Chapter 12
Mechanical drafting lessons were far more boring and far more difficult than I’d expected.
During the first week, I drew nothing but cubes. A square viewed from the front, one from above, and one from the side.
Oskar looked at my paper and snorted.
“You draw the same squares every day.”
“They’re not the same.”
“They’re all squares.”
“This one’s the front, this one’s the top, and this one’s the side.”
“Turn them around and they’re all the same.”
I gave up trying to explain.
During the second week, I drew a cylinder with a hole through the middle. The compass slipped a little, and while correcting it, I accidentally drew the hidden parts with solid lines.
Dr. Schneider left red marks on my paper.
“Your Highness, hidden edges should not be drawn with solid lines.”
“I know.”
“If you know, why did you draw them like this?”
“My hand made a mistake. Really.”
“At a factory, a mistake by hand means a part gets thrown away.”
It was even more annoying because he was right.
Unlike CAD in my previous life, the slightest movement of the ruler threw off the line. If one line smudged, there was no undo button.
‘Ctrl+Z, I miss you. Sob.’
Starting with arithmetic, Dr. Schneider patiently explained the principles of levers and rotation, screws and springs. Whenever something came up that I already knew, I had to nod as if I were hearing it for the first time.
Whenever I answered too quickly, the doctor’s eyes narrowed.
“I haven’t explained this problem yet. How did you know the answer?”
“I just thought about it.”
After that, I deliberately got one or two problems wrong.
But at some point, Oskar started joining in on the lessons.
“Heh heh, I won.”
Oskar waved his answer sheet around smugly.
I couldn’t stand getting a lower score than him. In the end, I got every question in the next set right.
Dr. Schneider didn’t say anything, but from that day on, the problems he gave me gradually got harder.
After three months, I could draw simple parts from three different angles and mark their dimensions and cross-sections. My line weights and the placement of the views were also starting to improve.
Only then did Dr. Schneider say,
“You may look at the rifle again now.”
As if I’d been waiting for that moment, I set the Gewehr 98 and the first test rifle made by Mauser on the desk.
I didn’t start by roughly sketching the whole rifle from the side and adding arrows like I had before.
First, I wrote down the requirements I wanted to meet.
Reduce arm movement when operating the bolt from a prone position.
Keep the rifle from swinging too much away from the body while marching.
Do not alter the existing bolt mechanism or ammunition.
Use the existing production equipment as much as possible.
Do not weaken the stock excessively.
Dr. Schneider read the paper and nodded.
“This time, you’ve set the requirements before thinking about the shape.”
“I understand now how important that is.”
I disassembled the first test rifle and measured the bolt handle and stock. The measuring instruments in the palace were clumsier than the ones I’d used in my previous life, but they were still far better than eyeballing it.
If I lowered the handle too much, my fingers hit the stock. If I kept it too high, it wasn’t much different from the original straight handle.
I measured the hand sizes of several Imperial Guard soldiers and had them try gripping the handle while wearing gloves.
Oskar joined in, too, but I marked his measurements separately.
‘Ten-year-old boy. For reference.’
“Why am I only for reference?”
“You haven’t grown up yet.”
“Neither have you.”
“I’m the designer, so it’s different.”
It was a flimsy argument, but he thought it over for a moment and nodded. He didn’t look like he understood; he just seemed to have decided to let it go.
I didn’t bend the bolt handle straight down as I had in my first drawing. Instead, I gave it a gradual curve toward the rear and downward, leaving enough room for an adult’s gloved fingers.
Lowering the handle meant cutting a groove into the stock.
At first, I thought of cutting a wide, deep groove. Dr. Schneider then brought over several test pieces made from the same kind of wood.
Each test piece had a groove with a slightly different depth and shape at the edges.
The doctor clamped one into a small fixture and attached a lever with a long handle.
“Would you like to press down on it yourself?”
I gripped the handle and slowly applied pressure.
At first, it held up just fine.
When I pressed a little harder, a thin crack appeared in the test piece with the deep, angular groove.
Snap.
The crack ran a long way along the grain of the wood.
“It’s weaker than I expected.”
“Unlike metal, wood doesn’t have the same properties in every direction. You have to pay attention to the grain, too.”
I’d never designed a gun stock made of wood in my previous life, either.
I reduced the width and depth of the groove and rounded its sharp edges. I added curves so the force wouldn’t concentrate in one place, and got rid of the parts where the wood became too thin.
