"Miracles" of technologies of Peter the Great or for whom the bell tolls

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

An article by my associate.

"If the facts contradict the theory, you have to throw out the theory, not the facts."

A. Sklyarov

No one is left indifferent and the magnificent stone vases of the Hermitage will forever conquer with their beauty and fantastic execution. Jasper, granite, malachite - the variety of materials and colors is impressive. And the solid dimensions of the vases, the unusually complex elements and the perfect surface polishing raise many questions about the technologies of that time. Let's walk from the halls of the Hermitage to the production workshops and see how it was possible to make such perfect products, having a rather narrow range of production materials and technical solutions.

For this, I specially went to the Hermitage. Carefully, once again, I examined the exhibits, and also found signs about the "manufacturer". So it is written: "Yekaterinburg Lapidary Factory". Stop! What does the cutting have to do with it?

Granil is (from Italian graniglia - crumbs, granules) a general name for glasses of a special composition crushed to a certain size. The facet is used for decorating ceramic tiles, ceramic granite. The storage can be shiny or matte, transparent, muted, white or colored, with chandelier or metallic effects, etc. They can be used both to create a visual effect and to give certain properties. What does glass have to do with it? I'll talk about this sometime later, in another article. And the official history says that cutting and faceting are the same root words. And even more - they have the same meaning! Well, so be it, they also studied this in special institutions, among them there are doctors and professors of historical and other sciences. And we are simple people. So, further. It turns out at that time there were three cutting and grinding factories.

In Yekaterinburg, in Kolyvan in Altai and in Peterhof near St. Petersburg. You can read about these factories on the Internet. The grinding machines were driven by water mills. I did not find any information about grinding wheels. From what and how abrasives were created for polishing such hard materials, we do not know. But they did both the columns and the vases! So we did the abrasives too. But it is surprising that for such industries a lot of such consumables are needed, moreover, of different grain sizes. And for this, in turn, you need a separate considerable production and ownership of technology. After all, abrasive materials (those with which they grind and polish) must be harder. And their processing is not an easy task. And there is no mention of this anywhere. Let's close our eyes to that too. After the revolution of 1917, the Kolyvan and Yekaterinburg factories ceased production, only the Peterhof factories remained, which after 1947 was greatly modernized. Even, more correctly, a new one was built! Water was supplied through a cast-iron pipe, there were 2 turbines of 15 horsepower each, and so on. How did the production look like before that? To do this, you need to visit the museum at the Kolyvan factory. There's even a mock grinder in there! We will consider this layout.

So this is the progenitor of the lathe! This is how the official history explains the creation of columns for the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and even for St. Isaac's Cathedral! Everything is easy and simple! The water mill turns the gears, they drive the shaft with a belt drive, and that, in turn, the axis of the progenitor of the lathe. But engineering calculations are bringing their own fly in the ointment, into this sweet barrel of honey. The columns for the Cathedral of Christ the Savior were more than three meters in length, and even more for St. Isaac's Cathedral. And when calculating the weight of the blanks, we get a problem - each blank is at least more than 2 tons.

The template is already installed on the model. How does a wooden axle hold such a heavy block of stone? On modern lathes, a very powerful device is used for fastening a part (a chuck), and not only squeezes the workpiece at the ends, but also clasps it with "fingers" like an octopus!

Lathe chuck

Clamped part A on the model is simply clamped on both sides by a wooden axle. Let's not quibble, it's just a layout, let's close our eyes to that. Let's close our eyes to the fact that one of the clamping axes should move horizontally. How to first "drive away", and after installing the workpiece, "tighten" it.

And on the model we are shown a rigid, already with a fixed part, a grinding machine. Let's not find fault with the diameter of the axles in the same way. There used to be other trees, strong ones. God bless them, with these errors. But what is not forgiven by resistance to materials and engineering is a miscalculation in friction. In this case, the belt drive must rotate a workpiece weighing 2 tons or more! And all at the expense of the water mill. Without taking into account that the wooden surfaces will themselves be sanded by the belt, the already low efficiency will fall even more. But it can be assumed that, if necessary, the shaft and belts were changed in time. But the main miscalculation of this layout (and, consequently, of the entire proposed technology) is the axes on which the workpiece rotated! Under the weight of the workpiece, at the points of rotation of the axes, the friction is so great that titanic efforts are needed to make them rotate.

