HPDBC Chapter 62 Wind Direction
Chapter 62 Wind Direction
Before dawn, Lao Fang, as usual, squatted at the workshop entrance striking a match.
The wind was blowing in from the seawall, a bit harsher than a few days ago, carrying the dry chill unique to winter. It felt like a dull knife on my face, not fine sandpaper.
He gathered the match in his palm, struck it, and lit the cigarette. The cold wind caused a few more beads of blood to well up from the crack on his finger.
He wiped the cigarette on his trouser leg twice, put it in his mouth, stood up and started wiping the wooden sign.
The salt frost on the three wooden signs was thicker than in summer. I wiped them with old cotton yarn dipped in seawater, and they shone with a faint white light, like a thin layer of ice crystals on a reef.
The light was on in the kitchen, and Lin Xiu'e was already kneading dough.
The red beans were soaked last night and were fully saturated with water. They crumbled easily when pinched between your fingers, and the powdery red bean paste dripped through your fingers.
She rolled up her sleeves to her elbows, and there were a few specks of dry flour stuck to her forearms.
While kneading the dough, the enamel basin on the stove shook slightly, hitting the edge of the iron pot with a dull thud.
The fish ball soup in the pot was bubbling away, and the steam completely covered the window. She wiped the glass and peeked out through the crack.
The morning light outlined the outlines of several sampans beside the stone trough, their ropes rubbing gently against the stakes. Qiu Changhai had not yet arrived, and the stone piers were empty, covered with a thin layer of frost.
Jiang Haiping came out of the dormitory, holding a jar of boiling water, and stood at the workshop entrance for a moment.
The registration form for the skills competition has been submitted to the county. Lao Fang is in charge of the main unit, A Hai is in charge of troubleshooting, Ding Haisheng is in charge of welding, Lin Xiu'e is in charge of grouting, and A Guang is in charge of the substitute.
These past few days, everyone at the service station has been focused on preparations, but it's not the kind of hectic busyness; it's more like practicing for an extra hour after work each day.
Every evening, Ahai would repeatedly disassemble and reassemble diesel engines in the workshop, striving to meet the provincial scoring standards for each movement. After finishing his practice, he would time himself with a stopwatch.
Ding Haisheng took A Guang to practice overhead welding in the welding area. The current for thick plates was increased several times. After A Guang finished welding one section, he used a weld ruler to measure the weld seam himself.
Lin Xiu'e would prepare an extra basin of tung oil putty every day, carve several more grooves on the old ship planks, and repeatedly practice the same movement at the turns.
No one could keep an eye on Lao Fang; he was still jumping from one boat to another at the dock.
When repairing fishing boats, he would only peek inside the workshop occasionally as he passed by the door, and then leave.
The new bolts for the provincial skills competition arrived this morning.
Wang Cunzhi delivered it on his motorcycle, with a cardboard box strapped to the back seat.
The cardboard box contained boxes of cylinder head bolts, made in Shanghai, with precision-machined threads and stamped serial numbers on the bolt heads.
Old Fang moved the cardboard box to the worktable, opened it, and wiped it clean one by one with cotton yarn.
He held the bolt up to the light to examine the threads, and after a while, he put it down and said that the lathe's cutting tool had stopped working by half a bit, and the last cut wasn't machined, but squeezed out.
He ran his fingernail along the arc at the base of the thread; if the knife had been any duller, the bolt would have been ruined. This one was just right and would have worked.
Ahai squatted down and took the new bolts and his torque wrench to the test bench.
According to the scoring rules of the provincial competition, the cylinder head bolts were calibrated for torque. Three sets of torque were measured for each bolt and the average value was taken. One point was deducted for each slight deviation.
He would write down each set after he finished twisting them, and his handwriting was neat and tidy.
Ding Haisheng continued practicing overhead welding in the welding area. The thick plate was clamped on the worktable.
The current was increased by nearly twenty amps compared to usual. He squatted under the steel plate, tilting his head back to weld. The welding rod moved at a steady speed, and the flux coating peeled up on its own. Molten iron dripped down and burned a small hole in his glove.
He didn't dodge; he only took off his gloves after welding the last seam.
