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76-596: By the year 1850, there were a total of around 260,000 power loom operations in England. Two years later came the Northrop loom which replenished the shuttle when it was empty. This replaced the Lancashire loom . The main components of the loom are the warp beam, heddles, harnesses, shuttle, reed, and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking, battening and taking-up operations. With each weaving operation,

152-452: A drill machine might contain a magazine with a variety of drill bits for producing holes of various sizes. Previously, either machine operators would usually have to manually change the bit or move the work piece to another station to perform these different operations. The next logical step was to combine several different machine tools together, all under computer control. These are known as machining centers , and have dramatically changed

228-608: A "ball and socket" concave-concave and convex-convex fit, as this mechanical fit, like two perfect planes, can slide over each other and reveal no high spots. The rubbing and marking are repeated after rotating 2 relative to 1 by 90 degrees to eliminate concave-convex "potato-chip" curvature. Next, plate number 3 is compared and scraped to conform to plate number 1 in the same two trials. In this manner plates number 2 and 3 would be identical. Next plates number 2 and 3 would be checked against each other to determine what condition existed, either both plates were "balls" or "sockets" or "chips" or

304-408: A Kenworthy and Bullough's Lancashire Loom , a weaver can run four or more looms working at 220-260 picks per minute- thus giving eight (or more) times more throughput. The development of the power loom in and around Manchester was not a coincidence. Manchester had been a centre for Fustians by 1620 and acted as a hub for other Lancashire towns, so developing a communication network with them. It

380-718: A Swiss company had the exclusive rights to shuttleless looms in 1942, and licensed the American production to Warner & Swasey. Draper licensed the slower rapier loom. Today, advances in technology have produced a variety of looms designed to maximise production for specific types of material. The most common of these are Sulzer shuttleless weaving machines , rapier looms , air-jet looms and water-jet looms. Power looms reduced demand for skilled handweavers, initially causing reduced wages and unemployment. Protests followed their introduction. For example, in 1816 two thousand rioting Calton weavers tried to destroy power loom mills and stoned

456-483: A chicken farmer, but was unsuccessful. It was at that time that he invented a shuttle-charger. Otis Draper saw a model of the device on March 5, 1889. Draper was also developing the Rhoades shuttle-charger. Northrop was given a loom to test his idea. By May 20 he concluded that his first idea was not practical, and thought of another idea. On July 5, the completed loom was running, and as it seemed to have more advantages than

532-421: A combination. These would then be scraped until no high spots existed and then compared to plate number 1. Repeating this process of comparing and scraping the three plates could produce plane surfaces accurate to within millionths of an inch (the thickness of the marking medium). The traditional method of producing the surface gages used an abrasive powder rubbed between the plates to remove the high spots, but it

608-515: A handful of major industries that most spurred machine tool development. In order of historical emergence, they have been firearms (small arms and artillery ); clocks ; textile machinery; steam engines ( stationary , marine , rail , and otherwise ) (the story of how Watt 's need for an accurate cylinder spurred Boulton's boring machine is discussed by Roe ); sewing machines ; bicycles ; automobiles ; and aircraft . Others could be included in this list as well, but they tend to be connected with

684-410: A high-speed (200+ mph/322 kmh) and striking a worker if the moving reed encounters a thread/yarn or other mechanical jam/error. One complication for weavers, in the terms of safety, is the loud nature in which weave mills operate (115 dB +). Because of this, it is nearly impossible to hear a person calling for help when entangled. This has led OSHA to outline specific guidelines for companies to mitigate

760-495: A lathe with direct mechanical control of the cutting tool's path are of a screw-cutting lathe dating to about 1483. This lathe "produced screw threads out of wood and employed a true compound slide rest". The mechanical toolpath guidance grew out of various root concepts: Abstractly programmable toolpath guidance began with mechanical solutions, such as in musical box cams and Jacquard looms . The convergence of programmable mechanical control with machine tool toolpath control

