Chapter 10: The Steam Engine and the Boiler

A few people were checking the production progress of the glass factory, not only the plate glass but also the glassware production line. The orders from the Guangzhou station were mainly for glass wine bottles of three different sizes. In modern glassware manufacturing, glass bottles are automatically blow-molded on an assembly line, and it is easy to produce hundreds of standard bottles of the same size per minute. The Bairen Glass Factory was still hand-casting—it should be said that the apprentices’ performance in this area was much better than that of some clumsy otaku transmigrators—the best record in a day was only about two hundred.

“It would be best to design an automatic bottle-making production line,” Zhan Wuya said. “With this manual production, how many workers will be needed to meet the demand?”

“Wait until the plate glass is annealed, then you can talk about the manpower,” Wang Luobin’s face was shining from the firelight. “That grinding will require much more manpower than making glass bottles.”

As they were talking, Li Di brought the marine corps soldiers, pulling a floating raft with a small boat from Bopu, and transported more than ten barrels of things.

“The grinding materials have all arrived. Sign for them,” Li Di exhaled, his body dripping wet—when crossing the shallows, he had to lead the way and jump down to push the raft to avoid being smashed by the reefs.

“These things were all collected by the navy. Digging sand is very troublesome. You have to give us a discount when you build something in the future,” Li Di did not forget to praise himself.

“No problem. Have all the sands been graded?”

“They have been graded, from coarse to fine, sifted with the sieve you provided. There are a total of three types, 3 barrels of each. It should be enough for you. There are also 3 barrels of diatomaceous earth.”

When grinding glass, coarse sand is used first, then fine sand, and then a special very fine blue glass abrasive. The transmigrators could not process this themselves, so they used the finest sand instead.

After this series of grinding was completed, a roller with handles on both sides was wrapped with a layer of wool felt, and then diatomaceous earth or corundum powder was sprinkled on it for final grinding and polishing—there were diatomaceous earth reserves locally.

The entire grinding process was not only laborious but also time-consuming, so the glass factory was also one of the earliest users of Watt and Boulton’s steam engines. In order to save manpower, the transmigrators naturally had to resort to this industrial divine artifact.

“How is your steam engine coming along? Our mechanical group plans to copy one,” Zhan Wuya finally openly coveted Li Di’s secret.

Li Di’s steam engine was a small steam engine kit from the United States. In the United States, it was a toy for steam engine enthusiasts, similar to how many people played with ultralight aircraft kits.

“It’s operational, but the horsepower is very small, only 12 horsepower,” Li Di said. It took him almost three months to assemble it. It was compact and lightweight, and could be installed on the navy’s large rowboats.

The mechanical group decided to go and see this machine, so all the personnel went to Bopu together and saw the machine placed in the navy’s boathouse.

“We can’t do this. Let’s start with the simplest Watt engine,” Zhan Wuya said after seeing Li Di’s machine. The principle of the entire steam engine did not exceed their knowledge level, but many of the processing methods and materials used were not supported by the transmigrator industry.

“This machine is very light and convenient, but unfortunately we can’t make it,” Zhou Bili said after seeing it. “Its boiler is very exquisite, the pipes are all steel, and many parts are welded…”

“Without welding, how can we make a boiler? And high-pressure fire tubes, rubber seals—it seems we didn’t bring much rubber, and besides, there are no ready-made specifications available…” Li Di became distressed.

“Damn it, where did you hear such strange talk?! You never need rubber for seals in a steam engine!” Xiao Bailang spat. “Not to mention in Newcomen’s and Watt’s time, even in the era of multi-expansion engines, they didn’t use rubber seals, did they?”

“It’s indeed not needed,” Zhan Wuya said. “As for the materials, we don’t need any steel. The early steam engines had no steel at all. They were either pig iron or wrought iron, and could be hammered out by hand. Our materials and processing level would have made Watt’s eyes pop out.”

He sighed, “But we don’t know how to do riveting. Without riveting, we have to weld—we can’t afford it.” Zhan Wuya was not good at this either—he had a full set of welding equipment and had stored some consumables, but things like welding rods and acetylene had nowhere to be replenished, and they were used up little by little.

“Hehe, speaking of riveting, I’m not bragging, but I’m probably the only one here who knows how to do it,” Zhou Bili said proudly.

“You know how?” Zhan Wuya remembered that this Zhou Bili was just a mechanical maintenance worker, specializing in sheet metal work. Although he was engaged in aircraft maintenance, which looked beautiful but was not of much use to the transmigrators.

“There’s still a lot of riveting in aircraft. So I’m a little interested and often try it myself,” Zhou Bili said.

