Xie Fu's method of casting is not profound and mysterious.

The breakthrough is that using steam engines and steel molds can be stamped out copper molds in large quantities and at low cost.

I heard that a Foshan blacksmith was appointed as the deputy supervisor of the Ministry of Works Casting Factory. The official figure casting craftsmen could no longer sit still. Zhang Shunmin, the doctor of the Ministry of Works, was anxious and asked to meet the saint. 3

"Why, you have also invented a new style of casting?" Zhao Han asked with a smile.

Zhang Shunmin replied: "Your Majesty, the official craftsman of the Ministry of Works, did invent a new style of casting." Zhao Han was quite surprised and asked: "What method?"

Zhang Shunmin replied: "The original lead movable type, copper movable type, and copper lead-tin alloy movable type in the Ming Dynasty were not as good as the European lead alloy movable type formula. After the comprehensive use of European lead movable type, the Ministry of Industry has been improving the casting method based on the characteristics of this alloy. Now it has achieved results, called the "Casting Furnace", which can cast fifty or sixty movable types per hour."

"good!"

Zhao Han slapped his thigh and praised it.

Xie Fu improved the mold making technology, while the Works Department improved the word casting technology, and the two technologies can be perfectly matched.

Zhang Shunmin continued: "Your Majesty, the reason why the invention of the word casting furnace has not been reported is that it can continue to be improved. The current invention is a hand-painting furnace, and the Ministry of Works is improving it to a foot-pressing or hand-cranking furnace. Once the improvement is successful, the casting efficiency of movable type can be increased by at least several times, or even dozens of times!"

"Is the improvement work complicated?" Zhao Han asked.

Zhang Shunmin sorted out his words: "It's not complicated, but it's not simple. I occasionally ask the bachelor's degree in the Physics Museum of the Imperial Academy. After all, Xiao Zhi's structure of the Tianshou was designed."

The casting technology of movable type must be completely changed and improved. At every large period of time, one or four hundred characters cannot be cast. The thing used by Tianshou in the late Qing Dynasty was not as low as the requirements for science and technology. Later, the introduction would be that there would be no fine font molds and lead alloy movable type formulas.

The upgraded version of the technology that has not yet been upgraded, namely the "Thomson Automatic Casting Furnace", has been used since the early years of the Republic of China to the New China. 15,000 Chinese movable characters cannot be cast every day! It is not less than 600 pieces per large time. It seems that the efficiency has been reduced, but it can be used directly before casting characters, which is a must-cast character worker to recuperate and polish it in advance.

Xie Fu said: "The casting furnace has been renovated and retired, and the relevant people are highly rewarded!"

Official inventions are the same as private inventions, and their patent rights are automatically owned by the unit. Qi 6_

Zhao Han invented this method of casting, and in fact, the patent should belong to the Xie family factory. However, the Xie family did too much, but took away the patent and even occupied the right to sign the patent. That was to follow the "Xiaotong Patent Law". Even if there was no royal family, it would be said that it would be a decision to win or lose. 2_

Peng Haitian continued: "The Ministry of Works has not yet proposed it, so he used movable characters to make dead versions."

"Dead version?" Xie Fu didn't understand anything.

Peng Haitian said: "The engraved plate is repeatedly printed, and movable type cannot be disassembled at will. Can the engraving and movable type be taken from each other? The movable type is cumbersome, so it is disassembled before printing, and it will be retyped after the last printing. Therefore, the official craftsman of the Ministry of Works proposed the idea to type with movable type first, and then use the clay mold to make lead plates. The movable type can be removed and then used, which saves the number of movable type. The lead plate is used for printing, but cannot be saved after printing. When printing last time, it must be typed again, and you can directly take out the lead plate and print it again." 3

That is the real printing plate making!

Xie Fu asked: "Has it been invented?"

Zhao Kuangping said: "Two years later, no official craftsman proposed that idea, but there were not many problems in the specific research, and those problems are being solved step by step." The mud mold lead plate technology has only existed for seventy years in history. "Zi Linxi Daily" and "Shenbao" used that thing in the beginning.

But it has no small flaws:

First, the lead plate of the mud mold must be broken when casting, so the mud mold is stored in a method, which is a disposable consumable and can be cast repeatedly;

Seventh, although the lead plate cannot be preserved, it is brittle and easy to fold. It will be damaged if you pay attention to it during use or handling.

The method of replacing and replacing it with ordinary thick paper instead of clay molds, that is, paper-type lead plate.

A set of paper patterns cannot be cast repeatedly for more than ten times, and it is convenient for long-distance transportation. Before the Nanjing type printing, you only need to transport the paper patterns to Beijing, and you can cast the lead plates slowly and then print them. If you transport them to Xi'an, you can also print them slowly.

The printing of a book requires only a few dozen sets of paper shapes to meet the needs of all parts of the country, while the layout work only needs to be reversed once. You can also make a few fewer sets of paper shapes, and as long as they are kept properly, they can be used seventy years ago.

Zhao Han changed the character model and the Ministry of Industry changed the character casting furnace, and then followed it to develop the casting technology.

Eight techniques, perfect matching of Tianshou.

Generally, it is the technology of pouring and printing, which is an epoch-making revolution. The cost of printing books cannot be reduced to a limited height.

The research and development of mud mold lead plates should be difficult. However, the technical defects are too small, and it is known that it takes few years to degenerate into paper lead plates. In addition, it took seventy years for it to be used for it, and that time and space may be seventy years, and it is impossible for it to be less than one hundred years.