After Ah Guang squatted down next to him, he took the weld gauge, measured the weld seam, and reported the number. Ding Haisheng took the weld gauge and measured it again, saying that he knew the answer.
Beside the stone trough, Lin Xiu'e squatted in front of the old boat plank, with several pine planks in front of her that she would practice on today.
The boards used for grouting in the provincial competition are made of pine, which is different in hardness from the locust wood boards commonly used on Moon Island. Pine wood has a softer grain, so you have to be careful with the force you apply when cutting.
She chiseled out a groove, ran her fingers along the bottom of the groove, measured the depth with calipers, and wrote a number in the register.
When Qiu Changhai passed by, she drew two more stone pencil positioning lines on the edge of the trough, clearly marking the angle of entry and the depth of the trough bottom. Qiu Changhai only glanced at them before walking past.
Ah-Guang finished filling in the welding training records in the register, closed the register, and then suddenly remembered something, so he flipped it open to the page for old parts inventory.
When Wang Cunzhi visited last time, he mentioned that the renovation business was growing bigger and bigger. Wang Cunzhi said that several pilot projects are now learning this registration format.
He closed the notebook, hesitated for a moment, and walked to the workshop door.
"Brother Ping, we've filled out the seventh registration book, and the crane on the cover is still the same as the first batch."
If you print new booklets in the future, could you please add a small line at the bottom of the cover that says "Moon Island Ship Service Station"?
Jiang Haiping took the registration book and flipped through it. The plastic cover of the first registration book was worn white, and the edges of the wings of the two cranes on the cover were frayed.
Ah Guang's handwriting became increasingly neat from the first book to the seventh.
"Okay, next time we go to town to print new books, we'll print an extra batch of covers. With more training courses coming up, the registration format for the old parts warehouse also needs to be aligned with the standards promoted by the province."
Ah Guang took the register back to continue transcribing the list of training consumables, and the torque wrench in the workshop made a soft sound again.
In the afternoon, Lao Fang sat on a stone stool at the entrance of the workshop and began to dismantle the high-pressure oil pumps on the batch of old diesel engines.
He removed the plunger and placed it on the tray, then used cotton yarn soaked in diesel fuel to wipe the sludge off the inside of the pump casing.
Ah Hai returned from repairing a fishing boat at the dock, squatted down next to him, placed the newly calibrated torque wrench next to the tray, and asked Lao Fang to try it out in a while.
Old Fang picked up the diesel engine oil can and applied engine oil to each of the plungers of the high-pressure oil pump.
Spread the engine oil evenly on the plunger surface with your fingers, then put the pump housing back in and tighten the fixing bolts one by one with that old, clumsy wrench.
After tightening the last one, he placed the old wrench next to the tray, checked the torque with a new torque wrench, and found that every value matched.
He returned the new torque wrench to Ahai, saying that he still had a good feel for it and that Ahai should practice disassembling and assembling the high-pressure oil pump himself.
After finishing work in the evening, Wang Cunzhi rode his motorcycle back again.
He placed a notice on Jiang Haiping's table, which Director Sun had asked him to convey. It said that the province was going to hold a pre-competition training course at the Yantai Shipyard Technical School to provide a unified explanation of the changes in the scoring standards for this year's competition, and that each pilot service station would send two people to participate.
Jiang Haiping read the notice, folded it, and put it in the drawer.
Old Fang sent Ahai and Lin Xiu'e to listen to the new rules for disassembling and assembling the main unit, and to listen to the changes in the scoring of the seam filling. He would then teach them to everyone when they returned.
As darkness fell, the tide began to rise again in the stone trough, and the sound of the waves lapping against the hull was a bit muffled than in the morning.
In the kitchen, Lin's mother was stewing ribbonfish, and Lin Xiu'e was helping her.
She knelt down and wiped the kitchen floor several times this afternoon, and there were still wet stains on her trouser legs.
Jiang Haiping read the notice again in the workshop, and then wrote a note next to Ahai's torque calibration record with a pencil: Pre-competition training, Yantai, new scoring standards, unified training upon return.
The loquat leaves in the service station courtyard rustled in the wind.
Ah Guang had already closed the register. The waves lapped against the stone trough, one after another, slowly and steadily.