Chapter 201: Technical Problems

No one knew if the “ironwood” was the same as the “lignum vitae” Meng De had mentioned. As for the ironwood in the timber yard, no one could tell anything just by looking at it. In the end, they decided to consult Fa Shilu from the Ministry of Agriculture—he was the most professional botanist in the Senate.

“It should be the same thing,” Fa Shilu said. “It’s a tropical and subtropical tree species, common in the mountains of Yunnan and Guangxi, and also found in Guangdong. It was often used in Guangdong furniture during this era, not particularly precious.”

“Lin Xianming said it’s the best wood for shipbuilding, and it’s rare now.”

“For shipbuilding needs, ironwood is indeed rare now, but for making furniture, there’s plenty of it. Even in the Qing dynasty and now, it’s not considered particularly precious.” Fa Shilu then called out to a native lab assistant in a gray coat, “Bring the ironwood sample!”

A few minutes later, the lab assistant brought a specimen box. Fa Shilu opened it for everyone to see.

“This is a sample of an ironwood trunk. What do you think? Doesn’t it look a bit oily? Ironwood has a very high oil content; the seeds have an oil content of 79%, almost making it an oil crop. And its wood fibers are particularly long, very difficult to cut, and its strength is among the best of all trees. It can not only be used for shipbuilding but also for some mechanical parts. Many of the gun carriages, frames, and wheels of our towed artillery are also made from this. Although it’s a bit troublesome to process, its strength is very high.”

Fa Shilu lectured the group of shipbuilders in a professorial tone.

“In the end, can ironwood be used as a ship bearing or not?” Jiang Ye cautiously asked after his high-flown speech concluded.

“That’s not my specialty,” Fa Shilu said. “When it comes to machinery, isn’t that your expertise?”

The consulting group almost coughed up blood. Hadn’t they learned anything at all?

On the road leaving the farm, a debate arose among them about whether to use ironwood for the propeller shaft based on Meng De’s “hearsay.” This was a ship of over a thousand tons. If the propeller shaft failed during the sea trial after launching, it would have to be sent back to the dry dock for repairs, which would not only be embarrassing but would also affect the entire transmigrator group’s strategic goals.

“Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth. I think we should adopt the most direct method and conduct experiments first,” Jiang Ye proposed, suggesting they modify one or two of the existing steam-powered Daihatsu boats to see the effect.

The steam-powered Daihatsu boats were all equipped with 12-horsepower steam engines and were ready-made powerboats. However, their propulsion method was quite special, using a so-called retractable propeller, which was essentially an outboard motor propulsion system. The shipyard had used this to circumvent the difficulty of installing a propeller. Of course, the price was that the power transmission became quite complex.

“If the steam-powered Daihatsu boats can be converted to use propellers, it will be very significant for installing the propeller on the 854-modified. At the very least, we can accumulate experience.”

“Right, let’s try all the solutions we can think of,” Zhou Bili said.

After coordination by the Planning Commission, the navy “generously” provided five steam-powered Daihatsu boats. This generosity was conditional: all six were boats that had frequently malfunctioned during the Pearl River campaign and were in poor condition. The navy stated that as long as they could be repaired, the people from the Machinery Industry Department could tinker with them as they pleased. Subsequently, at Zhou Bili’s suggestion, an “854-Modified Engineering Technical Team” was established at the shipyard, drawing several elder technicians with certain attainments in shipbuilding, machining, and other fields to be stationed at the factory to solve various technical problems on site. They would serve as the project leaders for the entire shipbuilding plan—the “First Shipbuilding Preparation Plan.”

Zhou Ke from the Machinery Industry Department was appointed as the project leader. Since the other members of the project team could not work full-time at the shipyard, he would serve as the permanent staff. Zhou Ke had graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and had a second major in thermal engineering, both somewhat related to shipbuilding. He had a good foundation in fitting and lathing, and he loved making ship models, making him the most suitable leader for the elder’s shipbuilding project team.

Zhou Ke was a sturdy man with a round face. Although he was the project leader, he didn’t know much about shipbuilding. Like Zhou Bili and the others, as an elder engineer in the Machinery Industry Department, he had taken turns being a resident instructor at various industrial enterprises and had worked in all kinds of factories, becoming a typical “jack-of-all-trades” so-called “generalist.”

His first task after taking office was to solve the problem of the drive shaft and the propeller.

The engineering team first pulled a Daihatsu boat onto the slipway. Although the boat had only been in combat in Guangdong for two months, the barnacles on its bottom were already quite numerous. The shipwrights first cleaned the bottom of the boat. Then, Sun Li and his men dismantled the steam engine and boiler from the Daihatsu boat for a major overhaul.

The propeller was relatively easy to solve. Although they didn’t have a physical propeller, they had a full set of CAD drawings for various propellers. Jiang Ye’s idea was to first make one using the machining center, then use it to make a sand mold for mass production. Zhou Ke felt this was making a mountain out of a molehill.

“Don’t we have the motorboats from the Fengcheng? There are propellers among the spare parts. We can just use one of those to make a sand mold.”

