Cultivation of Immortals Begins with Drilling Wood To Make Fire

Fang Chang walked to the side, put down the pannier, and stopped to watch.

Clusters of bright green stones are randomly distributed on the ground, which are high-grade malachite, and occasionally dark blue azurite is dotted among them, but the number is relatively small.

Azurite is azurite, and its color is really beautiful.

As far as Fang Chang knew, malachite and azurite were the two most commonly used pigments at this time, and they were often ground into fine powder for sale.

When painting, these two natural and soft, noble and gorgeous, beautiful and uncommon colors can render majestic works with clear textures, with unlimited tension.

The most important thing is that the price is still moderate, and it is very popular among literati.

Holding a stone axe, Fang Chang tapped and checked around, picking a piece of ore from time to time and throwing it into the basket behind his back.

Malachite and lapis lazuli are both easy to smelt. Fang Chang found that color of pure ore, smashed it down and put it in the basket on his back. He didn't step lightly until the basket tipped, and returned to the fairy cliff.

After going back and forth like this many times, a small ore mountain was piled up on the open space.

The copper ore here is of good quality, and it is easy to collect in the shallow surface layer. What's more rare is that this is a copper-tin associated mine.

There are not only copper mines such as malachite and azurite in the vicinity, but also brown translucent cassiterite, all of which are mined, and the high-quality parts are hand-picked and transported to Xianqi Cliff to be piled up.

During this rough excavation process, natural copper and natural silver were also found occasionally, and these were all taken to the cliff and stored together in thatched sheds.

Tin is very important for copper smelting, fortunately tin-copper associated ore is very common, just like here.

Tin is mixed with copper to make an alloy, which is bronze, which has high strength and low melting point, good casting performance, very wear-resistant and very stable, and is a material with excellent performance.

For human beings, it once opened a new chapter in civilization.

Another common copper alloy, brass, is a copper-zinc alloy, which cannot be done this time, unless Fang Chang can find a zinc mine in Yunzhong Mountain one day.

Similarly, if no iron ore is found, if you want to use metal, copper alloy is the best choice, and copper smelting is much simpler than iron smelting.

Fang Chang had a lot of strength, and he mined a lot of ore before stopping.

…………

...

Dinner is bamboo rat.

This delicious small animal caught in the bamboo forest is washed and peeled, cut into pieces, blanched and replaced with water, and then stewed with wild onion and ginger over low heat.

Then add salt, add small pieces of bamboo shoots and peeled chestnuts, and simmer for a while, the aroma will fill the whole thatched cottage, and even echo in the open space on the cliff.

Fang Chang lifted the lid of the bamboo pot and smelled it.

Really fragrant.

A few round plant roots, roasted in the fire until charred, soft and delicious after breaking apart, this is the staple food tonight.

The stewed bamboo rat meat is tender, soft and delicious, the chestnut is delicate and sweet, and the bamboo shoots are sweet and crisp.

What a treat.

Fang Chang swept them away, and then washed the dishes and clay pots.

This clay pot is actually not very suitable for pots. It is too brittle and not strong enough, and due to firing problems, there may be hidden wounds inside.

A few days ago, a jar cracked, not only dousing the firepit, but also dropping a pot of meat into the ash pit, which made people very uncomfortable.

Perhaps a tripod should be cast first rather than a sword.

After all, casting swords and casting tripods requires melting copper into alloys after smelting copper and tin, which requires higher temperatures brought by large furnaces.

It is even more difficult to forge a sword, because forging a sword requires careful adjustment to find the most suitable alloy ratio.

There is no difficulty in a large furnace, except that the shape of the furnace requires more experiments, and casting a tripod requires more fuel and raw materials.

But do you still lack strength and time?

As a practitioner, I have plenty of strength and never lack time, and improving cooking conditions can greatly improve the quality of life, which is far more than a hard sword that cannot be eaten.

At present, there are no conditions to make pots, and bronze is not suitable for making pots. In this case, a tripod is a very suitable cooking utensil. Not only is it strong and thick, but the legs of the tripod also provide natural support.

In addition, it is not picky about the performance of materials, so it is a good choice for practicing hands.

Thinking of this, Fang Chang decided to cast the tripod first, not the sword.

The tripod he was going to cast didn't need to be too big, it was enough for one or two people to cook. Fang Chang secretly smiled, maybe it won't be long before he can "cook the tripod".

...

Fang Chang had accumulated quite a lot of ore, and the fuel he had saved before could not be used up, so he started building the furnace directly the next day.

First of all, the stove needs to be large. If it is made of clay, it will be too troublesome.

After thinking about it, Fang Chang used the bricks that had been fired before and built a stove without adhesives. It was as tall as a person, with a small mouth and a big belly.

Coat the inside with thick mud, leave an outlet at the bottom, put copper ore and charcoal together, ignite, and as the furnace temperature continues to rise, copper ore decomposes when heated, and together with charcoal, complex reactions occur in a closed environment, leaving Lower copper.

The temperature of the charcoal was higher, and eventually the copper was melted and turned into red copper juice, which flowed out along the outflow port, and was drawn into a row of small pits on the ground by Fang Chang with a prepared grooved drainage rod, and cooled to become copper ingots.

Constantly input charcoal, also continue to input ore.

Fang Chang didn't turn off the fire until he had consumed most of the charcoal in the brick pool in the thatched shed, exhausted all the ore that he carried yesterday, and put away batches of still hot copper on the ground with his bare hands.

The furnace temperature is sufficient, the charcoal is of good quality, and the ore grade is also high. This smelting was very successful.

After cooling down, these copper blocks shone darkly, like slag, because charcoal, ashes, and even soil were mixed in it, not the purple-red color of pure copper.

The tin used as an ingredient is easy to smelt. Fang Chang just used the small stove that was used to burn lime and bricks to quickly smelt a batch of tin ingots, and then put them in clay pots on the stove to melt and purify.

Alloying copper and tin is the most troublesome.

This still requires a high temperature capable of melting pure copper. Fortunately, the large furnace for smelting copper juice can meet this condition.

But first, he used his own clay pots for cooking, filled these slag-like copper ingots, put them into the depths of the large furnace, and heated them at high temperature.

During this process, Fang Chang kept putting his hand into the fire, shaking the clay pot until the pure copper was extracted and poured into the preset pit to become a pure copper ingot.

Not in a hurry to melt the alloy, Fang Chang thought about it first, and began to dig a pit not far from the side of the furnace, using sand and stone slabs to make the pouring shape.

The tripod ears and tripod feet are all bare boards, without patterns or carvings.

In theory, pottery can also be used, but Fang Chang just used clay mixed with sand to make a pouring model and buried it in the soil.

Then the big furnace was lit, and the pure copper ingots and tin blocks that were shining purple-red light were put into the clay pot together, and the blazing furnace melted the copper, and the tin blocks that were put in together gradually mix.

Fang Chang deliberately left some time to wait for the copper and tin to be fully mixed.

Then he was not afraid of fire, he reached into the stove, took out the clay pot, and placed it on the ground. The bronze did not deform during the cooling process.

After the clay pot cooled down, Fang Chang pinched the bronze inside with great force, feeling that the ratio was slightly brittle.

After trying many times in a row, adding more water and more noodles, a satisfactory bronze alloy was prepared, put into several jars, and fired into copper juice.

Next, is the final casting.