Chapter 49: Mine’s better than yours
Translated by me, edited by drpetro.
“Do you know how to mill propellers?”
“In all of Zhongyun, there isn’t a single factory that will boast they can mill propellers, not even Huaxing Heavy Industry can do it!”
“You definitely don’t understand what complex curved surface processing means, and also don’t know that for a new design is required whenever a five axis CNC mill is used to mill a new propeller.”
“High speed propellers have extremely high requirements for the precision levels of the seven fans. So you clearly know nothing. To mill these kind of complex curved surfaces, a normal five axis CNC mill can only use it’s ball head router bits.”
“Using a ball head bit to mill the curved surfaces, with the bit’s center line as point of origin, tell me how you’re going to ensure the needed precision levels?”
“You know nothing and yet tell us to mill a pair of propellers?”
The foreman is not only pissed but also found it ridiculous as he spewed a bunch of technical bullshit.
The other workers also fill Ye Qing in some common knowledge within the industry, saying that without a specialized vertical five axis coupling, to mill out a standardized seven fan high speed propeller is nothing more than joke.
They even guaranteed that if installed, within a couple of nautical miles, the propellers will definitely facture and become unusable.
“Hahahaha ~ Seriously look at yourself. What a freaking joke, even CNC milling centers,” Said the young man who was just in the water, maybe because he wanted to show off his superiority in front of a lady. He basically put Ye Qing, with his full set of brand names, as a his arch nemesis.
Xia Muqing naturally stood on Ye Qing’s side. Not mentioning their cooperations together, just him saving her life before is more than enough for her to stand with Ye Qing to the bitter end.
“Why don’t you just say you can’t make it, what’s the deal with standing there and laughing at his ideas?” Xia Muqing coldly and angrily stared at these people.
“Sure sure, alright stop laughing, get to work.” The foreman loudly proclaimed, except that within a couple of seconds, he once again burst out laughing.
“You can’t mill it is because you don’t have the technical ability to.”
Ye Qing didn’t get angry, rather smiled to Xia Muqing to indicate that it’s fine: “If propellers are this difficult to make, then let me ask you, how much does it cost to import a pair of them?”
“Not too much, a pair of seven fan propellers is only 24,000. There are some factories which can make them domestically, but their precision is a bit subpar.” The foreman clearly knows Ye Qing isn’t short on money as the watch on his wrist can easily substitute for several pairs of them.
But this still doesn’t mean that they can admit that their shipyard is lacking the technical abilities to make them.
“Such a cheap price, yet you guys can’t make them. If it isn’t because you guys don’t have the technical abilities to do so then what else is there?”
The foreman smiled with disdain: “Go ahead and make them, I’ll give you a year, and if you do make them I’ll pay you 100,000 for them.”
“I’ll pay a million!” A worker who was securing cables on the yacht to pull it on shore called out.
Ye Qing sighed, turned around and headed off into his factory.
Xia Muqing hurried chased up and urged: “Mr. Ye there’s no need for you to be angry.”
“What? No. I’m really not.” Ye Qing actually wasn’t angry at all.
“Then you……” Xia Muqing believed that Ye Qing was pissed beyond belief and couldn’t stand it anymore.
“I’m going back to make a pair of them.” Ye Qing smiled at her.
“You…… what did you say?” Xia Muqing was now completely shocked beyond belief. Although Tiancheng mining corporation doesn’t own any milling centers, they do however possess mountains of machineries. Definitely enough to fill up all of Dragon Creek beach.
Xia Muqing naturally understood some of the machine processing, hence her extreme shock, and believed that Ye Qing was only talking nonsense.
“Bro, how can you actually be this peeved!” If the two were quite familiar with each other, Xia Muqing right now would definitely go up to Ye Qing and see if he’s running a fever.
“Aren’t propellers only made by propeller factories? So you clearly understand that specialists are required for this.”
“I know ~” Ye Qing put up an air of sullen and melancholy.
“But……”
“But I don’t know why, but just there at the dock, I saw you extremely depressed upon hearing the need to wait for at least a week before it can be repaired.”
“I’m…… I’m just really heartbroken.”
“Hence ~ I’m going to hand make a pair of propellers as a gift for you!”
Xia Muqing’s shock right now had already exceeded that of seeing ghosts, instead it’s the complicated expression of someone sees an angel and a demon kissing.
“Hahahaha ~” Ye Qing seeing that inconceivable looks of her, couldn’t hold it back anymore, as he hugged his stomach and bursted out laughing.
Him wanting to create the propellers is purely because he doesn’t want the yacht to moor here for that long. Plus, there’s actually materials for making the propellers within the workshop.
Civilian used propellers are generally made of copper alloy, aluminum alloy or stainless steel, as all other common metals are relatively easy to corrode and rust.
There’s piles of aluminum alloy in the workshop, and their thickness is just right for making those seven fan propellers.
As the number of fan blades decrease for a propeller, the curvature of the fans will increase dramatically, hence the need for an increase in the material’s strength and thickness.