Xiao Bailang first made a clay mold from a propeller, then made a hard mold from it, and finally cast the first propeller for the small boat from cast iron.

Zhou Ke first had a computer find the center of gravity and the center point. After getting the data, he drilled holes in the hull to install the shaft sleeve and shaft. He installed an ironwood propeller on the first test boat, and the results proved that ironwood was feasible. During the sea trial, the shaft sleeve did leak a small amount of water at the beginning, but it stopped before it reached the point of needing to be bailed out.

However, the Daihatsu boat was only a small boat of a few dozen tons with a 12-horsepower engine. The 854-modified had a displacement of over 1200 tons and a 500-horsepower steam engine. No one in the entire project team dared to guarantee that a wooden shaft would be reliable for such a vessel.

They then tried various shaft sealing methods. In fact, all the dynamic sealing methods proposed were feasible. But they all had various problems, more or less. Some processing methods were not achievable, and the material quality was not up to par. In general, the design ideas far surpassed the processing capabilities and material levels.

Packing seals were the simplest of all sealing methods, and the effect was not bad. The water leakage rate was not very fast, and with a pump on board, this amount of leakage was not a big problem. Moreover, with a steam engine, pumping water was not a burden. But the heat dissipation problem was never well solved. At 500 horsepower and several hundred revolutions per minute, the heat generated by friction was very high, almost equivalent to a one or two-kilowatt small electric furnace. Without any heat dissipation measures, it was common for it to reach a red-hot state.

Finally, Zhou Ke decided to use a liquid oil seal with a cooling cycle. The sealing oil tank was located above the propeller drive shaft, and oil was slowly injected into the stern tube by gravity. The oil had a certain pressure and would slowly seep out through the stern tube to resist the infiltration of seawater. The oil itself could cool the drive shaft. Most of the oil was recovered by a pump, and after another external cooling, it was reinjected into the oil tank for recycling.

The structure of this oil seal was relatively simple, with the oil recovery pipeline and power being slightly more complex. And the grease used could be castor oil or coconut oil—both of which the Planning Commission could supply.

“Are you sure this plan is feasible?” Zhan Wuya looked at the model Zhou Ke had brought to his office.

“It’s feasible.” Zhou Ke opened the model—it was a simple model but on a large scale to fully display the details. “We conducted a shipboard test on test boat No. 5, as well as land-based operation tests and water platform tests. With a water pump, the leakage rate of the oil-sealed stern tube is completely within a controllable range. I just don’t know if coconut oil or castor oil can be fully supplied. After all, it’s not 100% recovered, and there is some loss. The sealing oil needs to be supplied long-term.”

“Not a big problem. As long as you can ensure that most of the oil can be recovered—anyway, the chemical industry people can use any oil. The replaced sealing oil can be used to make soap at most.” Zhan Wuya knew that both castor oil and coconut oil had a certain stock in the Planning Commission’s inventory. Especially coconut oil, since the establishment of the Sanya base, the supply had been quite stable. As for castor oil, the Central Government Council had already mobilized students through the Ministry of Education to widely plant this plant on fragmented land at home and at school. Before mineral oil was available, castor oil was considered a very good industrial oil.

Zhou Ke said excitedly, “That’s great! Our next step is to solve the problem of large propellers.”

“There’s one more thing,” Zhan Wuya picked up a thick file from his desk. “This is from Qian Shuiting. It’s about the sail rig.”

“The sail rig? Didn’t we decide on a full-rigged ship?”

“According to this Qian Shuiting, a full-rigged ship has high requirements for the sailors who handle the sails…”

“We’ve already decided to use power to handle the sails.”

“According to him, a full-rigged ship cannot be fully mechanized for sail handling. A considerable amount of work still needs to be done by sailors climbing the masts. He suggests changing to a simpler rig called…” Zhan Wuya couldn’t think of the term for a moment—Barquentine—”Never mind, you know what I mean. He has written it very clearly in here, and there are drawings.”

“Understood, I’ll notify the sail-making workshop when I get back.”

Zhan Wuya said, “Also, you need to submit a report to me requesting the manufacture of steel wire ropes and thin iron chains of the following specifications.” He gave him a document. “Huang Tianyu told me yesterday that both are essential for the power-assisted sail handling equipment, but the industrial department has never produced these things before. It’s a ‘special needs manufacturing,’ so you, the project leader, have to propose it.”

“Okay. I really hadn’t thought about mechanized sail handling.”

“According to President Wen, the final and most modern all-steel large sailing ships—used for transporting bulk cargo like wheat, guano, and Chilean saltpeter—will only need about 20 sailors, all with mechanized sail handling. It would be great if we had such ships someday.”

After leaving the office, Zhou Ke went to the “fire kiln,” as everyone called the department managed by Xiao Bailang. All industries in the industrial system related to fire, such as kilns and foundries, were under his management. From firing translucent bone china and glass to casting large, crude components, from industrial equipment to personal sanitary ware, everything was under his control. After more than two years, the once handsome and elegant Xiao Bailang had become tan and dark.

