After getting the meteorite, Chen Xu took the panda sleigh to inspect the Zhongshu Provincial Government, and then went to the newspaper to let Chen Ping publish an advertisement for the long-term acquisition of Xuantie in the middle of the next few issues of the newspaper, and then went back to the Qinghe Marquis Mansion to visit the water light and Ying Shiyan and others who were giving porridge on the street in front of the door, and finally under the escort of a group of guards, the panda car drove out of the city and went straight to the experimental factory of the Academy of Sciences.

With these meteorites, a batch of high-quality cutters and drill bits can be quickly produced, which basically solves the current dilemma.

The composition of meteorite iron is very complex, and each piece of composition is not the same, this even the later generations of advanced science and technology can not fully analyze the specific composition, but after the meteorite fell in the atmosphere after experiencing thousands of degrees of high temperature, the material and ordinary iron have been fundamentally different, can survive and cool, it is a natural alloy with extremely high hardness, it is really not an exaggeration to call it divine iron.

The drill bits and cutters used in high-precision machine tools in later generations are high-speed steel, but the most used in ordinary civilian lathes is cheaper tungsten steel, and tungsten steel is black, which is very similar to the color of meteoric iron, so Chen Xu guessed that the material of meteorite iron may have similar composition to tungsten steel.

However, at present, the craftsmen of Daqin do not even know what kind of metal tungsten is, let alone refining qualified tungsten steel, and this process is still far away.

Although the road was closed by freezing cold and heavy snow, all the workshops and workshops of the experimental factory were still busy, and many craftsmen were still tinkling to create and make items.

Chen Xu came in a panda sleigh, which naturally caused a sensation in the entire experimental factory, and countless people poured out from various workshops and workshops to watch this strange car without wheels but driving fast.

"Bring this box in, and then call the hemp rod and the craftsman who makes the lathe!" Chen Xu parked the panda car outside the ironmaking workshop where Gong won and ordered a group of craftsmen to greet him.

After entering the ironmaking workshop, the box was placed on a workbench, and after Gong Yisheng opened it, he looked at it with great surprise, "Master Hou, this is ...... Is this Darksteel? ”

"You've seen it?" Chen Xu asked in surprise.

"I've seen it, I used to be in the copper and iron workshop in Wancheng, and I once saw a fist-sized piece of dark iron!" Gong Loser nodded again and again.

"It's good to have seen it, these dark iron are what I asked for from the emperor, used to make cutters and drill bits on the lathe, hurry up and prepare, and when the craftsmen of the lathe workshop come, you will first build a few pairs of cutter bits according to the specifications to be used on the lathe, and I will use these cutter bits to make steel screws and nuts!"

"It turns out that Hou Ye also thought about this, and I am going to wait until the snow melts in a few days to inform Hou Ye!" The public loses and wins excitedly.

"Dark iron is the hardest synthetic metal in the world, the composition is complex, now the ironmaking workshop can not make good steel, can only temporarily replace it with dark iron, pay attention to the processing, these meteorite can only be used as a part of the knife head, the blade is still made of high-carbon steel, try to save the use of ......"

Chen Xu carefully told the public to win.

These seven or eight pieces of black iron weigh only a little more than two kilograms, about the size of a fist, and the smallest one is only the size of a thumb, only a few taels, but the so-called good steel is used on the blade, just like a glass knife inlaid with diamonds, only a small piece of casting head is needed.

Just when Gong Win arranged for someone to raise the furnace fire, a group of craftsmen who were responsible for making the lathe in the test workshop also rushed over, and heard that Chen Xu had found Xuantie as the cutter head of the lathe, and they were also very excited, and began to discuss the type and size of the cutter head that needed to be made with Gongsheng.

At present, Chen Xu requires three kinds of screw specifications, large, medium and small, the thickest one is naturally the carriage axle, with a diameter of three inches, and a medium diameter of one inch, which is mainly used as a spinning fixture, and a screw nut with a thickness of eight minutes as a commonly used bolt, and a wrench with a suitable size fixing hole is also designed, as for the movable wrench, although the principle and structure are simple, the main reason is that the thread is difficult to make, but I want to come to the experimental factory to overcome this difficulty soon.

After a group of craftsmen finished discussing, Ma Gong, as the first master craftsman of the experimental factory, quickly put on a dirty cowhide apron, put on a mask, and put a small piece of meteorite iron into the coal furnace with iron tongs for smelting.

More than ten minutes later, in the huhula bellows pulling, a small piece of meteorite iron in the coal furnace has been burned red, the hemp rod will clip out the meteorite iron and put it on the iron felt and gently beat it into an iron strip, and then use the axe to cut it into three sections, each section is about an inch in size, after getting it, the hemp rod puts a steel bar into the furnace fire to heat, and wait until it is red, take it out and put a piece of meteorite iron and steel bar together and beat it repeatedly, burn red and beat it again, after several times, this small piece of meteorite iron and steel bar are completely fused together, Finally, it is slowly trimmed into the shape of a cutter, and after quenching and cooling, it is a cutter blank with a black edge.