836-468: A machine tool as "any machine operating by other than hand power which employs a tool to work on metal". The narrowest colloquial sense of the term reserves it only for machines that perform metal cutting—in other words, the many kinds of [conventional] machining and grinding . These processes are a type of deformation that produces swarf . However, economists use a slightly broader sense that also includes metal deformation of other types that squeeze

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912-400: A machine tool as well as expressing its fundamental structure in the following way: imagine a lathe spending a cylinder on a horizontal axis with a tool ready to cut a face on that cylinder in some preparatory moment. What the operator of such a lathe would do is lock the x-axis on the carriage of the lathe establishing a new vector condition with a zero in the x slide position for the tool. Then

988-418: A machine tool is, is a very simple answer but it is highly technical and is unrelated to the history of machine tools. Preceding, there is an answer for what machine tools are. We may consider what they do also. Machine tools produce finished surfaces. They may produce any finish from an arbitrary degree of very rough work to a specular optical grade finish the improvement of which is moot. Machine tools produce

1064-431: A machine tool, toolpaths that no human muscle could constrain can be constrained; and toolpaths that are technically possible with freehand methods, but would require tremendous time and skill to execute, can instead be executed quickly and easily, even by people with little freehand talent (because the machine takes care of it). The latter aspect of machine tools is often referred to by historians of bytechnology as "building

1140-558: A new loom. By 1900, Draper had sold over 60,000 Northrop looms and were shipping 1,500 a month, were employing 2,500 men and enlarging their Hopedale works to increase that output. In all 700,000 looms were sold. By 1914, Northrop looms made up 40% of American looms. However, in the United Kingdom labour costs were not as significant and Northrop had only 2% of the British market. Northrops were especially suitable for coarse cottons, but it

1216-403: A preparatory moment before a tool makes contact with a work piece, or maybe an engaged moment during which contact with work and tool requires an input of rather large amounts of power to get work done which is why machine tools are large and heavy and stiff. Since what these vectors describe our instant moments of degrees of freedom the vector structure is capable of expressing the changing mode of

1292-466: A small steam-powered weaving factory in Manchester in 1790, but the factory burnt down. Cartwright's was not a commercially successful machine; his looms had to be stopped to dress the warp. Over the next decades, Cartwright's ideas were modified into a reliable automatic loom. These designs followed John Kay 's invention of the flying shuttle, and they passed the shuttle through the shed using levers. With

1368-408: A spinning town, the towns around were weaving towns producing cloth by the putting out system. The business was dominated by a few families, who had the capital needed to invest in new mills and to buy hundreds of looms. Mills were built along the new canals, so immediately had access to their markets. Spinning developed first and, until 1830, the handloom was still more important economically than

1444-431: A survey by market research firm Gardner Research. The largest producer of machine tools was China with $ 23.8 billion of production followed by Germany and Japan at neck and neck with $ 12.9 billion and $ 12.88 billion respectively. South Korea and Italy rounded out the top 5 producers with revenue of $ 5.6 billion and $ 5 billion respectively. . A biography of a machine tool builder that also contains some general history of

1520-571: A variety of sources. Human and animal power (via cranks , treadles , treadmills , or treadwheels ) were used in the past, as was water power (via water wheel ); however, following the development of high-pressure steam engines in the mid 19th century, factories increasingly used steam power. Factories also used hydraulic and pneumatic power. Many small workshops continued to use water, human and animal power until electrification after 1900. Today most machine tools are powered by electricity; hydraulic and pneumatic power are sometimes used, but this

1596-403: A warp thread broke, the loom stopped until it was fixed. When the shuttle ran out of thread, Northrop's mechanism ejected the depleted pirn and loaded a new full one without stopping. A loom operative could work 16 or more looms whereas previously they could only operate eight. Thus, the labour cost was halved. Mill owners had to decide whether the labour saving was worth the capital investment in

