[TheForge] Fw: using tools to build tools

[David E. Smucker]

Bruce you and Andy are dead ON.

Between making a lead screw and using flat surfaces to make ways your can 
build the first machine lathe.  (Lathes themselves are much older.)

Starting with a machine lathe you can build any machine tool.

Dave

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Bruce Freeman" <freemab222 at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 10:15 AM
To: <adveniam at att.net>; "Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA" 
<theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [TheForge] using tools to build tools

> The screw-thread is one possible example.  Make a bolt of annealed
> carbon steel by hand, cutting a short length of threads by careful
> measurement using a calipers as gauge.  Make cuts lengthwise to make a
> crude tap from the bolt, then harden and temper.  This tap will not be
> perfect.
>
> Use this tap to tap a hole in an annealed carbon steel plate.  Make
> radial cuts in the plate to make a die, then harden and temper the
> die.  The cutting action of the crude tap cutting threads is such that
> the die will no be more consistent in its thread than the tap (because
> all the irregularities in the tap are averaged everywhere in the
> threads of the die).
>
> Now use the die to make a new tap AND a lead screw.  Use the die to
> make a nut.  Combine this with appropriate hand-cut gears (involutes
> can be cut by hand, after all) and you have the essentials for a
> screw-cutting lath, the most basic of modern machine tools.
>
> So you've advanced from totally hand-cut hardware to a simple machine
> tool to manufacture the same hardware.  Not as simple as I make it
> sound, but a crew of craftsmen, or a very dedicated sole craftsman,
> could do it.  Humanity HAS done it.
>
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 9:40 AM, GRAF <adveniam at att.net> wrote:
>> Files, scrapers, talent, and time.
>>
>> Mike Graf
>>
>> terry l. ridder wrote:
>>> hello
>>>
>>> earlier today ( saturday ) i was having a discussion concerning
>>> inexpensive tools. the subject turned toward the age old questions that
>>> people have been asking for centuries. how did the first person build a
>>> lathe, wood turning lathe or metal turning lathe, without all ready
>>> having a lathe to use. my friends all agreed that the craftsman's talent
>>> would dictate the accuracy of the tool. they would not agree with me
>>> that i should be able to use a homebuilt gingery metal lathe and the
>>> other tools in in the gingery series to build large and more accurate
>>> tools in a bootstraping manner. they did not see how i could use a metal
>>> lathe of questionable accuracy to produce a metal turning lathe of known
>>> accuracy. i hsd no examples to show them since my tools are buried in
>>> the garage amongst many layers of materials to remodel the house and
>>> such. ( the home remodeling was put on hold because of the
>>> head-on-collision back in 2007. i was hoping on finishing the home
>>> remodeling this year but it appears that the doctors have other ideas
>>> for my freetime. )
>>>
>>> i was trying to come up with common examples of using tools of
>>> questionable accuracy to build tools of high accuracy. for the life of
>>> me i could not think of any examples.
>>>
>>> would anyone on the list have some exampled that i may give to my
>>> friends the next time we meet?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Bruce
> NJ
>
> The total lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is 
> working.
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