Thread: The skills of old school machinist/Tool makers

You haven't seen Dinty's Locomotive then I take it...

Yes, I'll believe it. His shed probably has all the machinery and more that was used to build the full size engine ninety years ago - and he has learned from their experience. What he does have is the application to use this knowledge, which is rather rare these days.

Consider for example John Harrison, who not only built the first chronometer, with no machine tools, no previous work to build on, no training (he was a carpenter), but also designed it from scratch.

Or Lawrence Hargraves, who built the first rotary aeroplane engine with no power tools except a lathe - and no training.

John

Another pic.... I'm still amazed by the detail and scale of this thing.

I also have a video of it running but can't up load with my limited bandwidth

Tony.

Luv it ... Even went to the detail of twin spark plugs ...

All the early engines and motor vehicles were built using simple manual control machine tools, usually flat belt driven from a single mill engine by mainshaft and lineshaft. Lathes, shapers, planers, slotters, gear shapers, milling & drilling machines were the normal content of a machine shop. Often the cutting tools were forged and heat treated in house by the machinists from bar stock of tool steel. True high speed steels and tungsten carbide cutting tools came along much later.Hand finishing by scrapers was normal practice also. I was taught these during my apprenticeship in the late 50's. Yet in 1987 I came across a fourth year apprentice who said he had only used scrapers in first year college, in the traditional exercise of reducing a surface by chipping, filing, and scraping to make small surface plates. He did not have clue as to how to use them on a job, so I had him remove the cylinder ridges on a marine diesel with scrapers. His trade skills were greatly improved by the time the job was over. He couldn't even sharpen a drill properly yet had finished his TAFE requirements and was only months away from becoming a full blown fitter. He did not like me but I am sure I made him a better tradesman by the time the job was off the slip.

Capstan, turret, and automatic lathes started to be used from the late 1800's making true mass production possible. Have a browse through the historical content of the Practical Machinist web site and you will be totally surprised by what was done with simple machine tools and hand skills. You will also be very surprised by the size and scale of what was the golden age of heavy engineering. Massive locomotives, battleships and their armament, giant castings, huge lathes, heat treatment ovens that took rail wagons of armour plate, etc.

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

Capstan, turret, and automatic lathes started to be used from the late 1800's making true mass production possible.

I was always under the impression that these were an invention of WW1?

Originally Posted by Disco_ute84

I was always under the impression that these were an invention of WW1?

The first turret lathes were invented in the 1840s - one reference I have gives the inventor as the firm Pratt & Whitney (much later part of United Aircraft and building aeroplane engines, but originally a machine tool maker), with semi-automatic ones in the 1860s and the first automatic one patented in 1873. Unfortunately for the inventor, he had a lousy patent attorney and the key part was not covered - and every man and his dog started making them. By 1914 they were very mature technology, and in widespread use.

John

Pratt & Whitney were toolmakers. The Whitney was a relative of Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin amongst other things. Pratt & Whitney, and Brown & Sharp, along with L.S.Starrett were toolmakers to the toolmakers. P&W relinquished toolmaking during or after WWII to concentrate on aero engines. I have P&W taper shank drills and machine reamers supplied to the U.S. forces in WWII. Brown & Sharp developed the principles and theory of gear cutting & much of the tooling. Gleason (later the Gleasman Co.) developed gear cutting machinery and much theory of gearing. Gleasman developed in the 1970's-80's the Gleasman Torsen differential. The Tru Trac used in many 4WD's is from the Torsen design.

An interesting read is Dreadnoughts in Camera - Building the Dreadnoughts. See if your local library has it. Lots of photos of grand scale engineering and shipbuilding. In one photo of the gun shop at John Brown, Clydebank, I could count fifteen large naval gun barrels in process or waiting. Imagine a 105 foot lathe with five tool stations.