Chapter 38 Copper Smelting
The next morning, before the alarm clock rang, Wang Wei was woken up by the smell of barbecue.
When I opened my eyes, I found that I was the only one who could lie down and sleep quietly. The rest of the tribe members gathered around the bonfire and drooled and looked at the barbecue.
To say that they are really drooling is by no means an exaggeration.
The tribe members have never read books, and no one has ever talked about etiquette to them. It is normal for them to do whatever they want when they want to see delicious food.
Not to mention them, even Wang Wei, smelled the aroma of barbecue, began to secrete saliva from his mouth.
"What do you think? This is for the hunting team. You can't eat anything you can watch anymore. Why don't you get out and sleep for a while?" the old woman scolded.
Although women and children in the clan know that food does not have their own portion, they are reluctant to leave, just smell the smell.
In fact, there is really no shortage of food in the current tribes.
Let’s not talk about the three wildebeests tied to the trunk of a tree.
I don’t say that the snake-tailed green-skinned dragon with five heads left.
Not to mention the piglets growing vigorously in the pigpen.
The messy prey I caught yesterday was enough for everyone to eat for a few days.
But the old woman was used to it, saving as much as possible. Letting the hunting team have a full meal in the morning was already her biggest concession.
The food was cooked, and Wang Wei and the others got a portion.
You can eat now or wait until you are too hungry before eating.
Wang Wei divided the meat into two portions and finished it immediately.
The remaining portion was wrapped in mouth leaves, and I planned to wait until I was hungry at noon before eating.
But the rest of the tribe members did not think so deeply. Even though their stomachs were filled with 70% or 80% full, they still swallowed all the last few bites of meat.
The women and children next to them saw that they had finished eating the meat, and they all wiped their saliva and left.
Wang Wei and the others took the guys and started to set off.
This time, at Wang Wei's request, everyone brought a few more bamboos.
In addition to being used as a kettle to boil water, these bamboos also have the function of weaving some bamboo baskets.
Although Wang Meng and the others are not lazy when doing work, they can move with their hands alone in moving them at once without the right tools.
So Wang Wei decided to make some bamboo baskets out when he had nothing to do today to improve his transportation capacity.
Copper smelting is a very troublesome thing, and this is even more so when it comes to copper smelting by local methods.
The melting point of copper varies depending on the quality, from 880 degrees of 78 bronze to 1000 degrees of 88 bronze, as well as brass copper, and even pure copper, all the melting points vary. The maximum is 1084 degrees to completely melt.
But even the lowest temperature is not enough, ordinary flames cannot reach it.
Therefore, a furnace needs to be used to condense the temperature, and a bellows need to heat the furnace fire.
The stove is easy to build. I made it with mud yesterday. I hang it for a night and burn it on low heat for a period of time to avoid collapse.
And the bellows connected to the stove are even better.
A wooden stick as thick as two fingers was separated from the middle, and two tough old tree bark were tied to death.
The end of the bark is vertically on the ground, and then rub the wooden stick. The old bark that rotates with the wooden stick blows the wind like a fan.
Then use the practiced mud to make it into a bowl shape, leaving a hole at the bottom of the bowl to facilitate movement of the wooden stick, then press the bowl upside down and put the fan at the end of the wooden stick in.
The fan that rotates in this way will blow the wind into the stove along the pipes left by the button.
Three of these fans were made, and they were in a three-legged state with the circular arch furnace in the middle.
Today passed, and Wang Wei tied a rope to the wooden stick, which was connected to the original wooden stick in a bow shape.
The rope is fixed on the top of the wooden stick, and then wrapped around the wooden stick for dozens of times. After holding the wooden stick, the wooden stick will rotate once it is pulled.
With inertia and the stress of the rope, when the rope is completely straightened, it will be wrapped by a rotating wooden stick.
When you wrap it to the end of the rope and then pull the rope hard, the stick will rotate in the opposite direction.
In this way, just pull the straw rope, and the wooden stick will rotate repeatedly, driving the fan made of tree bark to pour fresh air into the stove.
After teaching his tribe members how to use this fan, Wang Wei began to divide bamboo strips and weave bamboo baskets.
In fact, this type of bamboo is not suitable for weaving bamboo baskets. After all, the bamboo wall is too thick and hard, and there is no sharp hatchet iron axe that can split it, so it is particularly difficult to make.
Wang Wei did not complain, but just called Wang Yue to help him and taught him the method of making up.
In addition to weaving bamboo baskets, Wang Wei also watched the fire next to the stove.
Under low heat, a lot of white mist rose up on the stove.
With the emergence of white mist, the stove became more and more dry and harder.
As time passed, cracks began to appear outside the stove, like a dry riverbed.
Fortunately, there are fewer cracks. After all, the mud used in the stove is cooked mud that Wang Wei and the others stomped on for a day yesterday and practiced for a day.
Whenever such cracks appear, Wang Wei will paste fresh wet mud and seam the stove.
Half a day passed quickly, and a large bamboo basket was also woven by Wang Wei.
There were wounds cut by bamboo pieces on his hands, and they were even covered with soil.
The flames in the stove became bigger and bigger, and the wood ash taken out next to them were piled up, but the white mist on the stove became less and less until it completely disappeared.
After washing his hands, Wang Wei slightly roasted the remaining meat in the morning, and then, under the gaze of Wang Zhuang and others, he began to eat slowly.
The fire has been extinguished, and the weather is not too hot even if the sun is out. So when Wang Wei finished eating the barbecue, the inside of the stove has cooled a little, at least he will not be burned directly when he reaches in.
So, after eating the barbecue, Wang Wei patted his butt and began to fill the stove with wood.
The firewood that was filled with dry firewood, which was just piled next to the stove, was dried against the temperature emitted by the stove.
When burning the fire, the temperature around the yellow mud stove is very high, and you can feel a wave of heat within a distance of one or two meters. The wall of the furnace cannot be touched, otherwise the skin will be burned, and the water in the bamboo tube next to it will boil in this case, let alone human flesh.
The stove, which was half a person tall, was filled with dry firewood, and the holes that were scattered were blocked by yellow mud.
Then, the wood inside the stove was ignited, and the three bellows began to rotate under the action of human power.
When the flames at the furnace entrance rushed out more than one meter high, Wang Zhuang stretched out his hand and poured the ore as finely as gravel on the bluestone slab into the furnace entrance with a shovel.
He pressed down the flames that came out of it.
Chapter completed!