Chapter 600： The appearance of tinplate

phone-reading

"What? You mean zinc ingot?" Marin was taken aback, then overjoyed. With zinc ingots, many of his ideas can be put into practice. For example, get tinplate and wrap the bottom of the boat with tinplate to prevent the maggots from eating.

You know, many wooden boats have accidents, because the bottom of the boat is eaten by the maggots, or the hole is about to be broken. The ship was leaked when it was smashed by enemy artillery shells or when the wind and waves hit it. The Spanish Invincible Fleet was completely destroyed by the joint attack of maggots, sea waves and the British Red Cannon. Not many were actually sunk by the British artillery alone.

After listening to the report from the bodyguard, Marin could not sit still immediately, and some could not sleep. As soon as the next morning, Marin went to Emden Port with dark circles.

Then, Marin saw the zinc ingots shipped back from Newfoundland ...

Not many zinc ingots were transported this time. A pile of zinc ingots weighed only about 1 ton. This is so because the ore of the Bakens lead-zinc mine is too difficult to ship.

For this 1 ton of zinc ingot, Marin's men used the team of mules to pack the ore from the mountains of Bakens to the shore of Cornabrook. Zinc is about 6%). There was a blast furnace and the coal needed for smelting from Cape Breton Island ...

In fact, the mule team under Marin alone could not transport 17 tons of ore. It was the governor of Corner Brook who used a large amount of table salt produced on Cape Breton Island and other commodities popular with the Beutuk people inland on Newfoundland in exchange for the locals using their domesticated reindeer to help carry them together.

The Beotuks inland on Newfoundland mainly live by grazing reindeer on the inland plateau. Inland is not like the coast. The fishermen on the coast can add a lot of salt by cooking sea fish. After all, it is saltwater fish, which contains salt.

The inland Beotuks, who do not rely on the sea, are very short of salt. Sometimes, in order to replenish salt, they have to learn to reindeer and lick some salt on the rock wall. Or, kill the reindeer and drink reindeer blood to add salt. However, these two methods have a lot of money, and can't add too much salt.

And Marin happened to relocate all the salt cooking bases to Cape Breton Island, and there is a lot of salt production here. So, give those Beotuks a little salt, no pressure. Is it like a big farmer giving away a bag of rice? Is there pressure? No!

But for those inland Beotuks, that's great kindness. In order to return their favors, these simple inland Beotuks not only helped mine, but also picked out some strong and good-tempered reindeer to help carry the lead-zinc ore.

Although the reindeer can't keep up with the mule, there is nothing wrong with the mountain trail. After all, here is their home court. Even though the pack is not as good as mules, the locals have more reindeer, and the number is up, and there are many packs. In the end, the first batch of Conabrook smelters obtained 17 tons of ore.

According to Marin's suggestion, the craftsmen made a small change above the blast furnace-the upper flue gas outlet used a copper tube, which was bent to the side. But a cold water tank was attached to the copper pipe to cool the copper pipe.

Originally, without this copper tube, zinc would turn into steam and escape directly from the top of the blast furnace. But with this copper tube with a cold water tank to help cool, the zinc steam is directly cooled down, first converted into zinc liquid, and condensed to the bottom, and then slide down the copper tube ...

Of course, there are also a lot of zinc liquid that condenses into solids directly on the copper pipes, but most of them still flow out ...

Afterwards, the white zinc layer attached to it was scraped on the inner wall of the crude copper pipe with a scraper to obtain crude zinc. Then, using a furnace with a temperature of only a few hundred Baidu, the crude zinc is re-melted. After treatment methods such as stirring and separation, the impurities are removed to extract the zinc ingot with less impurities ...

Of course, in Marin's eyes, 1 ton of zinc ingot is really not much! Because the use of zinc is too large and too wide ...

Therefore, Marin decided to purchase another 100 mules for the transportation of the ore at the Bakens lead-zinc mine on Newfoundland. Before Marin sent only 10 mules, it was not enough ...

However, with this ton of zinc ingot, Marin can start to get tinplate ...

So, Marin ordered the steel plant to start manufacturing a large amount of thin iron sheet, which was cut into half square meters ...

The reason why we only get half a square meter is because there are too few zinc ingots ...

Marin ordered the construction of a flat-bottomed furnace and melted the zinc ingots into a liquid zinc. Then, after cutting the ordinary iron sheet, nailing the nail in advance, throw it into the zinc solution and soak it for a while, and then remove it ... In this way, a galvanized white iron sheet is successfully manufactured in this way ...

The reason for nail holes in advance is to prevent the nail from damaging the galvanized layer when nailing towards the bottom of the ship. In this case, the tinplate is more likely to be corroded by seawater. If the nail hole is nailed in advance, even if the nail is nailed again, it will not damage the galvanized layer. In this way, the galvanized iron sheet is less susceptible to corrosion by seawater ...

Although, the resistance of the tinplate to seawater corrosion is much worse than that of the copper sheet. However, at least they can persist for a year or two. As long as you don't die on the rocks and destroy the galvanized layer, the tinplate can still be used for a long time. Wait until it is corroded, and then replace it with a tinplate. Anyway, the cost of tinplate is much lower than that of copper ...

Then, after making another batch of tinplate, Marin ordered that the bottom of a warship be nailed with tinplate. After nailing, go out to sea test results ...

Anyway, by the time Aben returns to Panama to explore the fleet, Americo can almost take a few ships with a tinplate wrapped around the bottom , First rush to Panama City, and then start the route to the Eastern Daming ...

By that time, Cornabrook could also produce about ten to twenty tons of zinc ingots and send them back. In that case, a lot of tinplate can be made to nail the lower part of the waterline of the ship that needs to go to sea.

Of course, you have to reserve a batch of spare tinplate in case you need to replace it. After all, no one can guarantee that the ships will bump against each other while sailing. If it hits the reef hard, it will surely be finished, but if it is rubbed, the galvanized layer of some tinplate will be scratched. Replace the iron sheet.

Anyway, the lower part of the ship's waterline was nailed by pieces of white iron. To change the tinplate, just drive the boat to a suitable tidal zone. At low tide, the ship was temporarily stranded and the craftsmen went down to change the tinplate. When the tide is over, the ship continues to sail ...

Looking at the shiny white tinplate, the craftsmen exclaimed:

"It looks like silver!" However, they all know that it is the effect of a meltable metal ingot plated on the outside of ordinary iron, not real silver.

But what surprised the artisans was that they didn't seem to have heard of this metal. From the point of view of melting point and other properties, it is somewhat like tin, but it is more shiny than tin. The silver-white tinplate can even be used as a mirror. Before the glass mirror was invented by the Venetians, the tinplate seemed to be comparable to that of the bronze mirror ... It is also based on this attribute that Marin made the tinplate use a few iron stoves to make use of the reflective properties of the tinplate instead. Solar stove made of expensive copper skin ...

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