"Let's see if this blank works?" The hemp pole picked up the cutter blank and looked at it, and then handed it to a lathe craftsman.

The craftsman measured it with a ruler and gave a thumbs up and nodded repeatedly: "Master Ma is worthy of being the first blacksmith in the experimental factory, and the blanks created at one time are almost the same as the finished products." ”

"Hahahaha, that's, don't look at who taught my craft, the first time I went to the furnace to strike iron, it was the fairy craft taught by Hou Ye, how could it be wrong!" Ma Pole laughed proudly, and his mouth cracked to the back of his head.

"That's that, Master Ma has the true inheritance of the Hou Ye Immortal Family, which is naturally extraordinary, you hurry up and create another carving knife and the drill bit of the inner wire in the car, and I can use it to install it on the lathe to verify the effect of this black iron knife head!" A group of craftsmen and craftsmen who developed lathes began to slap the hemp pole without shame.

Don't shoot no, because the hemp pole is now the director of the first machinery factory in Xianyang, in charge of all machinery manufacturing, whether the lathe is good or not depends on the technology of the hemp rod in the future, there are more machines to make in the future, the first machinery factory will be the core of the entire experimental factory in the future, and everyone has to stutter.

"Okay, everyone, wait a minute!" The swarthy face of the hemp pole was almost laughing, and he picked up the iron tongs and hammers, and began to build the remaining two knife heads, jingling, under the watchful eyes of hundreds of people, half an hour later, the remaining cutting knife and a knife head were all built, and the first cutting knife also had sharp edges and corners in the grinding sound of a group of craftsmen.

In the past, the reason why it was difficult to process dark iron was mainly because of the smelting temperature, now with refined coal and bellows, the temperature of the ironmaking furnace can easily reach a high temperature of thousands of degrees, even if it cannot completely melt the meteoric iron, but the temperature that can be processed by heating to softening is not a big problem, and the file used today is not an ordinary gravel, but a knife cast after smelting with quartz sand and pulverized coal iron sand, which is much harder than ordinary steel files, and can easily polish steel, and polish bronze.

When Ma Pole and a group of craftsmen were busy, Chen Xu had been standing by and watching, and he didn't say a word during the period, because whether it was Ma Pole or Gong Win or these craftsmen, they were all very familiar with these crafts now, and it was almost his turn to point fingers, and he wouldn't.

An hour later, all three cutter heads were polished, and what appeared in front of Chen Xu was three pieces of alloy steel, and the blades were all sharpened with delicate and oily gravel, and the edge of the blade exuded a dark and sharp light.

"Let's go, let's go to the test workshop and get on the car to try the effect!" Chen Xu picked up the three knife heads one by one, and after a careful observation, he took a group of people to the test workshop again.

At this time, Chen Xu asked for Xuantie from the palace to make lathe cutter heads, and when Chen Xu came to the test workshop, there were already five or six hundred people gathered inside, and almost all the stewards and craftsmen of the entire experimental factory came to witness what kind of magical effect this lathe that can cut steel.

The lathe is still the lathe, the new one has not yet been designed and produced, and several craftsmen are busy installing the newly created cutter head on the lathe, and the iron screw blank that has been built long ago is also fixed on the lathe.

"Alright, let's get started!"

After some inspection, the craftsman in charge of the production of the lathe spoke, a helper with a big waist and a round waist began to rotate the handle, accompanied by the slight sound of the gear running, the cutter head slowly followed the slide rail close to the screw in the rotation, and soon under the cutting of the cutter head, several thin iron filings rolled up from the iron screw to be cut down, and in order to cool down the cutter head, a craftsman kept pouring water on the cutter head.

Dozens of pairs of eyes around the lathe were staring directly at the position of the cutter head, and as the threads became longer and clearer, everyone's faces slowly showed excited expressions.

"Master Hou, it seems that we have succeeded, the thread is still clear, and the cutter head does not look dull!" A craftsman's face flushed with excitement.

"Let's wait until the car is over!" Chen Xu nodded.

Meteorite iron hardness is high, and the screw is made of iron with very low carbon content, and the success of a cutting is not a big problem, which is also expected by Chen Xu, and in order to achieve the effect that Chen Xu wants, this set of cutter heads must at least be able to continuously turn out hundreds of screws to have use value, and the cutter head needs to be continuously polished in the process of use.

