While the canal and water turbine projects are in progress, the brick-timber structure factory building is also under intensive construction. The factory building adopts a very mature wooden structure truss-type house in Lingao. The overall frame of the house is designed by the sawmill according to the design drawings.
The processed prefabricated parts were sent to the construction site for splicing and installation. A skilled and well-staffed installation team could erect the frame of the house in less than a week. Then the masons used red bricks to build the walls. If it were not for the fire protection of the factory building,
Sex, you can directly use wooden keel walls to build the website. The cost can be lower.
The biggest advantage of a truss structure house is that it can build a large-span barrier-free factory building without too many beams and columns for support, which is crucial for workshops that need to arrange machines. After the factory building was built, another one was replaced.
Assemble workers to assemble the equipment.
The machines were packed in boxes and transported to Nansha. They were carefully unloaded and sent to the factory for unpacking and assembly. The villagers looked at these workers curiously - they were different from the previous construction workers who mostly spoke Cantonese vernacular.
, almost all of them spoke in "Australian Mandarin". Although they also wore similar work clothes and had "big bangs", these people were stronger and exuded a "different" temperament. Some people said,
Those who install machinery are all "Chen Kun", who are older than the "Xin Kun" who dig ditches and build houses.
"Chen Kun" assembled the machinery and equipment faster. By the end of June, all the machinery and equipment had been installed. On this day, Zou Feng conducted the first turbine test. After opening the gate, the river water flowed into the diversion canal and began to push the water
The wheel rotated. Gradually, the water wheel reached the operating speed, the power transmission system began to operate normally, the sky axis rotated rapidly, and the whole factory began to tremble slightly. Some people hurriedly ran out of the house, but the internship team was
There was no movement in the factory, carefully observing the rotation of the sky axis.
At Zou Feng's signal, the workers pulled the connecting rods in turn and connected the transmission belt to the equipment. The equipment began to idle, making a deafening sound. The girls carefully watched the operation of the equipment and recorded it in their notebooks at any time.
Chen Lin couldn't understand this, but from the expressions of Zou Feng and the girls, he could probably tell that the operation was going well, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Tens of thousands of taels of silver had been spent since the start of the project. Although most of it was Wu
Uncle's money, but after all, my own family was also involved. If it really ruined the Chen family's face, it would be disgraced.
The test results were generally satisfactory, and the next step was the trial production stage. Chen Ding purchased a lot of cotton from Sixiang and shipped it to the factory.
In the old time and space, before cotton was transported to the textile factory, the cotton gin process had basically been carried out at the place of production to clean up the cotton seeds. However, in this time and space, only the Senate had cotton gins. In order to improve efficiency, this process was moved
Go to the factory to do it.
After the cotton seeds are removed by the cotton gin, the cotton is sent to the "blowroom workshop". The blowroom workshop is not indoors because the work is dusty, so the blowroom is built in a large reed mat shed on the open space.
Because the power of the water turbine is not enough to drive the blower, this process is purely manual. The cotton is placed on a wooden frame, and the workers use bamboo sticks to beat it, and mix the branches, leaves, and insects into the cotton.
and dirt and other impurities. The cleaning process does not require skills and does not require high physical strength. During the British Industrial Revolution, most women were engaged in it. Here, Anjiu also requested that more women be hired to do this.
Work.
"It's okay for women to do the spinning and weaving work. It's a laborious job." Chen Lin found it incredible.
"Who said women can't do strenuous work?" An Jiu said, "Besides, this work is not too strenuous."
Chen Lin thought to himself that it was not a lot of effort, but he didn't dare to argue with this "chief's student", so he just obeyed.
The cleaned cotton is mixed together and the first process begins: carding.
No matter what technology or equipment is used, the basic processes of cotton spinning are four: carding, drawing, roughing, and worsted spinning.
"Start feeding!" Li Tang shouted and began to operate the smoothing machine. The first batch of workers recruited gathered around her and watched her operation.
She feeds the carded cotton into the carding machine, and the cotton passes through layers of staggered metal rake teeth on the machine to separate the tangled cotton fibers and card them side by side.
"You see, after carding, the fibers of cotton are roughly parallel." She pointed to the products coming out of the machine. The cotton has become loose strips, which are called "card strips" in the jargon.
”.
Li Tang skillfully picked up the slivers and loaded them into the draw frame in groups. The rollers were pressed and brought together. This is the so-called drawing process. The purpose of the drawing process is to enhance the strength of the slivers.
, this process will be repeated several times, and the specific number of times and the number of drawings will depend on the raw materials and production process conditions.
The sliver after drawing is put into a rotating container called a "twisting tank" for "weak twisting". During the weak twisting process, the roving machine rollers stretch the sliver, and the sliver is thinner than after drawing.