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1672-645: A wax pencil or crayon to sign their initials onto the cloth to mark a shift change, and then walk along the cloth side (front) of the looms they tend, gently touching the fabric as it comes from the reed. This is done to feel for any broken "picks" or filler thread. Should broken picks be detected, the weaver will disable the machine and undertake to correct the error, typically by replacing the bobbin of filler thread in as little time as possible. They are trained that, ideally, no machine should stop working for more than one minute, with faster turnaround times being preferred. Operation of this needs more than 2 people because of

1748-410: Is also problematic, as machine tools can be powered by people if appropriately set up, such as with a treadle (for a lathe ) or a hand lever (for a shaper ). Hand-powered shapers are clearly "the 'same thing' as shapers with electric motors except smaller", and it is trivial to power a micro lathe with a hand-cranked belt pulley instead of an electric motor. Thus one can question whether power source

1824-435: Is concentrated in about 10 countries worldwide: China, Japan, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, US, Austria, Spain and a few others. Machine tool innovation continues in several public and private research centers worldwide. [A]ll the turning of the iron for the cotton machinery built by Mr. Slater was done with hand chisels or tools in lathes turned by cranks with hand power. Machine tools can be powered from

1900-450: Is the moving reed, the frames which hold the heddles and the "pinch" or "sand" roll utilized to keep the cloth tight as it passes over the front of the machine and onto the doff roll. The most common injury in weaving is pinched fingers from distracted or bored workers, though this is not the only such injury found. There are numerous accounts of weavers with long hair getting it tangled in the warp itself and having their scalp pulled away from

1976-660: Is truly a key distinguishing concept; but for economics purposes, the NBER's definition made sense, because most of the commercial value of the existence of machine tools comes about via those that are powered by electricity, hydraulics, and so on. Such are the vagaries of natural language and controlled vocabulary , both of which have their places in the business world. Forerunners of machine tools included bow drills and potter's wheels , which had existed in ancient Egypt prior to 2500 BC, and lathes , known to have existed in multiple regions of Europe since at least 1000 to 500 BC. But it

2052-427: Is uncommon. Machine tools can be operated manually, or under automatic control. Early machines used flywheels to stabilize their motion and had complex systems of gears and levers to control the machine and the piece being worked on. Soon after World War II, the numerical control (NC) machine was developed. NC machines used a series of numbers punched on paper tape or punched cards to control their motion. In

2128-525: The British Northrop Loom Company at its factory in Blackburn , Lancashire. Machine tool 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

2204-577: The Industrial Revolution in England in the middle to late 1700s. Until that time, machinery was made mostly from wood, often including gearing and shafts. The increase in mechanization required more metal parts, which were usually made of cast iron or wrought iron . Cast iron could be cast in molds for larger parts, such as engine cylinders and gears, but was difficult to work with a file and could not be hammered. Red hot wrought iron could be hammered into shapes. Room temperature wrought iron

2280-429: The mass noun "machinery" encompasses them, but sometimes it is used to imply only those machines that are being excluded from the definition of "machine tool". This is why the machines in a food-processing plant, such as conveyors, mixers, vessels, dividers, and so on, may be labeled "machinery", while the machines in the factory's tool and die department are instead called "machine tools" in contradistinction. Regarding

2356-424: The workpiece and provide a guided movement of the parts of the machine. Thus, the relative movement between the workpiece and the cutting tool (which is called the toolpath ) 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

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2432-419: The 18th and 19th centuries, and even in many cases in the 20th, the builders of machine tools tended to be the same people who would then use them to produce the end products (manufactured goods). However, from these roots also evolved an industry of machine tool builders as we define them today, meaning people who specialize in building machine tools for sale to others. Historians of machine tools often focus on

2508-496: The 1930s NBER definition quoted above, one could argue that its specificity to metal is obsolete, as it is quite common today for particular lathes, milling machines, and machining centers (definitely machine tools) to work exclusively on plastic cutting jobs throughout their whole working lifespan. Thus the NBER definition above could be expanded to say "which employs a tool to work on metal or other materials of high hardness ". And its specificity to "operating by other than hand power"