I also abandoned the idea of simply screwing the sling swivels into the side of the stock.
I attached the front swivel to the existing barrel band. For the rear, I made a narrow horizontal passage through the stock, reinforced the inside with a metal plate, and had the sling pass through it.
I walked around with the rifle countless times to find the right position.
Once, I was coming down the stairs when the muzzle hit the railing.
Once, the front swivel was too far forward, and the stock lifted backward.
Another time, the rifle stuck out from my body and thumped against my thigh with every step.
Oskar asked,
“Why does it take so long to draw one picture?”
“I told you, it’s not a picture.”
“Then what is it?”
I put down the ruler.
“It’s an instruction sheet that lets whoever reads it make the same thing without asking me again.”
Oskar stared at the drawing for a long while.
“Then you could just write it out.”
“That’s what I did when I wrote ‘bend it appropriately,’ and we got that.”
I pointed to the first test rifle.
Oskar touched the narrow bolt handle, then nodded as if he understood.
The drawings weren’t completed in one go.
Sometimes dimensions were missing, or I’d marked the wrong place for a cross-section. I also found that my fingers might hit the safety when I operated the handle.
I didn’t throw out incorrect drawings right away.
I marked the parts that needed changing in red and wrote a short note beside each one explaining why.
If I didn’t leave a reason, I might repeat the same mistake later.
A few more weeks passed, and drawings marked with numbers and dates began to pile up on my desk in place of blue-ink scribbles.
Bolt handle modification drawing.
Stock groove cross-section.
Side-mounted sling assembly drawing.
Each drawing showed the dimensions and materials, along with the date it was drawn and the date it was revised. They still weren’t perfect, but at least phrases like ‘a little here’ and ‘a bit lower’ were gone.
The finished drawings were sent back to Paul Mauser.
A few days later, he visited the palace with Dr. Schneider.
The old blue-ink scribbles and the new drawings were spread side by side on the table.
Paul Mauser remained silent for a while.
He examined the bolt handle drawing, looked over the stock’s cross-section, then picked up the test rifle again.
“Was there a reason you added a curve to this part?”
He pointed to the edge of the groove in the stock.
“A crack could start there if the edge were sharp. I also made the groove shallower than before.”
“Then will there be enough room to grip the handle?”
“I based it on measurements taken when adult soldiers tried gripping it with gloves on. But we still need to check it again on an actual prototype.”
Paul Mauser picked up another drawing.
“Why didn’t you make the rear sling attachment a simple screw mount?”
“The wood could crack if all the force were concentrated in one spot. I reinforced the passage with metal so the force would be spread out.”
“Is this the final position?”
I shook my head.
“It’s a provisional position based on a few people trying it out. We may have to change it after soldiers try marching with it.”
A faint smile appeared beneath Paul Mauser’s mustache.
He picked up the first scribble.
“You’ve improved a lot since then.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure if it was a compliment, but I soon realized he meant it kindly.
Paul Mauser looked down at the new drawings again.
“You’ve written down not only what you want to make, but also what you haven’t confirmed yet.”
He neatly gathered the drawings together.
“That’s a good change.”
Father finally couldn’t hold back any longer and asked,
“So, can it be made this time?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Paul Mauser looked in my direction.
“This time, we should be able to make something almost exactly as Your Highness envisioned it.”
The word “almost” bothered me a little, but I didn’t press the matter.
Prototypes were always subject to revision.
He wrote a short note at the bottom of the first drawing approving its trial production, then added his signature and the date.
It was given a provisional name, too.
Gewehr 98 First Improved Trial Model.
Oskar thought the name was boring and immediately came up with another one.
“Princess Rifle.”
“Hey, don’t call it that.”
“A princess made it, so it’s the Princess Rifle.”
“It hasn’t even been made yet.”
But it was already too late.
An attendant tried to hide a laugh, and Father seemed to like the name, too.
A few days later, my drawings were sent to the Mauser factory in Oberndorf.
I couldn’t visit the factory for safety reasons, but I could still imagine what was happening there.
A technician spreads out the paper and checks the dimensions.
A new bolt blank with a bent handle is secured on a workbench.
At another workbench, the groove in the stock and the sling passage are machined.
The machines turn, and metal shavings and wood chips fall to the floor.
Just a few months ago, my ideas had been nothing more than scribbles in blue ink.
Now those lines and numbers had become instructions that set people and machines in motion at a factory far away.
For the first time, I was becoming not just a child with an idea, but someone who had designed something real.