Conversely as the number of fans increase, the material’s’ strength and thickness requirement will obviously decrease. But the curvature of the fans is still quite large, some are even bent beyond those of fishing hooks, yet the aluminum alloy Ye Qing bought previously is more than enough to satisfy the propellers’ requirements.
Furthermore, civilian propellers don’t have the strict requirements like those used in the military. There’s no need for any heat treatment or other steps, so it can be installed and used immediately after completion. If it’s seeking quality, then it just needs a layer of anti-corrosive paint.
“You, you!” Xia Muqing clearly knew now that Ye Qing was cracking a joke, yet she still couldn’t help but get embarrassed.
Of course this still doesn’t mean that Xia Muqing likes Ye Qing. What kind of outstanding males hasn’t she met, she’s blushing purely because she’s got too thin of a skin.
“Then why aren’t you going?” Xia Muqing who has finally understood found it somewhat hilarious. She definitely doesn’t believe that Ye Qing can make these kind of high speed propellers.
Ye Qing first went to his office, Xia Muqing also followed to see what shenanigans he’s making, except found that Ye Qing’s basically sitting there fooling around on the computer.
“Remember to call me when you’re done.” Xia Muqing comfortably stretched out and called out to Ye Qing: “I’m gonna head back to the yacht for a nap while waiting for your gift.”
“No problem!” Ye Qing snapped.
Making propellers, naturally requires the blueprints for them.
Ye Qing first logged onto Sunbird yacht factory’s official website, but couldn’t find any details about the propellers. So he directly logged on to their QQ chat and informed them that he’s looking to buy a yacht, one that is exactly like the one outside right now.
Their customer service representative quickly sent over a bunch of information, within it includes the specific details of the propellers. The manufacturer also used words to flatter and boast how they’re German made and what not.
Jotting down the model number, Ye Qing opened out a CAD repository and began to search for the propeller’s CAD blueprint.
There is a wide range of data available for civilian propellers, especially on the internet. What’s more Ye Qing even found several propeller blueprints that are allegedly for nuclear submarines.
Soon a CAD drawing of the propellers that is the exact same as the ones used by the yacht outside was found by Ye Qing and downloaded onto a USB stick.
This processes only used roughly ten plus minutes, adding on the fact that Xia Muqing went for a nap on the yacht, there’s no one left in the factory to bother Ye Qing.
Closing and locking the door to the workshop, Ye Qing immediately summoned two master artisans.
They naturally possess +8% increase in precision and processing efficiency, add on the +2% precision increase from the level 2 bounded factory, it can be said that when purely comparing precision levels, there isn’t anyone in the world who is on par or even be compared to the master artisans.
Two pieces of square aluminum alloy were quickly cut out, and placed upon the workbench of that completely black tech rapid metal engraver.
Using the rapid metal engraver to carve stone is complete a waste of talent.
Using it to engrave gold, silver, copper, aluminum, lead and other soft metals, is its actual purpose.
Because aluminum alloy’s toughness is way stronger than that of stone, there’s a decrease in processing speed.
Ye Qing from time to time went to check if there was anyone peeking, and after roughly 20 minutes, two brand new almost complete propellers were born.
The workshop possess two CNC milling centers, so placing them directly into the milling area, the two propellers, together, first were bored, then had screw threads tapped on.
Finally, the precision polishing step. The two master artisans that could be straight up be called human machines, directly used the buffing machine and 2000 grit sandpaper to polish and smooth out the propellers.
Ye Qing went out for a stroll, and found the shipyard workers that spent a ton of effort before finally being able to pull the yacht from the dock onto the beach.
Right now the tide hasn’t started to rise, so naturally there wasn’t a way to dry dock it yet, so they could only use cables to secure the yacht from drifting off.
Returning to the office, again purposely wasting a bunch of time, Ye Qing finally stood up and headed to the workshop.
The two propellers were finished a long time ago. The two seven fan high speed propellers were emitting off a silver white radiance as it quietly laid there on the ground.
Perfection!
Perfect to the point of beyond perfection. Even if some fussy and picky engineer were sent over, they still wouldn’t be able to find a tiny thread of defect or flaw.
The limit to human eye identification is limited to 0.1 millimeters.
Experienced fitters, who hand makes everything, can control the precision level to near 0.03 millimeters.
But now the question comes……
What if it’s not made by humans?
Master artisans have nothing special to them, except for the system introduction where they were said to possess precision levels that are beyond imagination.
Then add on the +8% precision property, the Monster Factory’s +2% precision, and the +2% lifespan expectancy of the product.
With these all together, the master artisans now have the capabilities to defy all the experienced fitters in the whole entire world.
Hence the two propellers on the ground, first went through the completely black tech rapid metal engraver’s milling, then had the master artisans’ precision polishing, it now has to qualification to disdain upon all of the original propellers properties.
Even if the company that specially makes yacht propellers from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany were to send over their highly prized engineers. When competing with the master artisans, add on their wife, children, and mistresses, they will lose them all and everything else they own and still not be able to win a single round.
When the Monster Factory levels up to level three, maybe with this bunch of master artisans, he could trash the pride of all those so called high precision factories!
Ye Qing beautifully thought.