Artillery is Lord of War, a weapon used by human beings to kill their own kind. Most of them are very precise and reliable, and the manufacturing process is also very scientific and complicated. But in the early days of human application of artillery, the manufacture of artillery was relatively simple. At that time, craftsmen could even make artillery quickly in the barracks in order to participate in the war in time. Early artillery I will give you a detailed introduction to how Europeans made early artillery with clay sculptures! Originally, I was going to introduce the ancient gun casting technology in China, but there are not many pictures and materials in China, which are not intuitive. Early bronze cannon Early metal cannons and firegate cannons made by human beings were originally made of copper (bronze, brass and copper). Copper and bronze are high-quality materials for gun casting because of their low melting point, good ductility, tough texture and difficult explosion. Therefore, at that time, casting copper guns was popular in all countries, and the technology of integrally casting iron guns was not mastered by Europeans until around 1540, and this technology was also mastered by Britain. As for why iron guns have become the mainstream, it is because the price of bronze guns is too expensive! The lowest price of copper cannon is five times that of iron cannon! It is the price that forces mankind to improve metal processing technology and turn steel into the main raw material for casting guns! The earliest gun casting technology developed from the technology of making muskets and casting bells, so many gun casting teachers were casting bells for churches at that time! Because the production process of the two is the same! Male gun casting technology originated from casting copper bells. The following is the text: the first step, casting copper gun, first of all, to make a furnace to melt copper. It's better to have a crucible. It doesn't matter if there is no crucible or other tools, as long as there is a stove! The clay for the stove can be scraped directly on the termite mound. If you can't find termite mounds, you can also choose ordinary clay and pick out the stones, sticks and other sundries in the soil. There isn't much clay on the termite pile. Moisten the soil with water and stir constantly to make it mature. Straw stalks can be added during this period. And mud 2. Knead the matured soil into mud bricks and put them into a circular melting furnace. The melting furnace doesn't need to be made too high, as long as it is half a person's height, and a few wooden sticks can be used to reinforce it around to prevent it from collapsing. Mount a base on the stove. After the stove is built, let it dry naturally in the shade for a few days, and then open three vents at its bottom. The air duct will transport air into the furnace through these three holes! In order to prevent copper water from accidentally flowing out of the exhaust hole, all three air ducts should be inclined at 45 degrees in the furnace. Insert three air pipes obliquely. 4. After opening three air holes in the furnace, a discharge hole should be opened at the bottom. When the copper material melts into molten copper, it will be discharged from this hole. However, before the copper material is completely melted into molten copper, the discharge port should be sealed with soil and opened if necessary. Dig a discharge hole at the bottom of the furnace, then plug it with mud, and then start the second step if necessary. Clay molds were needed to make early bronze cannons. Clay mold consists of core and shell. It is suggested to make it by lost wax method! 1. First, take a piece of wax with a proper size, the length, width and height are similar to the specifications of the barrel to be made, then carve it into the shape of the barrel, drill the bore, and its overall size should be the same as that of a real metal barrel, as shown in the following figure. Barrel structure Figure 2. When making the wax film of gun barrel, the wax film is wrapped by clay, and even its interior should be filled with sediment, leaving only the feed port at the tail of gun barrel. The figure below is a cross-sectional view of the mud film. The part indicated by the red arrow of the barrel clay mold made in this way is the wax mold. 3. The two cylindrical mud bumps on the right side of the picture below are the finished gun barrel clay mold, which will be heated by craftsmen to melt the wax mold inside, thus leaving a gun barrel-shaped cavity inside the clay mold. The wax gun barrel in the gun barrel clay mold is heated and melted, leaving only a cavity in the shape of the gun barrel. This method of making gun barrel clay mold with wax mold is very popular in Europe and Asia because of its simplicity and reliability, but some places use other methods to make gun barrel clay mold. Their manufacturing method is as follows: 1 First, find a piece of wood with appropriate size and carve it into the shape of the barrel (hollow inside). Then, prepare two "wooden cases" larger than the wooden gun barrel, put the wooden gun barrel into one of the wooden cases, and then fill the wooden cases with the adjusted sediment (that is, the ratio of molding sand to mud sand, and pay attention to the dry humidity). Because I didn't find a video of this method, I switched to an axe maker. 2. Beat and squeeze the sediment in the wooden box with a wooden stick to make it closely connected with the wooden barrel. 3. Hang the excess sediment on the wooden box. Turn the wooden box upside down, and you can see that the shape of a barrel has been printed on the sediment. 5. If the wooden gun barrel is accidentally separated from the sediment, and burrs and gaps appear, the gun barrel should be backfilled into the sediment, and then the burrs should be repaired with the sediment. Repair burr 6. Sprinkle some lime powder on the wooden box, then put another wooden box on the mold and fill it with new sand. Of course, in order to let the copper material flow into the mold in the later stage, there should be holes for filling materials in the sediment. 