History of Machine Tools

You are going to read the text about history of machine tools. For questions 18 choose the answer (a, b, c or d) which you think fits best according to the text.

1. The birth of modern engineering industry is

a) the production of military devices.

b) the production of textile machines.

c) the manufacture of electrical devices.

d) the manufacture of metal cutting tools.

2. The use of metal in the production of machines was kept to a minimum

a) because of the lack of metal.

b) because of the lack of skilled craftsmen.

c) because it was difficult to manipulate metal.

d) because there were a lot of machine tools.

3. First machine tools appeared in

a) Japan

b) England

c) the USA

d) France

4. Why was not wood framing successful?

a) because it was difficult to change dimensions

b) because temperature and humidity did not change

c) because there were no skilled craftsmen

d) because of the lack of wood

5. How was metal first worked?

a) with animal power

b) with hammers, files, scrapers

c) with the help of electricity

d) with machine tools

6. What was the first large machine tool?

a) the milling machine

b) the shaping machine

c) the cylinder boring machine

d) the planing machine

7. What helped to develop machine tools in the 19-th century?

a) textile industry

b) military production

c) chemical industry

d) agriculture

8. Henry Maudslay was engaged in:

a) agriculture

b) textile industry

c) the Royal Navy

d) mechanical engineering

The Industrial Revolution could not have developed without machine tools, for they enabled manufacturing machines to be made. They have their origins in the tools developed in the 18th century by makers of clocks and watches and scientific instrument makers to enable them to batch-produce small mechanisms. The mechanical parts of early textile machines were sometimes called “clock work” because of the metal spindles and gears they used. The manufacture of textile machines drew craftsmen from these trades and is the origin of the modern engineering industry.

Machines were built by various craftsmen, carpenters made wooden framings, and smiths and turners made metal parts. A good example of how machine tools changed manufacturing took place in Birmingham, England, in 1830. The invention of a new machine by William Joseph Gillott, William Mitchell and James Stephen Perry allowed mass manufacture of cheap steel pen nibs; the process had been expensive. Because of the difficulty of manipulating metal and the lack of machine tools, the use of metal was kept to a minimum. Wood framing had the disadvantage of changing dimensions with temperature and humidity. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, machines with metal frames became more common, but they required machine tools to make them economically. Before the advent of machine tools, metal was worked manually using the basic hand tools of hammers, files, scrapers, saws and chisels. Small metal parts were readily made by this means, but for large machine parts, production was very laborious and costly.

Apart from workshop lathes used by craftsmen, the first large machine tool was the cylinder boring machine used for boring the large-diameter cylinders on early steam engines. The planing machine, the slotting machine and the shaping machine were developed in the first decades of the 19th century. Although the milling machine was invented at this time, it was not developed as a serious workshop tool until during the Second Industrial Revolution.

Military production had a hand in the development of machine tools. Henry Maudslay, who trained a school of machine tool makers early in the 19th century, was employed at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. He was engaged to build the machinery for making ships’ pulley blocks for the Royal Navy in the Portsmouth Block Mills. These were all metal and were the first machines for mass production and making components with a degree of interchangeability. The lessons Maudslay learned about the need for stability and precision he adapted to the development of machine tools, and in his workshops he trained a generation of men to build on his work, such as Richard Roberts, Joseph Clement and Joseph Whitworth. Roberts was a maker of high-quality machine tools and a pioneer of the use of jigs and gauges for precision workshop measurement.