2584-442: The 1960s, computers were added to give even more flexibility to the process. Such machines became known as computerized numerical control (CNC) machines . NC and CNC machines could precisely repeat sequences over and over, and could produce much more complex pieces than even the most skilled tool operators. Before long, the machines could automatically change the specific cutting and shaping tools that were being used. For example,

2660-722: The 1980s; he was reflecting the sense of the term used by Houdaille itself and other firms in the industry. Many reports on machine tool export and import and similar economic topics use this broader definition. The colloquial sense implying [conventional] metal cutting is also growing obsolete because of changing technology over the decades. The many more recently developed processes labeled "machining", such as electrical discharge machining , electrochemical machining , electron beam machining , photochemical machining , and ultrasonic machining , or even plasma cutting and water jet cutting , are often performed by machines that could most logically be called machine tools. In addition, some of

2736-569: The Rhoades loom. The Northrop device was given a mill trial in October 1889 at the Seaconnett Mills in Fall River, Massachusetts . More looms were constructed and tested at Seaconnett later in 1889 and during 1890. Meanwhile, Northrop invented a self-threading shuttle and shuttle spring jaws to hold a bobbin by means of rings on the butt. This paved the way to his filling-changing battery of 1891,

2812-553: The abrasive material between the plates which would produce uneven removal of material from the plates. With the creation of master plane gages of such high accuracy, all critical components of machine tools (i.e., guiding surfaces such as machine ways) could then be compared against them and scraped to the desired accuracy. The first machine tools offered for sale (i.e., commercially available) were constructed by Matthew Murray in England around 1800. Others, such as Henry Maudslay , James Nasmyth , and Joseph Whitworth , soon followed

2888-538: The accuracy of machine tools can be traced to Henry Maudslay and refined by Joseph Whitworth . That Maudslay had established the manufacture and use of master plane gages in his shop (Maudslay & Field) located on Westminster Road south of the Thames River in London about 1809, was attested to by James Nasmyth who was employed by Maudslay in 1829 and Nasmyth documented their use in his autobiography. The process by which

2964-574: The bar length standards of the 19th and early 20th centuries. American production of machine tools was a critical factor in the Allies' victory in World War II. Production of machine tools tripled in the United States in the war. No war was more industrialized than World War II, and it has been written that the war was won as much by machine shops as by machine guns. The production of machine tools

3040-513: The basic feature of the Northrop loom. Northrop was responsible for several hundred weaving related patents. Other members of the Draper organization had developed a workable warp stop motion which was also included. The first Northrop looms were marketed in 1894. Northrop retired to California two years later when he was 42. The principal advantage of the Northrop loom was that it was fully automatic; when

3116-409: The chances of such accidents occurring. However, even with such guidelines in place, injuries in textile production due to the machines themselves, are still commonplace. [REDACTED] Media related to Power looms at Wikimedia Commons Northrop Loom The Northrop Loom was a fully automatic power loom marketed by George Draper and Sons , Hopedale, Massachusetts beginning in 1895. It

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3192-415: The coal fire as readily as stamping license plates, and Matter-Subtracting might mean casually whittling a pencil point as readily as it might mean precision grinding the final form of a laser deposited turbine blade. A precise description of what a machine tool is and does in an instant moment is given by a 12 component vector relating the linear and rotational degrees of freedom of the single work piece and

3268-427: The concepts of accuracy and precision , efficiency , and productivity become important in understanding why the machine-constrained option adds value . Matter-Additive, Matter-Preserving, and Matter-Subtractive "Manufacturing" can proceed in sixteen ways: Firstly, the work may be held either in a hand, or a clamp; secondly, the tool may be held either in a hand, or a clamp; thirdly, the energy can come from either

