The 1800s Machines That Built Modern Manufacturing _ American Precision Museum Highlights

One of the things that you're going to see in here guys is you're going to see machines from literally the 1800s, very very old cells. Some of them are hand cranked, some of them are hand operated. You're also going to see brand new stuff like 3D printers and you know FANUC robots. When you look at some of these old machines you're going to see the origins of turret changing, tool changing, you're going to see multi-axis spindles and when you can see those in a really rudimentary and basic form it can really help you when you're trying to figure out how to program those multi-load cells. We're going to take a tour, we're going to check out some really interesting stuff. Let's go! Okay guys we're going to hop in here real quickly, show you some of the highlights and the things I found super interesting. Let's go! So this is called an inletting machine. Super super interesting. You can tell it's all powered by belts as in all these old factories everything was from overhead rods and the belts came down and powered the machine. This is before motors really existed. The reason why this machine is so cool is it's basically the origin of a milling machine. It's a kind of milling machine. So this thing is actually going to go out and router out a copy template. So this is the template, this little part goes along in there and as it traces the inside of that template it's going to cut that same pattern into here. Some of you guys who work in shops with older machinery, if you've ever seen a copy mill, this is where that comes from. You know if you've ever seen, I forget what they're called, but the ones where you trace out an engraving on one side and on the other side the milling head goes and traces that out and engraves it, that's where this comes from. And this is from 1850. So you have to realize every single one of these parts, not only does this machine do some crazy work for the time, somebody had to build this machine. There's castings, you can tell there's machine surfaces, hand lapping, you got to remember like this part here isn't just part of a machine, somebody had to build that. So when you get to see these things all put together it's really really remarkable. The amount of respect that I have for you know the people that put this together is absolutely insane. Sometimes when I'm trying to assemble something in my shop and I have 10 components and something's not fitting right, oh woe is me. Every single thing here was hand fit and finish. You know this is where manufacturing comes from and it comes from hand filing and finish. Another one I was super super interested in is kind of in the same vein but I actually did hear in advance of us coming to this museum about this machine. This is a very very famous machine and the same way that this is kind of a copy mill is another one we looked at. This is a copy lathe but it's not just a lathe. This is why it's so interesting. When you're looking at gunstocks obviously they're not round. They're rounded but they're not round. This machine does that same thing where it has a wheel where it traces a blank. So somebody goes and spends a lot of time hand filing, hand finishing this blank. This blank needs to be perfect because it's the template. Then it's all about automation right. This is the early form of automation. Somebody can throw in a blank. You don't need a master woodworker anymore. You can have a guy who just runs the machine make make blanks for the for the rifles as if they are a master machinist or a master craftsman. Absolutely interesting to see where automation came from because you know there's no sensors on this. There's belts. There's wheels. There's no electronics in this whatsoever. So this is a shaper. I know some of you guys who follow the vintage machinery accounts on Instagram. You've seen a lot of these go. This is where the planer actually goes and it takes off one long chip then it retracts and goes back. The ones that you've seen on Instagram that you see a lot those are actually the newer ones. This is where it comes from. There's an older one there but I absolutely love seeing these old machines because it wasn't just the function of the machine. Look at all the work they put in just to make it look nice. You know you don't see this would have been cast so somebody would carve a blank and cast this out of cast iron. They really cared and took that not only the care to make the machine work well but to make it look good. It's a piece of art and also just the fact that you know this is again all hand fit and finish. Cast, hand fit and finish. It's absolutely fantastic. And this is truly an icon in the machining world because everybody knows what a bridgeport is. This is serial number one bridgeport knee mill. Often imitated, never really duplicated. I have some knockoffs in my shop and they're not a bridgeport. This is where knee mills really came from. It set the standard and the fact that this is serial number one here is an incredible piece of machining history. So thank you very much to the American Precision Museum for having us today. Thank you to Steve for showing us around. It is incredible what you're doing here. Guys if you were involved in a precision machining trade, if you are in a school right now doing this stuff you know encourage them to bring you down here. Encourage your schools to put something like this together. There's a lot of old machinery out there that's just rusting and people are throwing in the dumpsters. There are places like this and specifically here that will preserve it for us. That will keep the history of this trade going. I highly recommend if you're in the Vermont area to come check this place out. I've never seen anything like it and you will absolutely love it. Thanks again for watching guys. You take care.