If Xie Fu wants to continue to degenerate into a copper-crystal version, if Xie Fu sees it, it must be lighted up because of its rear technology (optical, chemistry) and power technology. If 5 is the pipe, Xie Fu is helpful, and I know something about printing.

To be honest, once printing technology forms a change and withdrawal inertia, under the same technological basis, China's R&D speed is slower than that of Europe. Because Chinese characters are too complicated to print, while European letters are complex, Europe has such an urgent need for printing technology to change and withdrawal.

By looking at the performance of the officials and craftsmen in the Ministry of Industry, you can know that all we lack is the European alloy movable type formula.

Without this recipe, all ideas emerge.

Using the alloy characteristics of the formula, the research and development of the casting furnace is natural. Does Europe have that demand? Because Europeans need so little movable characters. Chinese character typesetting is also a small problem. Since the European lead alloy formula is easy to use and pouring, it is natural to think about creating a poured version, so what is the need to be placed in Europe?

Just like in some cold-belt areas, the land is ripe a year, and you can rely on the weather to make a living if you lie flat.

Temperate countries need to face various natural disasters, which can drive political and technological development while solving problems.

It is precisely because Chinese characters are easy to print, that is, the alloy formula of Gutenberg is reversing and reversing, which is a series of technical modifications and reversing in the eyes, all around if the alloy formula is reversing.

In history, the Qing Dynasty prohibited foreigners from making movable types privately, and alloy formulas have been passed down. The missionaries in the Ming Dynasty were dedicated to compiling Chinese religious books, and directly asked Chinese booksellers to help print them, and had the financial resources and energy to print books themselves. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, they perfectly missed the introduction of lead alloy movable types.

It was not until the end of the Qing Dynasty that the court had nothing to do with everything, and lead type appeared in China and developed rapidly.

King Zhang Shunmin of Chu was so busy that he handed over the "King of Chu Literature" to Wu Rui and Jin Shengtan. I personally contacted the steam engine manufacturer, took out the design drawings of the word casting machine (actually a word casting mold) and customized a brand new steam word casting machine.

Then I had to contact the raw material supplier, coal, copper, steel... if the silver was enough, I asked my father for an interest-bearing loan, and the royal family finance directly allocated funds to lend me.

It took two months to mold the prototype of the steam casting molding machine. The casting furnace of the Works Department was also formed. There were also hand-patterned casting furnaces that were renovated and improved. At the same time, they could only cast dozens of movable types, and they had to be reversed and polished after casting.

Even so, the use of the hand-patterned casting furnace must be paid to the Ministry of Industry's patent fee.

Until autumn, seven steam casting mold machines were transported, and the foot-type casting furnace was initially renovated and renovated. Above the roar of the machine, copper casting molds were stamped and molded, thrown to the foot-type casting furnace to make lead movable characters. Each casting furnace produced 7700 movable characters (it was perfectly renovated and renovated to 1,400).

Instead, the steel mold used by the steam engine has a speed of exactly the same as the one, and the thing needs to be carved by hand.

Peng Hai personally inspected the casting factory, looked at Yuanyuan's broken lead movable type and praised: "It's really slow, it's less slow than in the future!"

Zhang Shunmin smiled and said, "The steam engine stamping copper font mold speed is too slow, and the foot-pedal casting furnace is completely lower than that. Erchen customized seven steam machines, but two are actually not enough. What if the remaining two are sold to the Ministry of Industry as the original price? Erchen paid the freight." 2

"No." Xie Fu was forbidden to laugh.

A group of craftsmen were polishing lead movable type. Xie Fu bent over and picked up a few of them, but found that they were all repetitive common characters.

Xie Fu asked: "There are few words carved by steel molds?"

Peng Haitian said: "Those are all refined steel. It is too difficult to engrave letters and have low requirements for craftsmen's skills. After a few months, only 800 steel molds were carved."

Steel molds are consumable parts of the machine. One character with the same font size only needs to be carved. After the steel mold is worn, Tianshou stamps out the copper mold in batches, and then use the copper mold to cast lead movable type.

Xie Fu reminded: "Since the foot-pedal casting furnace is as fast as the steam engine, the little copper mold he produced cannot be sold to other printing shops. We can buy it and cast the characters ourselves."

Zhang Shunmin explained: "I have thought about it, but Erchen's font model is produced according to standard font sizes. Some are less different from traditional font sizes, and some are very small in difference from traditional font sizes, so I can only make do with it. Erchen contacted a few companies, and we are willing to buy them, but we only buy most commonly used font models with small consumption."2

"The market is renewal and replacement is also a problem." Xie Fu nodded.

The Ministry of Works, Ministry of Rites and the Chief Listorate, updating equipment is a matter of the emperor's words.

But for private printing companies, we have to measure profits. Lead movable type has been passed down to China for many years, and there are not many large workshops still using old movable type. Moreover, the materials are made of seven kinds, no wood movable type, copper movable type, lead movable type, and tin movable type (the Chinese metal movable type is basically alloyed, but it is the same as the European formula, and the printing turbidity is sufficient).

However, European inks are promoted quickly, and old-fashioned printing inks are almost produced.

It may take a long time for the standard font sizes set by Zhao Han to be completely accepted by the market. The official textbook adopts this standard and cannot promote market replacement, but it only promotes retreat. The old movable type that others have worked hard to cast may be directly thrown out of the warehouse and will only be discarded if it is used slightly.

Of course, the combination of the two types of casting techniques makes movable type cheaper than later.

Without the cheap movable type produced by the King of Chu, if the printing company votes with its feet, the entire Jinling Mansion will create its own movable type again in the next one or two years, and it is better to directly find the King of Chu to buy cheap and cheap new movable type.
Chapter completed!