Chapter 50: The best in Zhongyun
Translated by me, edited by drpetro.
When Ye Qing used a handcart to pull the propellers onto the dock, the yacht had just been secured in place.
Several workers were covered in sweat, squatting on the dock, and smoking while boasting about random things.
The topic was mainly girls, and the content was always on the shady side.
When Ye Qing arrived, the foreman, out of the corner of his eyes, took a glance and without taking him seriously went back to smoking.
Before a breath of smoke could be exhaled, the foreman, as if he had been electrocuted, trembled and violently coughed due to the choked smoke.
*Cough cough* *Cough cough* The foreman turned around again looking like he’s seen a real ghost.
Seven different looks soon followed. First they swept over Ye Qing, then they decided to examine the cart in front of him.
“Ahhh!” The seven workers all stumbled to try to get up, and dropped their smokes everywhere.
“This……This……This……” The foreman ran over to the handcart with a face full of shock and absurdity.
“This is impossible!” The foreman felt the seven fan propellers on the cart, as if stroking a miracle.
“Where did you get these propellers?”
“Oh ~ you mean these?” Ye Qing stared at him with his hands behind his neck: “I just milled these. I’ve got two CNC milling centers and a couple aluminum alloy plates inside the workshop, so I just conveniently made two of them.”
“This is impossible. Impossible!” The foreman as if having been possessed, circled around the propellers non-stop, continuously talking to himself: “Even if there are specific multiple axis milling centers, a single propeller would still take at least four to five hours. How could it be this quick?”
The other seven young workers right now all became mutes. They were all squatting on the dock, shockingly staring at Ye Qing.
To be fair, it’s not like it was possible for them to not be this shocked. Two high end propellers that need to be imported from Germany were in the end, in a bit over an hour, made by a no name workshop.
If anyone else was here, they would all be the same.
This was simply too shocking, too inconceivable.
Everyone had seen the steel workshop in the yard. The yard was full of piles of stone strips, so they naturally all thought that the steel workshop only contained a couple cutting machines to at most, cutting away at those stones.
Cutting stone strips beside the sea is a very reasonable tendency for any proper merchant.
Drawing up water directly from the sea to wash away all the stone powder is a major saving option.
Who would’ve thought that inside that steel workshop, was two five axis CNC milling centers hidden away.
But even if there were five axis CNC milling centers, it doesn’t explain how they were able to mill out this kind of high curvature propellers.
And what’s more, they milled them out in just a bit over an hour! Even with the most sophisticated five axis CNC milling center in the world, it was still next to impossible for it to be this quick.
Unless……
There was only one possibility!
The two milling centers inside are either DMG 2000TC or better.
This kind of complex and leading German industry products was introduced to the world just a couple of years back, and caused quite the ripple on the internet at the time. At the time, it also staggering shocked everyone who was in the mechanical production industry.
Thousands of drill bits automated to mill, to change, and with the ability to do any kind of complex milling process.
This kind of advanced machine has always been embargoed. Even after the 08 recession, there was only the castrated version available for sale.
Its nickname was the all purpose machine. As for the price, not too expensive, just couple of million yuan for only all the drill bits.
To determine the machine cost, you need to consider its components and its functionality; the more functionality it had the more expensive it was. If you want to have high automation functionality, then the price tag it comes to would also skyrocket.
And this was merely for the hardware. The software was even more of a bottomless pit. Those who are able to afford this kind of machine were all in the business of making some highly complex components.
To add whatever software you thought was needed to operate it more efficiently and conveniently, you would need to cough up 50,000 to have one custom made. If you wanted to add more to it, then that’s another 50,000.
Apart from those, you think that as long as you have the money you could buy them?
Wrong.
Even if you had the money, you would still need to wait in line for at least a couple of years to order. And that’s for the castrated version.
If this kind of machine actually arrived, then you would pretty much be in possession of a divine instrument, even if it was only the castrated version. Screw all those complex components, what large complex curvature surface, none of it was a problem at all.
