A micrometer, sometimes known as a micrometer screw gauge, is a device incorporating a calibrated screw widely used for accurate measurement of components in mechanical engineering and machining as well as most mechanical trades, along with other metrological instruments such as dial, vernier, and digital calipers. Micrometers are usually, but not always, in the form of calipers. The spindle is a very accurately machined screw and the object to be measured is placed between the spindle and the anvil. The spindle is moved by turning the ratchet knob or thimble until the object to be measured is lightly touched by both the spindle and the anvil.
Sir Joseph Whitworth, 1st Baronet was an English engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist. In 1841, he devised the British Standard Whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for screw threads. Whitworth also created the Whitworth rifle, often called the "sharpshooter" because of its accuracy, which is considered one of the earliest examples of a sniper rifle, used by some Confederate forces during the American Civil war.
A lathe is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, threading and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object with symmetry about that axis.
Henry Maudslay was an English machine tool innovator, tool and die maker, and inventor. He is considered a founding father of machine tool technology. His inventions were an important foundation for the Industrial Revolution.
A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some sort of tool that does the cutting or shaping. All machine tools have some means of constraining the workpiece and provide a guided movement of the parts of the machine. Thus, the relative movement between the workpiece and the cutting tool is controlled or constrained by the machine to at least some extent, rather than being entirely "offhand" or "freehand". It is a power-driven metal cutting machine which assists in managing the needed relative motion between cutting tool and the job that changes the size and shape of the job material.
Engineer's blue is a highly pigmented paste used to assist in the mating of two or more components.
Richard Roberts was a Welsh patternmaker and engineer whose development of high-precision machine tools contributed to the birth of production engineering and mass production.
Joseph Clement was a British engineer and industrialist, chiefly remembered as the maker of Charles Babbage's first difference engine, between 1824 and 1833.
Sheet metal is metal formed into thin, flat pieces, usually by an industrial process.
A machinist square or engineer's square is the metalworkers' equivalent of a try square. It consists of a steel blade inserted and either welded or pinned into a heavier body at an angle of 90°. Usually a small notch is present at the inside corner of the square. This prevents small particles from accumulating at the juncture and affecting the square's reading.
A hand scraper is a single-edged tool used to scrape metal or other materials from a surface. This may be required where a surface needs to be trued, corrected for fit to a mating part, needs to retain oil, or to give a decorative finish.
Gauge blocks are a system for producing precision lengths. The individual gauge block is a metal or ceramic block that has been precision ground and lapped to a specific thickness. Gauge blocks come in sets of blocks with a range of standard lengths. In use, the blocks are stacked to make up a desired length.
Epoxy granite, also known as synthetic granite, is a polymer matrix composite and is a mixture of epoxy and granite commonly used as an alternative material for machine tool bases. Epoxy granite is used instead of cast iron and steel for improved vibration damping, longer tool life, and lower assembly cost, and thus better properties for stabilizing and housing machines.
Honing is an abrasive machining process that produces a precision surface on a metal workpiece by scrubbing an abrasive grinding stone or grinding wheel against it along a controlled path. Honing is primarily used to improve the geometric form of a surface, but can also improve the surface finish.
A screw is an externally helical threaded fastener capable of being tightened or released by a twisting force (torque) to the head. The most common uses of screws are to hold objects together and there are many forms for a variety of materials. Screws might be inserted into holes in assembled parts or a screw may form its own thread. The difference between a screw and a bolt is that the latter is designed to be tightened or released by torquing a nut.
Quartz clocks and quartz watches are timepieces that use an electronic oscillator regulated by a quartz crystal to keep time. This crystal oscillator creates a signal with very precise frequency, so that quartz clocks and watches are at least an order of magnitude more accurate than mechanical clocks. Generally, some form of digital logic counts the cycles of this signal and provides a numerical time display, usually in units of hours, minutes, and seconds.
In manufacturing and mechanical engineering, flatness is an important geometric condition for workpieces and tools. Flatness is the condition of a surface or derived median plane having all elements in one plane.
Bearing balls are special highly spherical and smooth balls, most commonly used in ball bearings, but also used as components in things like freewheel mechanisms. The balls themselves are commonly referred to as ball bearings. This is an example of a synecdoche. The balls come in many different grades. These grades are defined by bodies such as the American Bearing Manufacturers Association (ABMA), a body which sets standards for the precision of bearing balls. They are manufactured in machines designed specially for the job.
A way is a type of linear bearing, specifically a linear plain bearing, in a machine tool. It facilitates precise linear motion along a given axis. A way is ground, scraped, or molded to be very flat, and ways often come in pairs to ensure a flat plane for the carriage or sliding element (slide) to move along smoothly. Ways are usually lubricated with way oil.
The Whitworth Three-Plate Method is a technique for creating precise flat surfaces, invented by Henry Maudslay and popularized by Sir Joseph Whitworth in the 19th century. Crucially, this method does not rely other flat reference surfaces or other precision instruments, and thus solves the bootstrapping problem of how to create the first precise flat surface.