3344-424: The definition, the term, arising at a time when all tools up till then had been hand tools , simply provided a label for "tools that were machines instead of hand tools". Early lathes , those prior to the late medieval period, and modern woodworking lathes and potter's wheels may or may not fall under this definition, depending on how one views the headstock spindle itself; but the earliest historical records of

3420-459: The drawings, paintings, and sculptures of artists such as Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci , and of countless other talented people, show that human freehand toolpath has great potential. The value that machine tools added to these human talents is in the areas of rigidity (constraining the toolpath despite thousands of newtons ( pounds ) of force fighting against the constraint), accuracy and precision , efficiency , and productivity . With

3496-403: The economical production of interchangeable parts . Many historians of technology consider that true machine tools were born when the toolpath first became guided by the machine itself in some way, at least to some extent, so that direct, freehand human guidance of the toolpath (with hands, feet, or mouth) was no longer the only guidance used in the cutting or forming process. In this view of

3572-585: The hand(s) holding the tool and/or the work, or from some external source, including for examples a foot treadle by the same worker, or a motor, without limitation; and finally, the control can come from either the hand(s) holding the tool and/or the work, or from some other source, including computer numerical control. With two choices for each of four parameters, the types are enumerated to sixteen types of Manufacturing, where Matter-Additive might mean painting on canvas as readily as it might mean 3D printing under computer control, Matter-Preserving might mean forging at

3648-479: The increased speed of weaving, weavers were able to use more thread than spinners could produce. A series of inventors incrementally improved all aspects of the three principal processes and the ancillary processes. There now appear a series of useful improvements that are contained in patents for useless devices At this point the loom has become automatic except for refilling weft pirns. The Cartwight loom weaver could work one loom at 120-130 picks per minute- with

3724-581: The job that changes the size and shape of the job material. The precise definition of the term machine tool varies among users, as discussed below . While all machine tools are "machines that help people to make things", not all factory machines are machine tools. Today machine tools are typically powered other than by the human muscle (e.g., electrically, hydraulically, or via line shaft ), used to make manufactured parts (components) in various ways that include cutting or certain other kinds of deformation. With their inherent precision, machine tools enabled

3800-532: The master plane gages were produced dates back to antiquity but was refined to an unprecedented degree in the Maudslay shop. The process begins with three square plates each given an identification (ex., 1,2 and 3). The first step is to rub plates 1 and 2 together with a marking medium (called bluing today) revealing the high spots which would be removed by hand scraping with a steel scraper, until no irregularities were visible. This would not produce true plane surfaces but

3876-415: The metal into shape without cutting off swarf, such as rolling, stamping with dies , shearing, swaging , riveting , and others. Thus presses are usually included in the economic definition of machine tools. For example, this is the breadth of definition used by Max Holland in his history of Burgmaster and Houdaille , which is also a history of the machine tool industry in general from the 1940s through

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3952-614: The newly constructed fabric must be wound on a cloth beam. This process is called taking up. At the same time, the warp yarns must be let off or released from the warp beams. To become fully automatic, a loom needs a filling stop motion which will brake the loom, if the weft thread breaks. Operation of weaving in a textile mill is undertaken by a specially trained operator known as a weaver. Weavers are expected to uphold high industry standards and are tasked with monitoring anywhere from ten to as many as thirty separate looms at any one time. During their operating shift, weavers will first utilize

4028-445: The newly developed additive manufacturing processes, which are not about cutting away material but rather about adding it, are done by machines that are likely to end up labeled, in some cases, as machine tools. In fact, machine tool builders are already developing machines that include both subtractive and additive manufacturing in one work envelope, and retrofits of existing machines are underway. The natural language use of

4104-406: The operator would unlock the y-axis on the cross slide of the lathe, assuming that our examples were equipped with that, and then the operator would apply some method of traversing the facing tool across the face of the cylinder being cut and a depth combined with the rotational speed selected which engages cutting ability within the power of range of the motor powering the lathe. So the answer to what

