****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
This is the story of machine tools from their origins during the industrial revolution to the evolution of many leading machine tool firms in the early 20th century. It is a widely cited work even today and I am unaware of any comparable more recent work.Most readers will be more interested in the history up to the middle of the 19th century, some of the highlights of which are as follows:At the beginning of the industrial revolution many machine parts were made of wood. Machinery, firearms and other items were custom made by craftsmen using hand tools, which required great skill.James Watt was unable to have a satisfactory cylinder bored for his first engine and was forced to use hammered iron, which was out of round allowing leakage past the piston. In 1774 James Wilkinson invented a new style boring machine which was able to satisfactorily machine cylinders for Watt.Special purpose machinery was developed to make ships blocks for the Portsmouth Block Mill by Samuel Bentham and Marc Isambard Brunel. With these machines 10 unskilled workers were able to replace 110 skilled craftsmen.Threads for screws, bolts and nuts were not standard and were cut with poor precision. The screw cutting lathe, equipped with a slide rest positioned by a lead screw with changes gears was developed by Henry Maudslay around 1797. Two years before his death Maudslay hired a young assistant named James Naysmyth, who after Maydslay's death, established the leading machine tool business. Maudslay's factory also trained famous tool builders Joseph Whitworth and Samuel Clement and the engineer Richard Roberts, who built one of the first metal planers and invented a machine to cut keyways.The metal planer, which appeared around 1820, was a crucial machine for achieving interchangeable parts. The milling machine was also important.By 1840 most of the important machine tools were invented and precision textile machinery could be made with metal shafts, couplings and gears and in the U.S. firearms were being made with interchangeable parts. A notable later development was the universal milling machine.Standards for screw threads were adopted in England in the mid 19th c. and in the late 19th c. in the U.S.High precision was achieved by the late 19th c. and precision measuring devices such as micrometers were in wide use.England was dominant in machine tools in the first half of the 19th c. but surpassed by the U.S. in the last half.Absent is a discussion of the detailed working of most of these tools. Fortunately today you can see how these machine tools work by watching videos on youtube.com, of which there are many.Finally, the original illustrations were not the best, and the reproduction lost a little more sharpness; however, the text quality is acceptable.
