Chapter 173: Expectations
Translated by me, edited by drpetro.
Life size models were hard to make, especially when the thing needed to be 60 meters long.
Because the ship must be welded together piece by piece during creation, thus clearly giving it a mosaic like feel.
This mosaic feel was the byproduct of the minute mistake left behind by the welding and bending of the steel plating.
Who could guarantee that each single weld of hundreds of thousands of steel plates would be absolutely perfect?
There definitely are going to be some differences, thus making it look like an a.s.sembled puzzle.
Especially when the very front of the ship needed to be streamlined.
When the countless number of steel plates weren’t able to join perfectly together, then it would make the ship feel even more like an a.s.sembled puzzle.
This kind of flaw was the same on all large ships. It has always been that a ship might look mighty and awe-inspiring from far away, but as soon as one got close, the body of the ship looked exactly like a puzzle.
For this 60 meter long s.p.a.ceship to create that real, futuristic feeling, this kind of technical flaw must be eliminated.
Just take cars for example, consumers would be easily able to tell the difference between a 70 thousand Geely BL and a 2 million Audi R8 just by their appearance.
If the director want to use a Geely BL to imitate an Audi R8, then wasn’t that just asking to get cursed to death by the audience?
Also, the ship wasn’t seamless at all. At its rear it still had strangely shaped, yet extremely powerful pieces of equipment, which again, essentially increased the difficulty of the build.
Engines, this was a set of never before seen warp engines.
If it wants to have a futuristic techy feel, then it must have a delicate, yet complex structure.
To want to create that out of a couple steel plates and rods, was impossible. The result of that would only be a WWII boiler and not a warp engine.
No one else dared, but after having examined the blueprints, Ye Qing actually felt a rising urge to give it a try. An urge to create a life size scale of this ship; even if it couldn’t fly, it would still look amazing, and it would also make a statement for all other domestic movies.
Yes ~
To create it!
And even all of the ship’s moveable parts including the gla.s.s covered c.o.c.kpit, the side doors on the hull, the cargo bay at the rear, the hydraulic supports below the ship and the likes at that.
Ding Yin even mentioned how he dreamed of a 1:1 life size ship to film with.
“Then it’s time to satisfy his wish!” Ye Qing, while still staring at the blueprints, said to himself.
Hurriedly, Ye Qing pulled out a calculator to punch out just how much it would cost him to make this ship. Although it would be impressive to make it, but he was a saint to make it for free.
The blueprints were already completed by some other company, and they even included exterior decorations, which means all that was left was to punch out the necessary materials needed and how much it would cost him to a.s.semble it.
60 meters long, 5 meters tall, 10 meters wide.
2mm steel plates, and the complex parts could be cast in the Smelting Center. There was also the mechanical power structure and all the necessary cables.
Totalling in at 700 tons, adding on a couple of moving parts and the exterior paint, the total cost was around 5 million.
Of course, this excluded all the a.s.sembling and human costs. If it was any other factory then 30 million would already be a generous price, and they might not even be able to make it.
Afternoon the same day, two Mechanical Colossus Is was outside busying away with building the new transfer warehouse.
And underground, Ye Qing joined in on the construction of the intergalactic s.p.a.ceship with much antic.i.p.ation.
Ye Qing chose the split approach here. He split the entire structure of the s.p.a.ceship into six different sections and was looking to complete each of them as one piece with normal steel. According to the design, the outer hull was separated into 200 pieces of steel plates, which needed to be welded together by hand.
The places that required sheet metal were cast and completed as one.
On the paint side, Ye Qing chose the most commonly used metallic coloured paints with cars today.
The factory holds many industry scale painting equipment. After all, even the M.C. X series was spray painted, so why couldn’t the s.p.a.ceship be sprayed in the same way?
Originally Ye Qing thought how could there be any technical challenges with such a simple thing, but when the keel of the ship was completed and was being welded together, he suddenly remembered that this was a used, second hand s.p.a.ceship.