7. After the new wooden box is filled with silt, knock it tightly with a wooden hammer. 8. After hitting with a wooden hammer, the sediment will become stronger. As long as the two wooden cases are carefully separated, the sediment inside will not be scattered. Remove wooden box 9. Take down the wooden barrel embedded in the mud and put the wooden box back, so that you can get a hollow groove in the shape of a wooden barrel! Carefully put the wooden box cover back to its original position 10. Put some sediment into the barrel, fill it up, hammer it tightly with a hammer, and then slowly move the barrel away, so that you can get the barrel-shaped mud gun core! Then accurately put the mud gun core into the barrel mud mold (on its axis) made in advance, so that the whole casting gun mud mold is completed. Under normal circumstances, the gunsmith will naturally dry the made clay model in the shade for several months before casting (the bigger the gun model, the longer the waiting time). According to ancient records, the clay casting gun can't be completely dried until January, and it rains and snows in winter, with few sunny days, and it can't be completely dried until March and February, because the outer mold of the gun tube and the gun core are made of compacted soil, which has low air permeability and internal. However, the moisture in the mud film will make the gun tube have honeycomb holes, which makes it in danger of explosion, so it often takes several months to make a gun at that time, and defective products often appear. Step 3: After making the clay mold of the gun barrel, you can light the stove, melt copper and cast the gun. 1. First, pour the charcoal into the stove. 2. When the charcoal in the furnace is ignited, directly add copper or bronze into the furnace. Pour copper directly into the furnace without crucible. 3. After the charcoal and copper are discharged, you can blow air into the furnace to raise the temperature in the furnace, so that the copper can be melted into copper water! The fourth step is blowing air, digging a big pit next to the discharge port of the furnace to install the clay mold of the gun tube, and then burying the clay film in the pit. The inlet on the clay mold is 1. When the clay mold is placed in the into the pit, it is backfilled with soil, and only the inlet leaking from the clay mold is outside. Backfill soil 2. After the gun barrel clay mold is buried in the mud pit, find some wet mud to make a "channel" to connect the discharge port of the furnace and the feed port of the gun barrel clay mold, so as to ensure that the copper water in the furnace can flow into the clay mold safely through this channel. 3. When the copper in the furnace is completely melted into copper water, open the water outlet and let the copper water flow into the gun barrel clay mold along the channel to fill all the cavities in the clay film! In this process, copper water may tilt the gun core in the clay mold, so that the gun bore cast by it is not on the central axis of the gun body, so it is best to control the speed of copper water flowing out. Step 4, the copper water flows into the clay mold, and after all the copper water flows into the barrel clay mold, it is left for a period of time. 1. When the copper water in the clay mold cools naturally, take the clay film out of the pit and break it open with a hammer. Break open the clay mold. 2. Then hang it out with other tools, and pour out all the sediments on the surface of the metal barrel and in the gun bore, and you can get a rough metal barrel! Barrel 3 with rough surface. Use a file and other polishing tools to polish off the excess burrs and sand holes on the surface of the metal barrel, and then bore the inside of the barrel with a boring tool to make it as straight as possible, so that the shells can be better discharged from the barrel. After machining the bore and surface of the barrel, drill a fire door at the tail of the barrel with a drill. There is a fire door at the end of the polished metal barrel. Step 5, after the above processes, the gun barrel is basically finished and can be loaded with the gun car! Of course, quality inspection should be carried out before delivery to ensure that there are no fatal defects. 1. First, visually inspect the barrel for obvious defects, and then knock the barrel with a hammer for cracks. If no cracks or other defects are found, block the fire door on the barrel and then fill the barrel with water. If you find water seeping out of the bucket, it means there is a crack in the bucket. This bucket is absolutely unacceptable! It will explode! Test artillery with live ammunition. 2. After the above inspection methods, if no defects are found, you can "live test"! Of course, take your time. First, charge a small amount of gunpowder to detonate, and then increase the weight of gunpowder until it is as heavy as gunpowder and shells! After these tests, but there are no cracks, explosions and other problems, the artillery is qualified! Can be used in war! The above is the whole process of making early artillery by the ancient clay mold method. Generally speaking, this method of casting guns is relatively simple, and the guns produced also have certain quality problems. And the bigger the guns produced, the more problems there are. China even has the exaggeration that "casting 23 out of ten is the national hand"! Moreover, every time you make a gun, you have to make a new clay model, which is not only time-consuming and laborious, but also has some differences in caliber and specifications of each gun, which is the main reason why many shells with the same caliber cannot be used universally! Bronze gun asks for attention, forwarding, praise and comment. I will introduce you to the making method of Frankie gun in the future! I am a hardcore author of the whole headline ~