parentshiftbook Chapter 1220 - 1147: Problem Solved
Chapter 1220 - 1147: Problem Solved
The fluorite lamps cast a steady glow, and the clock's hands had reached half past six.By now the sun had completely set, leaving only a stretch of darkness behind the mountain.
Throughout the entire ry Court Barracks, only the Stag Chamber, awash in glassy light, and the Holy Alliance high monks within it still blazed with illumination.
After dinner, Horn and Leonardo returned to the Stag Chamber side by side.
This in itself was an extremely strong political signal; those who understood, understood, and everyone began casting friendly looks in Leonardo's direction.
Leonardo, however, had already recovered from his loss of composure; aside from the bloodshot in his eyes and the blisters at the corner of his mouth, there was almost no difference from his usual state.
Horn came to the main seat, but did not sit down; instead, he first swept his gaze around the room.
These Holy Alliance high monks were still frowning as before, though the sorrow between their brows had eased somewhat.
After all, they had just discussed the cards in their own hands, and each at least had gained some confidence and ideas.
Horn also now had a plan in mind; he spoke calmly: "Everyone, quiet please. Lord Leonardo has already proposed a method to solve the problem of precision parts production."
As soon as he finished speaking, Leonardo stepped forward, spreading a roll of blueprints flat on the long table.
On the paper, a lathe was sketched in charcoal; a leadscrew ran through the body like a long snake, a sliding tool carriage clamped to one side of the leadscrew, with dense numbers annotated beside it.
His fingertip fell on the drawing: "This is a draft I drew half a year ago. I originally intended to refine it after the exposition."
Knowing Leonardo's great name, many engineers and Artisans crowded around, beginning to savor this lathe.
Lathes, or turning machines, had existed in the Empire since ancient times.
But most were high-end woodworking tools, using foot-treadle lathes to turn out various wooden components.
Only in the Empire's recent era had they slowly begun to be used for metal grinding and fabrication, and in this regard the Holy Alliance was definitely a pioneer.
Especially after equipping them with star-cast gears, the lathe's capabilities had been raised to yet another level.
So Leonardo was in fact making further improvements on the Holy Alliance's old lathes.
For example, casting the bed in cast iron and fixing it to the ground, reducing the errors caused by movement of the bed.
For example, designing a sliding tool carriage that meshes with a thick leadscrew, thus eliminating the dead-zone problems of the original lathe.
While the many engineers, scholars, and Artisans were reading with relish, Leonardo continued explaining.
"The leadscrew drive controls the sliding carriage; as long as the accuracy is high enough, machining errors in the parts can be pressed down to a minimum.
So at present there is only one problem, which is that we need a precise dial.
This kind of dial, His Highness Hilov could originally see but not make, while Lady Novia could make it but not see it.
Last week's 'Journal of Natural Theology' documented advances in glass processing and the completion of the first microscope, which happens to be usable for making the dial.
Once this precision lathe is built, we can free the Dwarf Artisans from grinding some of the relatively lower-precision parts, allowing them to focus all their efforts on the most difficult segments."
Harbin immediately squeezed forward: "How many divisions must the dial be marked with? Can it be finished in a day?"
"One hundred and twenty divisions, each corresponding to a displacement of 0.1 millimeter," Leonardo answered at once. "As long as the microscope is in place, if we rush through the night, we can finish marking it by noon tomorrow.
As for assembling the lathe, I'll do it myself; I can certainly complete it before dawn tomorrow.
If we can transfer Novia over, we might go even faster."
"Half a day means you have at most one or two attempts. Can you guarantee a successful assembly?" Hakuto, who oversaw military industry, understood this very well.
One should know that even for a small lathe, assembly plus debugging took about five days.
Leonardo daring to guarantee assembly in a single day meant he intended to complete it in one breath, in a single run.
"Anywhere else I wouldn't dare say so, but in the Holy Alliance I can," Leonardo's confidence came not only from his own skills, but also from the Holy Alliance's policies of standardized production.
Many components were already on hand, cast and ground according to unified standards.
This could cut down a huge amount of time on scraping, tapping, and calibration.
In addition, the frames and axle boxes of the Spring Machines were already available; many had been built in order to test more models.
Ironically, because the backup parts were clogging up warehouse capacity and there was no space for frames and axle boxes, the locomotive research institute had violated regulations by storing them in the Holy Machinery Court University warehouse.
Unexpectedly, this had ended up rescuing a large batch of ready-made modular components.
An Aier engineer, however, shook his head: "The risk is too high. If you fail to finish assembly in one day, you'll massively compress the time that follows."
"And there's the scrap rate and locomotive debugging issues!" another engineer from the Agricultural Department added. "The time is too tight; this is an impossible task. What if something goes wrong during assembly?"
"I have a way to deal with that," Horn turned to glance at Qianqian, whose face had gone ashen. "We'll employ saturation-style rescue: however many frames and axle boxes we have, that's how many projects we start simultaneously."
If one locomotive has problems in debugging or assembly, then we switch to another; it's impossible for all of them to be faulty, isn't it?
And even if they all have issues, the stones from other mountains can polish jade; they can serve as mutual references.
If even that doesn't work, Horn could only slowly lament how thin the Holy Father's favor toward him was.