Soon the screw of the car was taken off the lathe and handed to Chen Xu, Chen Xu looked at it very satisfied, so that a group of craftsmen and craftsmen who were watching were passing it next to each other and said with a smile: "Sure enough, using the black iron to make the cutter head can easily turn the thread on the steel, what we need to do now is to verify the resistance of the cutter head, and see how many screws can be turned out in a row!" ”

"Master Hou, according to the speculation of his subordinates, this knife head should be able to produce at least dozens of pieces at a time, and there is no sign of dullness at all!" After inspecting the cutter head, a craftsman said excitedly

"Then go on!" Chen Xu waved his hand, so a group of craftsmen and craftsmen and helpers were all busy, from the basket to continue to take out the iron screw blank and put it on the lathe to start processing, half an hour later, a pile of 30 good screws were neatly placed on the workbench, the size and specifications were exactly the same, all of them were medium screws with a diameter of one inch, and after the car finished this batch of screws, the cutter head made of meteorite iron was slightly dull, to the point that it needed to be polished again.

"Haha, good, good, good, good, this effect can start to make iron bolts on a large scale, try the drill bit again, and get the nut out!" Chen Xu couldn't close his mouth happily.

After these screws have been processed and polished, the appearance is almost no different from the screws bought in hardware stores in later generations, and even more pleasing to the eye from the point of view of craftsmanship, because these are carefully polished by craftsmen and apprentices with files, and the hexagonal nuts are very smooth and flat, and they are very textured in the hand.

Relative to the screw, the production of the nut is much easier and faster, almost two or three minutes a, with the puff lala iron filings rolling down, one after another silver gray nuts are cared out of the screw mouth with a scraper to scrape off the burrs, and then with a file after a simple grinding and trimming, the finished product of a nut is placed on the workbench, neatly arranged and looks extremely pleasing to the eye.

Chen Xu tried to put the nuts on the screw next to each other, and it was very easy to screw, and it was smooth and smooth, and it was a finished product without any flaws at all.

The thread of the nut is very short, so the damage to the cutter head is smaller, and several craftsmen will remove the cutter head and polish it after hundreds of nuts are driven out in one go, and according to the degree of wear, this pair of drill bits can at least be driven out of thousands of nuts before they are worn to the point of being abandoned.

"Master Hou, with the black iron as the cutter head, it seems that the lathe will be ready to use immediately!" The craftsman in charge of making the lathe was so excited that he was a little wobble.

"Indeed, what we need to do now is to improve the finished product of the lathe as soon as possible, in order to speed up the production of bolts, the lathe for processing screws and nuts can be separated, so that the structure is simpler, the operation will be more convenient, and it is not used to change the cutter bit and drill bit, and with the screw, many adjustable buckles can also be replaced with screws to fix, which is more convenient for loading and unloading......" Chen Xu pointed to some parts of the lathe, and a group of craftsmen naturally nodded together.

As long as several different types of lathes are all produced, the axle of the carriage can not only be replaced with a bolt-style fixing method, which is convenient for installation and maintenance, but also can be more widely used in shipbuilding, which can greatly speed up the production speed, and does not need to make a large number of complex tenons to rivet, and the degree of strength will also increase.

The next morning, the emperor really issued an edict to collect dark iron from all over the country to send it to the Xianyang Academy of Sciences, and two days later, the Daqin Metropolis Daily not only published this edict, but also published an advertisement in the middle of the crack to collect the dark iron, one or two black iron for three hundred dollars, it is really more valuable than gold, and with the spread of newspapers and edicts, many people have also begun to rise a treasure hunting fever, many people who love to explore the location of the fire everywhere, to the barren mountains and mountains to search for the whereabouts of the meteorite.

Half a month later, the first machinery factory successfully produced the first industrial lathe, and Chen Xu immediately ordered the establishment of the first bolt manufacturing plant in Daqin, under the newspaper advertising, the first batch of orders received is a carriage factory of 500 axles, and this easy loading and unloading of the axle also instantly aroused the interest of more carriage factories, soon Luoyang Liang and other places have businessmen to negotiate orders in the bolt factory, and even long-term businessmen asked to buy lathes to open a bolt processing factory, Chen Xu naturally did not hesitate at all, and agreed to come down.

Daqin is so big, all rely on a Xianyang factory is unable to meet the huge demand of the people, just a carriage, every year the entire Daqin has thousands or even tens of thousands of demand, and this number with the prosperity of commerce and the continuous expansion of cement roads is still expanding rapidly, after the conquest of the East Hu Xiongnu and Yueshi, now Daqin has no shortage of cattle and horses and other large livestock, and with the improvement of people's living standards and the smooth flow of roads, the demand for carriages has shown a blowout outbreak, and with the increase of commercial taxes in counties and counties, Local finances have also been greatly relieved, government vehicles are also being replaced in large quantities, the old-fashioned squeaky squeaky carriage ox cart are rapidly eliminated, the next few years, it is expected that the number of horse-drawn carriages will be increased by hundreds of thousands, just the carriage axle, will become a great business opportunity, and take the first step to occupy this huge market, will inevitably follow a windfall.