has been a luxury. Only those with affluent families can afford to go to school. Ordinary people who only rely on farming cannot afford to support one person to take the imperial examination.
Luo Chong is just the opposite. Because he wants to popularize education, he needs to use a lot of paper. However, the output of paper is small and the cost is so high. What should he do?
Luo Chong thought of a way to save money. On the same piece of paper, you can't write many big characters with a brush, but if you write smaller characters, you can write a lot of characters on a piece of paper. So Luo Chong ruled out the brush as the first choice. Then, if he continued to choose, the only ones suitable for writing small characters were feather pens and pencils.
But when it comes to feather pens, Luo Chong doesn't like them at all. Regardless of whether feather pens are from the East or the West, just looking at the production method and usage characteristics, there are not many materials for feather pens. The particularly large feathers are rare in the Han tribe, and even if there are any, they are used to make bows and arrows.
Another point to note is that feather pens are consumables. After writing some words, you need to use a knife to sharpen a new pen tip. This is a bit like a pencil. That is to say, if a pen is used to write a lot of characters every day, it will be scrapped in less than two days. The cost performance is very uneconomical.
Since the feather pen was rejected, the only thing left was the pencil. Although the pencil is also a consumable and the most troublesome to make among the three pens, Luo Chong must make it.
Since Luo Chong intends to popularize education, he must teach. Although it is not as varied as modern courses, the most basic Chinese and mathematics must be included. It is easy to use any pen for Chinese writing, but it is not appropriate to use a pen dipped in ink for mathematics, arithmetic and drawing. If you want to learn mathematics well, you must have a hard pen, especially for drawing. Without a pencil, it will be difficult to draw a drawing in the future.
As for the materials for making pencils, although the Han tribe does not have them now, Luo Chong knows where to get them.
The materials for making pencils are nothing more than three things, which are also very simple. The first is the wood outside. There are many trees on this mountain, so you can just cut them down. The second is the refill. Speaking of the refill, I must mention it here. Although the name of the pencil is pencil, it actually does not contain lead.
The modern pencil was invented in the United States. It was first invented in Britain and France. When the local shepherds were herding sheep, they accidentally picked up a black stone, that is, graphite. Graphite is a stone that is very soft and easy to fade. It can be used to draw some graffiti patterns and the like.
At that time, it was used by local shepherds. They used graphite to mark their sheep to distinguish them.
Later, some people began to cut graphite into sticks and use them as pens, but they usually got their hands dirty. However, this was not the prototype of modern pencils.
The modern pencil refills were made by Napoleon's inventors during the Napoleonic Wars, when imported graphite was monopolized by the enemy and France itself did not have much graphite reserves.
Because graphite mines were scarce and graphite was soft, this guy came up with an idea ingeniously, which was to grind graphite into powder, mix it with clay in proportion, add water and make black graphite mud, and then make the shape of a pen through a mold. It was still very thick at the time, and finally these black mud strips were put in a kiln and burned hard, which became the current pencil refills.
Later, after this method was spread to the United States, Americans added wooden shells to the pencils, which became the pencils we see today.
The ratio of graphite to clay is not fixed. Generally speaking, the more graphite there is, the softer the pen core is and the darker the line drawn is. The graphite content is generally represented by B in modern times. The more clay there is, the harder the pen core is and the lighter the line drawn is. The clay content is represented by H, which is the origin of HB, 2B, 2H, etc. that we see today.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
