Chapter 526 - 524
Ye Xinyan pointed at the schematic of the clamping device, and said to Shi Yin, "If you imagine the ground as this kind of structure, wouldn’t it be able to exert a clamping force? Similarly, if you modify this idea a bit, it wouldn’t be hard to achieve a fastening effect."
Wouldn’t many things be much simpler if this thing existed in the world? Shi Yin quieted his heart, suppressing the awe and shock within.
"Even if this thing could act as a fastener, making them one by one would be incredibly difficult, especially getting the yin yang screw threads to mesh without gaps. And to talk about mass production, that would be even less possible," he said.
Although Shi Yin said this, he thought to himself that since Ye Xinyan had mentioned these ideas to him, she must already have some plans in mind. But could there really be a way to produce large quantities of identical-sized, tightly meshing yin yang screw threads?
Ye Xinyan picked up the drawing of the ancient foot-operated lathe again, pointing at the center part, and said, "I was wanting to discuss my thoughts with Master Shi. Look, could we add a spindle here, use gear transmission to rotate the workpiece, and control the feed rate? And over here, find a way to fix the hand-held cutting tool on the lathe, using a lead screw to control the movement range and cutting amount of the tool."
Shi Yin stared motionlessly at the drawing that he was very familiar with and that contained nothing new, yet he repeatedly pondered over Ye Xinyan’s words in his heart, imagining what components needed to be added to achieve the effects Miss Ye had described. Could this seemingly rational concept actually be realized?
Ye Xinyan quietly observed Shi Yin, not disturbing his contemplation.
If it were someone else, Ye Xinyan would just directly instruct what to do, no need for such extensive explanations. But Shi Yin was different; according to Jinrong, Shi Yin was the most outstanding mechanical artisan he had encountered, proficient in various craftsman skills. To solicit such a person’s earnest help, one naturally needed to speak clearly and try to answer any of his questions.