4180-445: The path of expanding their entrepreneurship from manufactured end products and millwright work into the realm of building machine tools for sale. Important early machine tools included the slide rest lathe, screw-cutting lathe , turret lathe , milling machine , pattern tracing lathe, shaper , and metal planer , which were all in use before 1840. With these machine tools the decades-old objective of producing interchangeable parts

4256-451: The power loom when the roles reversed. Because of the economic growth of Manchester, a new industry of precision machine tool engineering was born and here were the skills needed to build the precision mechanisms of a loom. Draper' strategy was to standardize on a couple of Northrop Loom models which it mass-produced. The lighter E-model of 1909 was joined in the 1930 by the heavier X-model. Continuous fibre machines, say for rayon, which

4332-414: The root causes already listed. For example, rolling-element bearings are an industry of themselves, but this industry's main drivers of development were the vehicles already listed—trains, bicycles, automobiles, and aircraft; and other industries, such as tractors, farm implements, and tanks, borrowed heavily from those same parent industries. Machine tools filled a need created by textile machinery during

4408-408: The single tool contacting that work piece in any machine arbitrarily and in order to visualize this vector it makes sense to arrange it in four rows of three columns with labels x y and z on the columns and labels spin and move on the rows, with those two labels repeated one more time to make a total of four rows so that the first row might be labeled spin work, the second row might be labeled move work,

4484-413: The skill into the tool", in contrast to the toolpath-constraining skill being in the person who wields the tool. As an example, it is physically possible to make interchangeable screws, bolts, and nuts entirely with freehand toolpaths. But it is economically practical to make them only with machine tools. In the 1930s, the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) referenced the definition of

4560-404: The skull, or large chunks of hair pulled off. As a result of this, it has become industry standard for companies to require weavers to either keep hair up and tied, or to keep their hair short so as not to allow it to become tangled. Also, due to possible pinch points on the front of machines, loose, baggy clothing is prohibited. In addition, there is a risk of the shuttle flying out of the loom at

4636-437: The surfaces comprising the features of machine parts by removing chips. These chips may be very rough or even as fine as dust. Every machine tools supports its removal process with a stiff, redundant and so vibration resisting structure because each chip is removed in a semi a synchronous way, creating multiple opportunities for vibration to interfere with precision. Humans are generally quite talented in their freehand movements;

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4712-404: The terms varies, with subtle connotative boundaries. Many speakers resist using the term "machine tool" to refer to woodworking machinery (joiners, table saws, routing stations, and so on), but it is difficult to maintain any true logical dividing line, and therefore many speakers accept a broad definition. It is common to hear machinists refer to their machine tools simply as "machines". Usually

4788-413: The third row might be labeled spin tool, and the fourth row might be labeled move tool although the position of the labels is arbitrary which is to say there is no agreement in the literature of mechanical engineering on what order these labels should be but there are 12 degrees of freedom in a machine tool. That said it is important to remember that this is in an instant moment and that instant moment may be

4864-459: The way it works. The first ideas for an automatic loom were developed in 1784 by M. de Gennes in Paris and by Vaucanson in 1745, but these designs were never developed and were forgotten. In 1785 Edmund Cartwright patented a power loom which used water power to speed up the weaving process, the predecessor to the modern power loom. His ideas were licensed first by Grimshaw of Manchester who built

4940-438: The way parts are made. Examples of machine tools are: When fabricating or shaping parts, several techniques are used to remove unwanted metal. Among these are: Other techniques are used to add desired material. Devices that fabricate components by selective addition of material are called rapid prototyping machines. The worldwide market for machine tools was approximately $ 81 billion in production in 2014 according to

5016-490: The workers. In the longer term, by making cloth more affordable the power loom increased demand and stimulated exports, causing a growth in industrial employment, albeit low-paid. The power loom also opened up opportunities for women mill workers. A darker side of the power loom's impact was the growth of employment of children in power loom mills. There are a number of inherent dangers in the machines, to which inattentive or poorly trained weavers can fall victim. The most obvious

