Chapter 141 Stopper
Seeing Harold accept it, Dolly clapped her hands and called to the porter not far away, "Move those boxes over there, hurry up!"
Several smaller wooden boxes were quickly brought in front of the two people. Dolly still made a "please" gesture, asking Harold to open the lid of the box himself.
Harold nodded, opened the wooden box closest to him, took out the things inside, turned the lid upside down on the box, and placed the things in his hand on the lid.
There were five hot water bottles, made of rubber and in different colors. Harold smelled a strange odor when he unpacked them, which was one of the shortcomings of rubber hot water bottles. However, after exposing them to the air, the smell was not particularly obvious.
"It's very well done," Haroldt squeezed the hot water bag without water in it, ignoring the pungent smell. The rubber hot water bag has good elasticity and toughness, and using this material is also more environmentally friendly. "Have you tried to fill it with hot water?"
"Of course. This is a product that will be sold, so it naturally has to pass product testing before it can be put on the market." Dolly said with her hands on her hips.
Harold held a hot water bottle in his hand, holding it upright and examining its plug.
"Glass stopper?"
This is a bit unexpected. Although glass is indeed a good substitute in the continent of Teyvat where there is no plastic, this material is fragile and is somewhat dangerous to use in hot water bottles.
"This is one of my attempts. This material is moderately priced and easy to shape, making it a good choice for civilians." Dolly pointed to the other objects on the lid of the box, motioning Harold to look at the other hot water bottles.
"If you really want to produce a batch of hot water bottles with glass stoppers, you must specially mark them and say that they need to be replaced every two years - whether it is rubber or glass, they are prone to aging due to long-term high temperatures, and long-term use will pose a safety hazard."
Harold said as he put the hot water bottle back on the lid of the box.
Dolly nodded lazily. "I set its service life at two years. Buyers need to replace the hot water bag every two years. We are not responsible for any losses caused by failure to replace the hot water bag as required."
Harold added: "You can also do this: if someone is willing to bring their old hot water bottle to your store to buy a new one two years later, they only need to pay 70 percent of the original price and can take away a new model of hot water bottle. This also facilitates the recycling of rubber and glass."
Dolly calculated the profit and her eyes suddenly lit up: "What a good idea, let's do it!"
Harold had just picked up another hot water bottle when Dolly continued:
"Other hot water bottles have bottle caps made of relatively expensive materials. In addition, the price of hot water bottles themselves is not cheap, so ordinary people probably won't buy them."
"The Fatwa has no intention of developing rubber planting into an industrial chain. Most of the natural rubber produced by the few rubber forests in Xumi is sent to the Health Home.
There is nothing we can do about it, but I think our far-sighted master Dolly should have noticed this problem before I mentioned it, and started recruiting employees to plant rubber trees in the rainforest. "
Harold smiled and said that he did not think this would be a long-term problem. On Blue Star, rubber trees need to grow for six years before they can be tapped, but on the continent of Teyvat, which has the energy of the earth veins, this growth time can be shortened by half, and the output of natural rubber should be much higher than that on Blue Star.
If you think about it this way, within ten years, rubber products will become very common daily necessities.
"How much does Master Dolly intend to expand the rubber plantation? A hundred times as much as it is now?"
"As long as I can get a planting permit from the Faith Council, I can expand the rubber planting area to three hundred times the current amount within five years. Each of them, one or two, is my cash cow!"
Dolly's eyes sparkled, but she spoke rationally, "But, based on my years of experience, you can't get a permit without spending a little more than a few Moraes. Even if you get a planting permit, you still have to deal with the troublesome forest rangers and accept their supervision. After all, rubber trees are special and cannot be treated with the same process as cultivating general timber forests."
Harold did not respond. How to plant rubber legally and reasonably was Dolly's concern. He turned over the hot water bottle in his hand and looked at its stopper.
"Is this metal? Is it an alloy? What is its thermal conductivity?" asked Harold.
"The thermal conductivity is not strong because it is made of titanium alloy, which is a new alloy developed by scholars I funded. Its thermal conductivity is only one twentieth of that of brass, and its strength is extremely high. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage.
You know, cutting plasticity is a big problem when using this alloy. I had to hire more than a dozen scholars from the Sulun School to join the research.
They added plasticizers and other metals with low thermal conductivity to this alloy, and it took tons of steel to make the alloy plug you see now. Well, do you want to guess its price now?" Dolly said.
"It sounds like this plug will cost more than the hot water bottle itself," Harold said with a smile.
Dolly snapped her fingers. "Its price is four times that of a rubber hot water bottle, and I only charged the raw material price. Even if I am a very conscientious businessman, I can't sell my new product at a loss, right? If I sell it at this price, its profit will be less than that of a glass-stoppered hot water bottle."
"But this alloy itself has high commercial value. If you can get those Sulun scholars to find a way to improve the raw material and make it harder and more ductile,
Then we sell it to Fontaine merchants and let them use it in Fontaine's public transportation - but metal oxidation is a big problem, it would be great if we could develop an alloy that won't rust." Harold said with emotion.
He really wanted stainless steel. Dolly was now studying alloys, which gave her an idea. It would be great if the group of Su Lun scholars under her could accidentally make stainless steel.
He did not mention to Dolly the raw materials needed for stainless steel. Firstly, the metal chromium has not yet been developed in the continent of Teyvat. Perhaps it is like the chromium on the Blue Star, existing in various ores and has not yet been discovered.
Secondly, there is alchemy and all kinds of strange elemental creature remains and concentrates containing elemental power, which can be used to skip classes. If a suitable substitute is found, it is not necessary to use the same materials as on Blue Star.
"The people of Fontaine usually apply a layer of paint on the metal surface, which can effectively prevent the metal from rusting. But your idea is also good. Metal that will not rust? If you can really make it, how much Mora can it bring me!" Dolly imagined the bright prospects, her eyes shining.
Harold chuckled and picked up the next hot water bottle to examine it. The stopper of this hot water bottle was blue and translucent, and it looked so beautiful that he could not reach it.
Harold: "...What is this? Crystal? Or the remains of an elemental creature?"
(I have made up for yesterday's QWQ. Let's speed up the process and try to finish the main text during the summer vacation. Although the original plan was more than one million words, I now feel that it is not necessary. I am tired of writing and you are tired of reading. From now on, I will put some processes in the character dialogues to simplify the process of various research)