If, to facilitate the torque, we make a gap between the axis and the vertical column, then the axis will no longer hold the workpiece and it will fall out. And if we force it to rotate, then the load on the wooden axles will work for a tiny amount of time (according to preliminary estimates, no more than 10 minutes). It follows that this grinder could not work. And, therefore, it was on this grinder that the columns for all these cathedrals were not made.

Now let's look at another grinder. From a large shaft, a belt drive rotated small shafts fixed in suspended wooden pendulums, and transmitting torque to the grinding wheel. Is everything easy and simple again? Not! To transfer rotation, the belt must always be kept taut. And then it turns out that we can grind only at the distance of the tensioned belt. Moreover, we are obliged to provide the belt tension with our hands. At the same time, ensure that the grinding wheel is pressed against the workpiece. The rotation speed of the water mill averaged 60 to 150 rpm! The modern instrument is about 1000.

I do not even find fault with the method of transferring rotation to the second grinding wheel (which the figurine is holding in a red shirt) - the diagram for rotating the belt by 90 degrees is not shown (and this requires a special device, but leading to an additional loss of efficiency). At the very least, you can grind with this device. But only in a straight line. And constantly moving the workpiece back and forth. And the polishing process involves at least 10 successive passes with different abrasive grain sizes! Now a question! How to polish a vase? Twist, rotate and tilt? That is, it turns out that the products, sometimes reaching several tons, moved in space as the master wanted? Therefore, this grinder could not polish vases from the Hermitage! Preliminary calculations were carried out using special engineering programs. These programs are used to create high-tech modern mechanisms. All simulated applications of these grinders gave negative answers. In addition, when studying the mechanism of these grinding machines, many shortcomings were not taken into account (and always in favor of the official history!). And some of them, such as the lack of production of abrasive materials, the hardness of some processed materials is close in hardness to granite (and this is already a very big problem!), The technological impossibility of polishing and grinding complex elements of vases (convex edging, grooves, petals) generally reduces to there is no operability of this technology in this matter. This technology can be safely called "Munchausen's fairy tale". Visitors to museums not versed in technical details listen to the colorful stories of the guides with oblivion.

It is easier to believe “it was done with ease” and silently move on to the next exhibit, than to object and be afraid of sidelong glances and conversations, like how dare you argue - everyone believes, and you are so smart here? Here is how they tell us about the delivery of a 19-ton tsar-vase from the Kolyvan grinding vase to St. Petersburg: “On February 19, 1843, a train of horses harnessed to a special sleigh (from 154 to 180, depending on the terrain) took the bowl from Kolyvan to Barnaul, then to the Utkinskaya pier of the Chusovaya river. We loaded the bowl into rafts in detail and headed along the Chusovaya River to the Kama River, from the Kama River to the Volga River, along the Volga River with barge haulers, then along the bypass canal to the Neva River”. First, they made a special sled (they lost time, effort, materials) and dragged 150-180 horses in a team. With so many horses, we get a synchronicity problem. And then, having arrived at the river, the bowl was disassembled into its component parts and taken apart on rafts.

Where is the logic??? We roll a square one, we wear a round one. Why, even as children, did we doubt the veracity of the stories of Baron Munchausen, and growing up we believe in such nonsense? If the vase was collapsible, why break off a monolith of more than 30 tons, drag it over the mountains and ravines, and then make not a solid vase, but from parts ??? “The work began in February 1828. With the help of 230 workers, the stone was pulled out to the masonry shed and raised to a height of one meter. About 100 craftsmen were engaged in the primary processing of the monolith, after which in 1830 the stone was laid on the logs and manually, with the help of 567 people, moved the block 30 versts to Kolyvan. 567 people dragged the monolith, so that later, already at the factory, they would split it into pieces. FIVE HUNDRED SIXTY SEVEN PEOPLE !!! They dragged the lump. HUNDRED EIGHTY HORSES !!! They dragged a vase. How does it sound ?! Plausible! And then, after such efforts, they were dismantled into parts and loaded onto rafts …

That's all. All health and a bright mind!