As to how to give the ship that used feel, Ye Qing was left quite stumped.
The used feel commonly witnessed in metal ware was caused by oxidation from being under the sun for long periods of time.
Did that mean he had to use phosphate compounds to corrode some of the parts?
Ye Qing really had to dig deep this time. However, Yangjian possessed a very advanced technique as they were able to forge out the long lost Damascus steel, so did he need to do the same thing here?
In the end it was the Master Artisans that reminded him that the Metal Specialists could perfectly create that used feel out of nothing.
Oh right ~ The Metal Specialists were specialised in all kinds of metallurgy.
Ye Qing hurriedly called over a Metal Specialist and asked him just how to give this brand new s.p.a.ceship a used feel
Ye Qing thought that the solution might have something to do with the steel they were using, but the Metal Specialist came up with another solution altogether. He said that they could mix some easily oxidizable ferrous material into the metal paints. Once they had completed the paint job, all that needed to be done was to heat it a bit and it would quickly oxidize.
Industrial ferrous material are readily available, so Ye Qing quickly had someone from the office buy some.
The heat oxidization effect could also be used on the surface of many mechanical parts inside.
But no matter if it was mixing paints or oxidization by pure oxygen heating, they all had high skill requirements..
The next day, after all 6 major sections had been welded together, the Metal Specialists gave Ye Qing a lesson only knockoff specialists knew.
He used a mixed out a paint made up of 25% ferrous material and two other metals. The peons, with spray guns, sprayed on a layer of greyish brown coloured paint onto the surface of the steel plates.
Afterwards the Metal Specialists, with some rushed large scale high temperature roasting guns, torched the paint. Sometimes quick, sometimes slow, and sometimes not even caring.
Having finished heating, and after a bit, those patches of brown paint actually experienced some magical chemical reactions.
The originally brand new metal paint slowly had spider silk like lines grow out. The entire colour scheme also turned a dark shade of grey, as if it had experienced countless years of weathering.
The inside was even more brutal and savage.
The Metal Specialists, after having heated the surface with those roasting guns, torched the entire metal surface with flames.
The area that had been torched all turned for a blackish grey colour. It was next to impossible to tell that this was manmade just by looking.
*Pshhh ~ * *Pshhh ~ *
Ye Qing, who was overseeing all of this, couldn’t help but stare on in awe.
………………………………
Two days had pa.s.sed since Ye Qing agreed to take a look at the model.
Ding Yin naturally understood that after having no further contact for so long, Ye Qing must have agreed to create the model.
Right now who knew, Ye Qing might already be leading a team of experts to fix up all the variables within the model he provided.
Maybe because the collapsible arm gave him quite the surprise, Ding Yin was somewhat blindly trusting Ye Qing, trusting that as long as he agreed, the resulting ship model would definitely be on the Hollywood level.
Then In the future, wouldn’t it just be a treat to film all those science fiction movies?
As long as he could establish a good long term working relation with Ye Qing, then what model couldn’t be made?
And then there was the collapsible arm; it was just like a pair of wings that gave Ding Yin the illusion that he could compete for Oscar’s Best Cinematography Award.
Yes ~
Even until now, Ding Yin still believed that Ye Qing was making a computer model, and soon, he would send over the modified 3D model.
As for Ye Qing, he also didn’t tell the director his thoughts. After all, Ding Yin already said that using the real thing would be the best for filming, so the real it was.
Right now it was 8 AM and Ding Yin was right in the middle of filming the scene where the male protagonist of the movie was driving a tractor into the fields, yet finds a s.p.a.ceship in the middle of his fields.
Suddenly in the middle of filming, Ding Yin yelled: “Cut!”
Where the heck did this Benz suddenly appear from?
“Um ~ is that President Ye?” Ding Yin’s a.s.sistant curiously asked.
“The computer model must be complete.” Ding Yin happily smiled: “Hurry and get some tea ready.”