"In that case, won't we run short of parts and Dwarf Artisans?"
The high monks and engineers, who had been excited a moment ago, fell silent again. Indeed, saturation-style rescue required saturation-style supplies.
A Holy Alliance high monk suddenly cleared his throat: "Actually, there are enough Dwarf Artisan masters with the necessary skills.
I have here a list of Dwarf Artisan masters who are in seclusion or hiding, along with their families and places of retreat.
According to this list, if we invite them to come out, we can provide enough parts for ten Spring Machines at the same time."
This account information also came from what that High Monk heard from his "hand cards."
If you don't behave, do you still want to keep running this Mangde County Dwarf Commerce Association?
It had to be said, Horn had too many cards in his hand; his cards even had their own cards.
Taking the list, this was his first time getting an intuitive grasp of how many Dragon Worship Sect Dwarf Artisan masters there actually were.
"There's just one problem—these Dwarf masters don't exactly have a good attitude toward the Holy Alliance."
At this moment, Duvalon, who had absolutely nothing to do with this matter, raised his hand: "I can handle that. I can go straight to the Cold Spring Castle Dwarf Artisan masters, have them grind and cut according to the blueprints, then send the parts back by fast horse and ship."
"What way do you have?"
"Can't say." Leaving his seat, Duvalon scuttled up to Horn's ear and whispered, "Your Grace, could you lend me those Sorrido Clan vampires, and your black dragon's head, for a bit?"
Horn gave him a strange once-over from head to toe: "Will there be enough time for them to make the parts and ship them back?"
"More than enough, absolutely enough." Duvalon thumped his chest.
Even though he wasn't sure whether Duvalon could actually pull it off, Horn decided to believe him for now and keep pushing things forward.
"Now recalculate: with fifteen locomotives, what's the fastest we can do it?"
The ry Court Barracks had ample fluorite-lamp lighting conditions, and on top of that, a rich supply of engineers and workers.
Round-the-clock three-shift work and assembling multiple Spring Machines in parallel was not a problem.
At worst they'd just have to suspend part of the Gray Furnace Town military production and urgently transfer a batch of workers over.
The Holy Alliance had no shortage of skilled metalworkers.
According to the data from the existing Spring Machines that had already been repaired, under a two-shift schedule it would take roughly 20 to 30 days to assemble a single Spring Machine.
To aim for the fastest, they'd count it as 20 days.
The first three days would be used for frame alignment, wheelset hoisting, and axle box mounting.
This part, if switched to bolt connections made on Leonardo's lathe, wouldn't require hand grinding.
The Holy Alliance manufactured large components as standardized modules; on three shifts, that step could be done in a single day.
If they didn't use bolts, it would take two to three days.
And during this period, they could conveniently work on restoring the blueprints and documentation—but only the most critical portions.
The rest would have to be restored while building.
The last five days of the normal assembly procedure were used for tuning and acceptance tests.
If they ran this process through the night on three shifts, it might be compressed down to just a single day.
The biggest time sink was actually the middle section: 8 to 12 days for installing the Spring Machine and assembling the transmission and braking systems.
Most importantly, if they adopted Leonardo's method, they'd have to spend an extra day on lathe design and setup.
This was also why the engineers all felt Leonardo's approach was too risky.
Even though there was a chance to save a full day, the risk they were taking on was immense.
Relying solely on Leonardo's technology was still far too much of a gamble.
Leonardo argued his case on solid grounds: "But out of the 180 high-precision parts needed for a Spring Machine, once we use the lathe, at least 60% of the parts won't need hand grinding anymore."
But no one paid him any attention; everyone was busy doing their own calculations and discussions.
After crunching the numbers like this, the Holy Alliance was left with only six to seven days out of those ten.
Which meant they'd have to push beyond even their so-called 'extreme state' if they wanted to meet the requirement.
"The area around the ry Court Barracks can be put into full mobilization." Horn pushed another stack of chips onto the table. "Consider it a training exercise for them in advance."
When they eventually became enemies of the vampires, the Holy Alliance's factories would obviously have to run day and night.
They might as well treat this as a rehearsal.
Time ticked away, bit by bit; the noise and the piles of blueprints grew higher, and more and more reference materials were being pulled in.
Coffee cups were scattered everywhere; it looked just like a war-room command center, noisy voices and the rustling of paper and pens filling every corner.
After roughly two or three cups of coffee went down, the numbers on the scratch paper grew clearer, and people gradually worked out a rough conclusion.
"Bang." The sound of palms slapping the table rang out at the same time, and two Secret Monks stood up face to face, excitement and disappointment mixed together as they spoke in unison:
"Seven days is absolutely impossible."
"Seven days is absolutely possible."
Almost at the same time, two structurally similar arguments but with completely opposite conclusions echoed inside the Stag Chamber.
The Stag Chamber felt as if the air had suddenly been sucked out; all sound vanished for an instant.
Everyone stared at each other in astonishment, the surprise on their faces rapidly heating into a flush.
"Hold up, brother, did I hear that right—seven days is possible?"
"How the hell did you lot do your math?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing. Are you so desperate to kiss His Grace's ass that you're ignoring reality now?"