Xiao Bailang was currently organizing his workers to make a clay mold for a wooden propeller. This wooden propeller was no small matter; it was the “prototype” manufactured by the machining center. The Planning Commission’s warehouse had some large and medium-sized propellers in reserve—spare parts for the Fengcheng and other modern ships—but Zhou Ke didn’t know if they were suitable. So he had someone first select the optimal propeller type for the 854-modified ship model, then extract the corresponding CAD drawings for some optimization and modification, and finally input them into the machining center to create a full-size wooden model.

The workers used this wooden model to first make a clay mold, and then a hard mold from the clay mold. The wooden model was then carefully stored away.

Based on the experience of making the propeller for the small boat last time, the material used for the propeller was directly aluminum brass. Although the transmigrators could not yet smelt aluminum, the sources of aluminum were wide, the smelting technology was not high, and self-production was relatively easy. Compared to other non-ferrous metals like manganese bronze and nickel-aluminum bronze, the source was much easier.

Newly smelted and cast aluminum brass ingots, transported from the metallurgical department’s workshop, were piled next to the crucible furnace, waiting to be melted and cast.

“Casting only takes a day, but making the mold is particularly exhausting!” Xiao Bailang exhaled. His face was dark, and a dirty, oily protective mask hung around his neck. “I’m going to tell Zhan Wuya I want a bigger crucible furnace for continuous casting.” He looked at Zhou Ke. “You’re not going to equip each type of ship with a different type of propeller, are you?”

“Of course not. I plan to use this propeller for a while. A 1200-ton ship and a 500-ton ship should have no problem using the same type of propeller. For larger ships, we can use twin-propeller propulsion.”

“Hmm,” Xiao Bailang sat down on a stool. A young girl in a blue work uniform immediately brought him a large glass of bubbling salt soda, which he drank in one gulp. Zhou Ke saw that the girl had neat, ear-length short hair, a pretty face, and an unusually full chest—a “loli with giant boobs” look. He couldn’t help but wonder: when did they have such a top-quality item when they were buying life secretaries?

“Hmph, you’re jealous, aren’t you?” Xiao Bailang looked at him sideways.

“This girl is not bad. How come I’ve never seen her? Don’t tell me you got a backdoor deal?”

“This is an S-class. You only paid for a C-class, so of course you only get a dark-skinned girl to play with,” Xiao Bailang said proudly. “I didn’t get a backdoor deal. I won her in a lottery.”

“I don’t believe your luck is that good! The Executive Committee must have given you a backdoor deal!”

“What ‘gave me a backdoor deal’!” Xiao Bailang became angry out of embarrassment. “Don’t blame the Executive Committee for your bad luck.” He then gestured towards the girl with his chin. “Come, sing a song for your master! Piss off you losers.”

The girl dared not delay and quickly sang an incomprehensible Guangdong tune. The workers all stood at a respectful distance of three zhang from Xiao Bailang, listening to the song. This Chief Xiao’s concubine sang well, and everyone loved to listen. And everyone sincerely admired Chief Xiao’s magnanimity in bringing a woman to the workshop.

The girl’s voice was delicate and tender, making Zhou Ke’s heart flutter. He couldn’t help but feel a surge of jealousy, wondering if the Executive Committee had really played some tricks in the distribution of maids. Although, given Xiao Bailang’s work situation, getting an S-class maid was justifiable, such behind-the-scenes operations should be resolutely stopped! He was already dissatisfied with the Executive Committee’s tendencies, and now his suspicion grew even stronger.

As for the large drive shafts, connecting rods, and cranks used to drive the propellers, they were manufactured by the Bopu arsenal. They had large forging machines—originally installed for forging cannons, but also used to forge some large workpieces. These forging machines were cruder than the forging equipment the transmigrators had brought from the old timeline, but their size and forging capacity far surpassed the brought equipment. The arsenal’s forging workshop was also the busiest workshop in the Manufacturing Directorate, forging day and night. Some of the iron keels and ribs for the new ships were also forged here.

In the arsenal, steam engines for the ships were also being manufactured. Since the finished steam engines and boilers were quite heavy, to facilitate transportation and installation, their production workshops were all arranged in the arsenal during the industrial layout. Some standardized parts were provided by the industrial zone in Bairen.

All the steam engines the transmigrators had made so far used Lancashire boilers to supply steam. This type of boiler had been improved, with a surface condenser installed to provide distilled water for the boiler, ensuring continuous operation.

The Lancashire boiler could also provide steam for marine steam engines, but it was less efficient, requiring more boilers for the same power output. This was uneconomical for ships with limited space. Therefore, Sun Li and others who had been in charge of manufacturing steam engines had a new task: to develop a new high-pressure boiler for marine steam engines to provide steam with greater unit pressure. If the new model of boiler was successfully replicated, it would provide the basis for manufacturing more powerful steam engines. After all, a 500-horsepower steam engine still provided too little power.

After consulting the materials, everyone decided to follow the old path of technological improvement and trial-produce a fire-tube boiler. It used a cylindrical shell and flue. This type of boiler provided a much higher unit pressure than the Lancashire boiler, so much so that the originally used cast iron pipes had to be replaced with low-carbon steel pipes to ensure safe operation.