Dozens of times or even hundreds of times, this is roving.
After a certain number of bobbins wrapped with roving are accumulated, workers carry them to the worsted spinning machine. In fact, the worsting machine is almost the same as the drawing process, but it is more delicate.
The roving is wound on a bobbin, and the bobbin is placed on a spindle. Each worsted spinning machine drives 72 spindles. There are a total of ten such worsted spinning machines in the entire textile factory.
The roving is turned into fine yarn by the rollers and is finally taken out by the yarn guide hook and wound on the spindle. The twisting and winding are completed by the rotation of the spindle itself. The last twisting is the key step to make the yarn strong, and it can only be done when the spindle reaches a certain speed.
Make the yarn strong enough.
"It's out! It's out!" everyone shouted. This was the first time they had seen such a magical and efficient textile method.
Soon a bobbin of yarn was ready. Chen Lin picked up the sample given by the Australian and compared it with his own. After careful inspection, there was still a slight difference. A layman would not be able to tell the difference at first glance, but
An expert will know at a glance that they are obviously better from Australia.
This made him a little puzzled. Was there something wrong with the machines the Australians gave him? They were all of the same model. Could it be that the ones woven by the Australians using the power of water and fire would be better than those made by water?
But this is good enough. Such yarn is probably not available in the whole of China, let alone Guangdong.
With such yarn, why not worry about weaving good cloth!
Unfortunately, the first phase of the Nansha Demonstration Factory does not include a weaving workshop. Cotton yarn is their final product.
Who should these cotton yarns be sold to? The old hospital does not need them - they have a complete set of cotton textile enterprises. Fortunately, this is not a problem for Chen Lin. Fengsheng and looms are not working at full capacity, except for a few
In addition to the large flower looms, the accompanying waist looms can also be used for weaving. Weavers on these waist looms can weave not only satin but also cotton.
Another place to go is to sell yarn to farmers in the countryside. Although it is not common, most farmers have looms in their homes. Weaving cloth or silk is also a sideline business. In the past, Fengsheng and Henan except for a small amount of
Except for high-end fabrics, most ordinary products adopt a package purchase system, and the silk is given to each manufacturer for weaving. Now that we have cotton yarn, we can also process it in the same way. This network is ready-made, and it is easy to use.
Local cotton is slightly cheaper than Songjiang, and cotton cloth is more expensive. Therefore, it is still profitable for Chen Lin to use machines to make yarn. Of course, the profit is very small. But if labor productivity can be greatly improved, the accumulation of small profits will be very considerable.
.
Traditionally speaking, the spinning process of a piece of cotton cloth is four times as long as the weaving process. It takes an average of seven days to weave a piece of cloth in Songjiang, and women produce an average of seven kilograms of yarn a month. It takes 21 hours to clean the cotton of a piece of cloth.
It took 49 hours to spin and 11 hours to weave. But now the spinning time has been greatly shortened. The original women immediately doubled the speed of making cloth after getting the yarn.
After a simple calculation, Chen Lin came to the conclusion that if the supply of cotton is guaranteed and the price is maintained at the current level, with the current production capacity, it will only take five years to recover the entire investment. Plus the production capacity after the second phase is launched...
…This is not a small profit, it is simply a huge profit.
However, a serious problem immediately faced Chen Lin: the spinning speed was too fast, which was far from enough for the local cotton production. Even if he immediately called on the villagers to plant cotton on a large scale, they would still have to wait until the autumn.
reward.
Also, who will sell such a huge amount of cotton cloth to? Fengsheng and the silk and satin produced by Fengsheng have a destination - three generations of operation have long formed a fixed sales network. But for cotton cloth,
They have never handled business.
As for cotton, the problem is even bigger. The cotton used for trial production was shipped directly from Guangzhou with the help of Chen Xiaobing. To be honest, Chen Lin didn’t even know where it came from. As for the local cotton in Xiangshan, some were purchased one after another. Once it is officially
It probably won't even take a month to start construction.
In the evening, he told Li Guo about this matter. Li Guo was older and had a more stable personality. He was currently responsible for the administrative work of the textile factory. Naturally, he discussed this matter with her.
"The sales of cloth are okay. But the source of the cotton has become a big problem."
"How do you plan to solve this problem, sir?" Li Guo asked.
"After much thought, I have a few ideas: First, send people to set up warehouses in nearby towns to collect cotton. The local cotton is harvested in August - but..."
"But what?"
"Local cotton has never been purchased by anyone in the past. It is all spun and woven by farmers themselves. I don't know if I can receive it smoothly."
"As long as the price is right, someone will sell it. After all, spinning is time-consuming. If we can sell flowers directly, wouldn't we save manpower to do other things?"