Chapter 375 Four Treasures of the Study (Please vote and subscribe)
After a short preparation, Youye selected two team members to go into the cave with him again, and the rest of the people stayed outside to defend the camp. They didn't even need to go out hunting. The horse meat and wolf meat alone were enough for the whole team to eat for a while. If it didn't work, there were giant eagles to help them hunt, so the group didn't bring any dry food at all.
Youye and his three companions were also lightly equipped, all with long swords and military shovels, one with a short bow and arrows, and the other two with makeshift short spears. In addition to a large number of makeshift torches, two animal skin bags, and a small amount of barbecued meat and water, the three began to move deeper into the cave.
In Hanyang City, far to the south, the members of the expedition team were still preparing the supplies they needed to bring back. Of course, during this period of preparation, they could also continue to learn more about the Han tribe.
Luo Chong also sent a letter to the Rat Master of Xincheng in the morning, ordering him to dispatch soldiers of two small flags back to Hanyang City. He had another task for them. These two small flags, together with the two small flags that went to dig graphite mines before, just happened to be temporarily organized into a general flag. They will be divided into two teams and sent to the two alliances to perform tasks until next winter.
After the arrangements were made, in addition to waiting for news from Youye, Luo Chong still had a lot of things to do. The construction of the teaching building was still in full swing, and Luo Chong didn't need to take care of it, but he had to arrange the paper for pasting windows and making pens himself.
The first batch of more than a thousand sheets of paper could not paste the windows of a few families, but Luo Chong, the leader, was naturally the first to enjoy it.
Luo Chong arranged for people to brush all the paper with tung oil, and brushed it repeatedly several times, and then fully dried it, and finally used it to paste the windows. This process took two or three days. Luo Chong didn't have time to focus on such trivial matters. He had other things to do, such as making pencils, brushes, ink sticks, inkstones, and clay seals.
According to Luo Chong's plan, he would make a batch of wolf hair calligraphy for the time being. The wolf hair can be directly plucked from the wolf skin, and the pen holder can be made of a cut arrow shaft, that is, the spike of the man-eating tree. He would let the tribesmen prepare it first, and then Luo Chong would guide them to make it.
Another thing is to make ink sticks in batches. This time is a little different from the previous temporary ones. If you want more materials to make ink sticks, of course you need to build a kiln for burning pine smoke.
This kiln does not need to be complicated. It only needs a simple combustion chamber and a long chimney. And this chimney cannot be too small. It must be large enough for one person to walk.
As long as a large amount of pine wood is piled into the combustion chamber and ignited, and the pine smoke is discharged along the chimney, the oily soot in the pine smoke will adhere to the chimney wall, and only green smoke will be left from the vent.
If you follow this process several times, you can scrape off the thick ash from the chimney, or even use a shovel to shovel it directly. Finally, collect the ash, mix it with glue made from deer antlers or antelope horns to make mud-like ink mud, put it into a wooden mold and press it into a long square ingot, and finally dry it.
When it is time to use it, just add a small amount of water to the inkstone, then grind the ink stick in it to dissolve it, so you can get black ink, just like the story that Wang Xizhi used up 18 jars of water to practice calligraphy, which is actually the water used to mix ink.
As for the inkstone, in order to popularize education, it is naturally impossible to use luxurious materials and craftsmanship. Luo Chong is going to let the lame man do it, and directly use clay to burn a batch of coarse pottery inkstones. The materials are cheap and the production is simple. The cost is about the same as that of a brick, and ordinary people can afford it.
Compared with these, pencil production is the most troublesome, but it is not possible without it. Drawing with pencils is not something that can be replaced by brushes, so it must be made no matter how difficult it is.
The first thing is to crush the graphite and clay, and then grind them into powder. This can be solved with a hammer and a grinding disc. After that, the two powders are mixed with water in proportion, kneaded into a mud ball, and then squeezed into the shape of a pen core. For this, Luo Chong has to make an extruder first.
Of course, this is not that difficult. In fact, its principle is the same as making noodle rolls. Make a cylinder, install a die with a small hole on the head, and then put the dough in. Use a wooden hammer or other things to squeeze the dough out from the other end. Finally, the thin noodles are squeezed out from the small hole of the die. Here, the dough is just replaced with graphite mud. Even if you really use a tool for making noodle rolls, it can be used in theory.
The barrel and die are easy to handle. Considering the thickness of the pencil lead and the mechanical precision, it is enough to cast a bronze one directly using the lost wax method. The rest of the frame and extrusion device can be made of wood. Fix the barrel vertically, add a lever hammer on it, and operate it manually.
The next step is to cut the extruded "noodles" into the length of a pencil, about 18 cm, and then dry it. Finally, put it into the kiln to harden it, and the pencil lead is completed.
In theory, such a lead can be used for writing, but it is easy to break and it is easy to dirty your hands, so you have to add a wooden shell.
This is not very difficult. Take a pencil with a diameter of one centimeter as an example. First, saw the wood into thin slices of about five millimeters, ten centimeters wide, and the same length as the pencil. Then use a special planer to cut a row of ten semicircular grooves on the wooden board for use. The diameter of the groove is half of the pencil lead.
When assembling, place the burnt pencil lead into the groove of the wooden board, apply a layer of glue, and then buckle another slotted wooden board on it, and finally press it with a heavy object so that the two wooden boards firmly clamp the pencil lead.
After drying, use a 'V'-shaped planer to slot from both sides of the wooden board until the entire board is cut through. In this way, with the four slotted sides and the two upper and lower planes of the wooden board, ten regular hexagonal pencils can be cut out at one time.
As for the two types of slotted planers, large and small, they are made directly from iron sheets. Its principle can also be found in real life. Well, it is similar to the thing used to shred potatoes at home, but it is not used to shred potatoes, but to rub wooden boards.
Such pencils have been processed and can be used directly. If you want to make them beautiful, you can also paint them with a layer of colored paint or print a few words on them, but Luo Chong thinks it is unnecessary. First of all, the original wood-colored pencils are also very beautiful. In addition, it is a bit wasteful to spend manpower and material resources to decorate pencils. There is no need to do this.
The last thing to do is the clay seal mentioned earlier. Of course, this is a bit incorrect. Another name might be "movable type printing".
(End of this chapter)
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