5092-564: Was Whitworth who contributed the refinement of replacing the grinding with hand scraping. Sometime after 1825, Whitworth went to work for Maudslay and it was there that Whitworth perfected the hand scraping of master surface plane gages. In his paper presented to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Glasgow in 1840, Whitworth pointed out the inherent inaccuracy of grinding due to no control and thus unequal distribution of

5168-522: Was an established point of export using the meandering River Mersey , and by 1800 it had a thriving canal network, with links to the Ashton Canal , Rochdale Canal the Peak Forest Canal and Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal . The fustian trade gave the towns a skilled workforce that was used to the complicated Dutch looms, and was perhaps accustomed to industrial discipline. While Manchester became

5244-428: Was delayed many decades, in part because the programmable control methods of musical boxes and looms lacked the rigidity for machine tool toolpaths. Later, electromechanical solutions (such as servos ) and soon electronic solutions (including computers ) were added, leading to numerical control and computer numerical control . When considering the difference between freehand toolpaths and machine-constrained toolpaths,

5320-429: Was finally realized. An important early example of something now taken for granted was the standardization of screw fasteners such as nuts and bolts. Before about the beginning of the 19th century, these were used in pairs, and even screws of the same machine were generally not interchangeable. Methods were developed to cut screw thread to a greater precision than that of the feed screw in the lathe being used. This led to

5396-581: Was more break-prone, needed a specialist loom. This was provided by the purchase of the Stafford Loom Co. in 1932, and using their patents a third loom the XD, was added to the range. Because of their mass production techniques they were reluctant and slow to retool for new technologies such as shuttleless looms. Originally, power looms used a shuttle to throw the weft across, but in 1927 the faster and more efficient shuttleless loom came into use. Sulzer Brothers ,

5472-482: Was named after James Henry Northrop who invented the shuttle-charging mechanism. James Henry Northrop , (8 May 1856 - 12 December 1940) was born in Keighley , West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom , where he worked in the textile industry. He emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1881. Northrop worked as a mechanic and foreman, for George Draper and Sons . There he invented a spooler guide. He left and tried to be

5548-520: Was not until the later Middle Ages and the Age of Enlightenment that the modern concept of a machine tool—a class of machines used as tools in the making of metal parts, and incorporating machine-guided toolpath—began to evolve. Clockmakers of the Middle Ages and renaissance men such as Leonardo da Vinci helped expand humans' technological milieu toward the preconditions for industrial machine tools. During

5624-687: Was said not particularly suitable for fines, thus the financial advantage in their introduction into Lancashire was not as great as it had been in the United States . Henry Philip Greg imported some of the first Northrops into Britain in 1902, for his Albert Mill in Reddish , and encouraged his brother Robert Alexander Greg to introduce Northrops into Quarry Bank Mill in 1909. Greg bought 94 looms and output increased from 2.31 lbs/man-hr in 1900, to 2.94 lbs/man-hr in 1914. Labour costs decreased from 0.9d per pound to 0.3d per pound. Draper's strategy

5700-568: Was to standardise on a couple of models which they mass-produced. The lighter E-model of 1909 was joined in the 1930 by the heavier X-model. Continuous fibre machines, say for rayon, which was more break-prone, needed a specialist loom. This was provided by the purchase of the Stafford Loom Co. in 1932, and using their patents a third loom the XD, was added to the range. Because of their mass production techniques they were reluctant and slow to retool for new technologies such as shuttleless looms . Large numbers of Northrop type looms were manufactured by

5776-427: Was worked with a file and chisel and could be made into gears and other complex parts; however, hand working lacked precision and was a slow and expensive process. James Watt was unable to have an accurately bored cylinder for his first steam engine, trying for several years until John Wilkinson invented a suitable boring machine in 1774, boring Boulton & Watt's first commercial engine in 1776. The advance in

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