As the end of the year approaches, the north wind is howling, and there is a dam on the river in the east, across the north and south. Li Li stands on the dam, looking at the water surface of the upper reaches of the east, like a lake, and then looking at the riverside scene in the distance downstream, feeling quite touched.

In recent years, he has been working hard in Jiankang. Wu Xiang, who is left behind in his hometown, has not been idle and has done many things. One of them is that he has spent more than two years hiring young and strong laborers to build this river dam.

The dam site is several miles upstream of the riverside field. The river section is narrow, with a flood discharge gate, and a drainage outlet that has been drained all year round at the southern end, namely a drainage canal.

The new hydraulic field is right next to the drainage channel.

Strong water wheels were pushed by the surging river water on the drainage channel and kept rotating.

The dam construction cost a lot, but the effort is worth it. With the stable and strong water flow, the production capacity of the hydraulic field has been greatly improved.

The long drainage channel can arrange more water wheels and drive more equipment.

It also creates favorable conditions for the birth of new products.

According to the work system, Li Li changed into work clothes, put on his work hat, walked into a newly built work workshop, and watched the production process of the new product with his own eyes.

New products, in fact, are not new, they are ordinary visible needles.

The needles of this era are like fish hooks, and are made by hand. They are first "cut" and then grind the needle body to round, then sharpen one end and drill the holes.

Finally, heat treatment is performed to make the iron needle hard but not brittle, tough but not soft.

Therefore, the production process of the iron needle is similar to that of the fish hook. It is nothing more than that of the iron needle. There is no need for a barb on the head, the fish hook is curved, and the tail does not need to be drilled.

Since fish hooks can be semi-automated production with the help of hydraulic power, iron needles can be too.

After six years of production in the hydraulic field, the technicians have fully understood the semi-automatic production machines of each section, so they tried to integrate the machines of each section according to Li Li's conception and design ideas.

In addition to pulling wires, only one machine is used to produce fish hooks.

Similarly, one machine can also be used to produce iron needles.

In the room, a tall machine was standing. Pang Qiu's nephew Yapang and several workers were checking the machine.

Next to him, Zhao Mengniang, who was also dressed up, took a thick stack of information and introduced Li Li to this fully automatic needle making machine called "Redic".

"Redic" fully automatic needle making machine, hydraulic drive, designed by Li Li, and was improved by field technicians.

First, we made a wooden model, verified the structure and automatic needle making process, and then continued to optimize and simplified the structure. It took many years to slowly shape it.

The machine is a frame structure, and the front looks like the word "leap", one twelve feet long and nine feet high. Most of the structures are cast iron parts.

When making needles, the machine does not require manual intervention. As long as the rolled iron wire is fed into the machine's import, the machine's outlet will "spout" the made iron needles.

After that, it will be heat treated and packaged and can be sold.

The principle of needle making is that after the wire enters the machine, it enters the rack ‘A’, and is cut to a certain length by the cutting knife ‘B’, and is caught by the groove of the bed piece below the rack.

The rack ‘C’ does reciprocating longitudinally and vertically. The vertical movement allows the rack ‘C’ to obtain wire from each groove of the bed board, and the longitudinal movement allows it to push the wire into the next groove.

At each groove, the wire is subjected to the action of a continuous die or punching machine to form a pattern and be punched out of the hole.

These dies and hole punching machines are driven by the punching wheel ‘D’ and the punching wheel ‘W’.

Then, the wire that had punched the holes continued to move along the groove and entered the slide groove. It lined up and was ground by the grinding tool. The wire body became smooth.

Then line up to enter the grinding wheel, and the other end is sharpened, so the iron needles are made in this way. Next, carburizing, quenching, tempering and other treatments can be carried out.

Li Li looked at the machine to produce iron needles, and his thoughts flew many years later.

In that lifetime, foreign high-end needle products were used for publicity. The promotional materials said that the manufacturer had a long history and originated from the World Needle Making Center in the First Industrial Revolution era, Reddish, England.

Once upon a time, 90% of the world's stitches were produced by the Redic Regional Needle Manufacturing Factory, and Redic was also a production center for fishing gear (such as fish hooks).

Promotional materials say that in the mid-to-late 19th century, a fully automatic needle making machine was born in Redic.

The machine is driven by a steam engine and works eleven hours a day. Each functional machine produces about 140,000 needles.

That is, the output per hour is about 13,000 pieces.

Li Li didn't know how to make a steam engine, nor did he know what the original fully automatic needle making machine had. However, he had seen modern fully automatic fish hook making machines, and thought the principle was similar.