Riveting was the most widely used metal connection method in the industrial age. It was more convenient and reliable than traditional forging, and its strength was also great enough. Especially in the field of shipbuilding, riveting was the main shipbuilding process until World War II. Even a giant ship like the “Yamato” was connected by rivets one by one, and welding technology was only used in a few non-critical parts.

Since the 1950s, welding technology has developed rapidly and has finally replaced riveting in many fields, so that this technology is now rarely mastered by modern people. Zhan Wuya remembered very clearly that when the Waibaidu Bridge in Shanghai was dismantled and repaired, it took a lot of trouble to find workers who could install rivets.

“It all depends on you!” Xiao Bailang patted him on the shoulder.

“Don’t, I can’t do riveting work alone. It takes a group of 2-3 people to work. And we need special equipment,” Zhou Bili gestured.

“Okay, I’ll transfer a few mechanical workers to learn from you.”

Zhou Bili immediately started a training class in the workshop of the machinery factory. Zhan Wuya transferred a few iron plates and iron beams for him to use as demonstrations.

According to the list he provided, the machinery factory first processed and manufactured a complete set of equipment for him: including hammers, a portable furnace with a bellows, and rivets.

Generally, the material must first be mechanically drilled, and then the plates to be connected are overlapped. Riveters generally work in groups of three. A rivet heater first heats the rivet in the furnace until it is red, and then uses tongs to pass the rivet to the riveter, who then hammers the rivet into the rivet hole.

Due to the poor portability of the furnace, when building large riveted parts, the heater would throw the rivet to the riveter. This required acrobatic skills for both throwing and catching.

No matter how large the object to be riveted was, even a super-dreadnought like the Yamato, its hull was built by riveters hammering one rivet at a time.

“If we do it like this, how many riveters do we need to train?” Zhan Wuya exclaimed when he saw them take several minutes to finish the first rivet hole.

“Take it slow, this is also a skilled job.”

Li Di witnessed this scene, and he had serious doubts about his expectation of boarding a ten-thousand-ton battleship in his lifetime.

Zhou Bili probably saw everyone’s disappointment and said, “Don’t we have an air compressor?”

“Yes.”

“With an air compressor, riveting work can be much easier. This hammering process can be done with an air hammer driven by an air compressor. It only requires one riveter.”

“In the future, when the industrial level is higher, we can also use a hydraulic riveting machine,” Zhou Bili said. “But this is difficult. Let’s make do with manual work for now.”

The first riveting training class began. According to Zhou Bili’s request, some children were selected from the apprentices to be rivet heaters—in the past, the job of a heater was the apprentice’s job.

Mastering riveting technology meant that they could manufacture the key component of a steam engine—the boiler.

Regardless of the form or principle of the steam engine, a high-efficiency boiler was obviously one of the core components of a steam engine.

The role of the boiler was not only to provide power for the steam engine, but also the hot water, steam, and temperature needed for industry—the transmigrators could maintain a high standard of living, largely thanks to the boiler. Without a boiler, the transmigrators would have to take cold baths and eat rice cooked over an open fire that was full of burnt rice…

The principle of the boiler itself was very simple. The wagon-type boiler used by the Watt steam engine was used for almost 150 years and was still in use in 1850. Of course, its thermal efficiency was very poor.

The mechanical department planned to copy a more successful design of the time: the Lancashire two-flue boiler invented in 1844, which was then widely used—after continuous small improvements in design and materials, it served modern industry until the 20th century.

The Lancashire boiler had a large capacity and could provide a stable flow of steam. It was an atmospheric pressure boiler and could not provide high-pressure steam, so its evaporation power was relatively weak and its use was relatively limited. However, its technology was simple and mature, and its manufacturing was not difficult—it was riveted with low-carbon steel plates, but it could also be made of rolled wrought iron plates, which was of great significance to the transmigrators with limited steel production capacity.

“Why not try to make a fire-tube or water-tube boiler? The difficulty of this is not greater than that of a Lancashire boiler. We can also use the boiler on the portable engine as a reference.”

The fire-tube boiler was invented in 1829 by the Frenchman Seguin and the British Stephenson company, and was used on steam locomotives at that time. The fire-tube boiler and the subsequent water-tube boiler could generate very large steam pressure—which was of great significance for meeting the needs of large ships, locomotives, and even power generation.

“Several portable engines are running 24 hours a day. They won’t let you take them apart for reference.”

“We don’t need to take apart the portable engine. We are also very clear about the structure of fire-tube and water-tube boilers,” Wang Luobin said. “The key is whether the materials can pass the test. This is a high-pressure boiler. Without a reserve of high-pressure boiler tubes, the performance of self-produced steel tubes—”