This kind of feeling was just like a seasonal worker returning home to visit, then met a farmer in patched clothing. Originally wanting to show off, but the honest farmer in the blink of an eye was using a Gulfstream private jet to spread fertilizer. That same kind of absurdity.
Yes ~ if it’s with that kind of machine, than to create a civilian use propeller was basically like using a cannon to kill a mosquito.
It was definitely like this, that was the only possible conclusion the workers could come up with.
The foreman squatted down, and began to fearfully examine the silvery white propeller.
The heat from the milling hadn’t dissipated yet. Feeling the still lukewarm metal surface, the foreman mistakenly felt as if he was touching a girl’s skin.
“This kind of quality, you…… how do you do it?” The foreman trembling asked: “Don’t tell me you’ve got either a DMG 2000 or a 3000 TC in the workshop.”
“DMG?” Ye Qing inwardly said ‘what trashy DMG, what I have is a black magic creation unique to this world.’
Of course that couldn’t be said out loud, so Ye Qing acted mysteriously, and put on the act of as if to say ‘why should I tell you?’
The other seven workers also gathered over. They are all people who commonly worked with boats, yet the two propellers were clearly the highest quality propellers they had ever seen.
Even if they were to look for faults, to even find a single misplaced scratch to prove to that Ye Qing wasn’t that perfect, was impossible.
The worker’s loud shouts and yells also woke up the napping Xia Muqing. She rubbed her still sleepy eyes and walked out onto the yacht deck.
Her drowsy eyes became wide. It was the same cuteness as that of an anime girl.
The pilot of the yacht also came out. Seeing the two propeller on the dock, he tripped over the door sill and fell face first onto the deck.
“You can really mill propellers?” Xia Muqing walked on a brand new gangway onto the dock and incessantly stroked the two silvery white propellers. She also looked at Ye Qing with a look of having seen something absurd.
Just a bit over an hour ago, this guy was still joking about gifting me two brand new propellers, so that I could still head out to sea tomorrow.
Except this joke became a reality.
“What machine did you use to mill it? How can it be even more magical than magic?”
“It’s definitely a DMG 3000 TC, or it’s WFL’s M35-G complex milling center.” The foreman was completely ashamed. Just before he was still joking about how it was impossible with everyone. Now a propeller that was even better than the original appeared in front of him.
“These two kind of machines plus their whole drill bit set, each have a price tag of several tens of millions, and that’s only for the castrated version. The full version has already been embargoed for multiple years now.”
“Our shipyard also has milling centers, except they’re all domestic versions. Even with all ten of them combined, they’re only worth a single set of drill bits for those machines. In all of Zhongyun, I’ve never heard of any factory with these machines.”
“Maybe little brother’s machines are actually the embargoed complete versions.” A worker sourly responded: “During the cold war, USSR obtained several embargoed large scale milling centers from Japan. In the end they used them to create propellers, and had the West completely lose track of their submarine movements.
Xia Muqing returned her gaze back to Ye Qing, as if seeing an extremely powerful partner who was in possession of embargoed machines.
Ye Qing proudly smiled, a smile that said no comment.
Xia Muqing also found this to be too ridiculous, what was made was civilian use yacht propellers, not propellers for nuclear submarines, so where was the need for those embargoed machines?
Of course Ye Qing being in possession of the ability to produce precise and quick works, incomparable in all of Zhongyun, was undoubted.
“Weren’t you guys making fun of him for not being able to make it even with a year?” Xia Muqing also pretended to act like Ye Qing, with her crossed arms and puffed chest: “You guys even said that you’ll pay a million for them. Now that they been made are you gonna buy them?”
“Please relax, relax. My brother and sister, we’re like this is all because of that fake alcohol. All that random jibberish, you really can’t take it seriously.”
This group of worker were clearly very ashamed, and hated not being to find a hole to hide in.