Therefore, based on the experience of using the machine in the field, I designed a fully automatic needle making machine and fish hook making machine powered by hydraulic power.

It took many years to take, and the practical fully automatic needle making machine appeared, named after "Redic".

‘Redic’ fully automatic needle making machine, hydraulically driven, and 4,000 needles are made in half an hour (one hour), and there are no waste products.

It is produced for four hours a day (eight hours, maintenance and maintenance for the remaining time), and 32,000 needles are made.

Compared with the steam-powered fully automatic needle making machine in history (more than 10,000 needles per hour), the performance is very weak.

But in this era, it is still a miraculous breakthrough.

After the official production, the needle-making capacity of the hydraulic field will be the first stage of production of 300,000 pieces per day, and the daily production of fish hooks is also similar.

Facing the world's handmade needle industry, there are absolute advantages.

Li Li has investigated the current situation of the needle making industry in Poyang. Handmade needle making is generally divided by multiple people, one of whom is responsible for drilling the needle hole.

On average, a person can make more than ten ordinary-sized iron needles a day, based on the average daily output of ten.

The workplace officially produces iron needles. The daily output of 300,000 pieces in the first stage is equivalent to the output of 30,000 needle makers, which means that the production cost is greatly reduced.

After being sold on the market, there is no competitor at all.

However, there are not many raw materials required for iron needle production.

The monthly production is 24 days after a month, and the monthly output is 7 million. The total weight of these needles is about 6,000 kilograms, which is 50 stones.

Because the iron needle production process is small, the corresponding iron material consumed is about fifty stones.

Six thousand kilograms of iron needle, plus the weight of the packaging (small paper bag, large wooden box), and the weight of the desiccant (wood bran) is doubled in the packaging state, which is calculated as one hundred stones.

At that time, the iron consumption of iron needles in the field for one month can be loaded by a small cargo ship of 100 stone; the iron needles (including packaging) produced in one month can be loaded by a small cargo ship of 100 stone.

Such boats are very common on Po Water and look inconspicuous.

A small cargo ship can transport iron needles produced by the site in one month to other places, but it can bring about 30,000 (roughly estimated) profits to the site.

If the machine increases significantly, the profit will naturally increase significantly.

The introduction of mechanized production after hydraulic power is so powerful that it makes Li Li very proud.

After the machine was inspected, the water wheel power was connected, and ‘Redic’ began to swallow the wire.

The cut-off wire kept moving in the 'Belly' of 'Redic'.

‘Redic’ sucked the wire into the 'tummy' like a water-drip (noodle), and then pulled out the iron needles.

The speed of 'sucking' the wire was very fast, and the speed of 'pulling' the iron needle was very fast.

Li Li asked the workers to start time checking, test the stable production capacity of "Redic", and then started talking to Zhao Mengniang.

"I have told you that the power of machines is huge. In the past, using traditional crafts to make iron needles, a person could only make a dozen pieces a day."

"If you simply build up production capacity based on manpower, such actions will not be worth the cost, because people have to eat and rest, and their energy is limited, so they cannot have too high productivity."

"But it's different when using mechanical equipment, especially when hydraulic power is introduced as power, driving semi-automatic and fully automatic machines for production, production efficiency has increased significantly and profits have also increased exponentially."

"If fully automatic machines are introduced, no manpower is required and one worker can take care of three machines, then there is no need for too many operators, and it can greatly improve production efficiency and further increase profit margins."

Zhao Mengniang asked: "If the machine wants to run fast, the water flow must be turbulent. It is no longer possible to rely on the power of the float alone, right?"

Li Li nodded: "Yes, so the dam must store water and then increase the water flow speed. Moreover, this machine cannot be installed on a shaking boat to ensure normal operation. Only when the machine is running normally can the output be stable and the income is stable."

"The iron needles we make are affordable and cheap. Apart from those extremely fine handmade embroidery needles, they cannot have competitors. They rely on their super low selling price to dominate the market and have guaranteed profits."

"But checking, packaging depends on manpower. Whether it is fish hooks or iron needles, the daily output is so large, the manpower required may increase significantly..." Zhao Mengniang frowned slightly.

"Then keep buying slaves and train them to be female workers, and then..." Li Li smiled, "The mansion matches up and lets them get married with male workers or divisions and guards."

"Whether men and women have a family, a stable income and good treatment, and a large group to support people's hearts, won't it be stable?"
Chapter completed!