Before the micrometer

[Grenadier1758]

For all else Mark Baker did for the film I don't know why he didn't :bull: .

No, Hawkeye just wanted to look at Cora's ankles.

Even J Fenimore Cooper didn't think of that.

 

[coloradoclyde]

The topic if making things without a micrometer reminds me of two things....

One is the Saturn 5 rockets which were made back in the days before computer and were largely hand fit together.

The other is the Antikythera mechanism. Made somewhere between the first and third centuries B.C. It has incredible precision and craftsmanship.

The levels of precision capable by some people without the aid of machines is astounding.

 

[necchi]

The topic if making things without a micrometer reminds me of two things....

One is the Saturn 5 rockets which were made back in the days before computer and were largely hand fit together.

Micrometer:
that its first known appearance in English writing was in 1670. Neither the metre nor the micrometre (μm) nor the micrometer (device) as we know them today existed at that time. However, the people of that time did have much need for, and interest in, the ability to measure small things and small differences.
That's kind of a little before Saturn V, clyde.

The other is the Antikythera mechanism. Made somewhere between the first and third centuries B.C. It has incredible precision and craftsmanship.

Just a reality check but,,

But the researchers don’t know for certain the device’s purpose, or who used it ”” and they likely never will.

many articles of the device are easily found,,
:idunno:

 

[coloradoclyde]

Micrometer:
that its first known appearance in English writing was in 1670.
That's kind of a little before Saturn V, clyde.

Guess you missed my first post on page 1 where is said "
Also the micrometer was invented in the 1600's..."

Just a reality check but,,

But the researchers don’t know for certain the device’s purpose, or who used it ”” and they likely never will.

many articles of the device are easily found,,
:idunno:

I don't know where you got your information but it's grossly outdated. are you still using windows 95?.....
You always make me laugh when I need it. :haha:

 

[BrownBear]

I suspect the simple caliper has been around since ancient times. If my creaky old brain isn't too fanciful these days, I seem to recall them in drawings from ancient Greek days.

I can say this though: When I was a kid on the ranch we had an old guy from Mexico who built a foot powered lathe and a simple caliper, then used it to turn out high precision work. He also used it to file-fit metal parts. Just measure the inside or outside of something, lay it across a ruler, and no micrometer needed. He could measure and fit things to a surprising degree of accuracy- all by hand, and without a micrometer in sight. Prolly wouldn't take a craftsman sitting out in the woods long at all to turn out a caliper and use it with great skill.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Early caliper?.... :hmm: ....Like a compass maybe.
Ancient Egyptians had lathes, Here is a roman area compass.

 

[coloradoclyde]

If my creaky old brain isn't too fanciful these days, I seem to recall them in drawings from ancient Greek days.

Sharp as a tack....

Like this depiction of Archimedes.

 

[smoothshooter]

I'll bet there were darned few micrometers on the American frontier, and I wouldn't expect the ones that were to have been of much account after a little use.

 

[smoothshooter]

That's one of the very reasons I don't put a lot of stock in most of the old shooting tales.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I don't put much stock in new ones either....

 

[coloradoclyde]

There are other ways to measure thickness and even fabric thickness without using a micrometer or calipers....All measurement really is, is comparing something against a known standard.
Weights and measures were constantly changing over the ages..

 

[BrownBear]

My question is whether a modern micrometer was needed for high precision.... Or put another way, whether the precision of a modern micrometer was needed for exceptional accuracy.

My personal opinion, based on watching craftsmen with simple tools do high precision work, is no.

 

[Zonie]

Being an engineering type person, this topic got me interested in just when the precision caliper was invented.

Like others I found there were a few precision measuring calipers using a Vernier type of scale existing in the 1600's but it wasn't until American Joseph R. Brown came up with it in 1851 that a practical product was made available to large numbers of people on an affordable level.

Joseph R. was the son of David Brown of Brown & Sharp fame in the machine world.

That 1851 date is why I didn't comment about precision measurement in the time period this topic deals with.

 

[coloradoclyde]

My question is whether a modern micrometer was needed for high precision.... Or put another way, whether the precision of a modern micrometer was needed for exceptional accuracy.

My personal opinion, based on watching craftsmen with simple tools do high precision work, is no.

I agree with BrownBear....

Based on my own experience of cutting a piece of rope and dismantling it, balling up the fibers and making a patch out of them that shot groups better than 90% of the people returning with a yard fabric from Walmart or Joanne's....Heck I even used shredded tree bark once.

Precision isn't as all important as we might think.

Generally speaking,(I said generally) muzzleloaders are quite forgiving and eventually precision becomes a "zero sum game"

Skill can take you farther than precision and luck even farther yet.

 

[M. De Land]

Nah, you can have all the skill in the world and won't be able to take advantage of it with a lousy inaccurate rifle or load and as far as luck goes it "will" quit you at any time it chooses. :rotf:

 

[Artificer]

I think people who have never done precision hand filing on metal may not understand the precision that is possible doing it. It may take anywhere from 10 to 30 strokes with a file to cut .001" depending on how fine the file is. That means each stroke of the file will only take .0001" (One Ten Thousandth of an Inch) or a bit more at a time. Yes, even though the teeth of 18th century hand files were hand cut, they were still capable of this kind of precision file cutting.

Wallace Gusler and Gary Brumfield proved, at the Gunsmith Shop at Colonial Williamsburg, that precision reaming of barrels was quite possible using period tools. Using period techniques, final reaming would give "borings that were as fine as face powder" and the barrels were slightly tapered larger at the breech to smaller at the muzzle with the bores varying no more normally than .001" to .003" at most. Further, if the mold was cut for the barrel before the barrel was final reamed, balls cast from the mold could have been used as "Go/No Go" gauges and the bores reamed very precisely to the diameter of the balls that would be shot in the barrels.

Brown Bear already mentioned how it was possible to do very exact fitting of parts by using hand files and simple pole or other hand powered lathes.

My Grandfather began learning the machinist trade before WWI. Even though he had a set of early precision "direct read" calipers (No Dial to read), he often used a variety of simple calipers to do machine work of the styles that went back to the 18th century and before. Some of those calipers could be locked in place with a screw thread and others were only friction fit. He used the simple calipers a lot more of the time than I would have thought to use them, because he claimed it was faster to work that way.

Gus

 

[coloradoclyde]

Yes, even though the teeth of 18th century hand files were hand cut,

Ummm, they did have file cutting machines in the 18th century, both machine and hand cut existed. Leonardo da Vinci invented the first file cutting machine I think.

Files were one of the things that were imported by the bucket loads and were trade items on the frontier.

 

[Artificer]

One thing I obsess about is having the correct file to do a job, so my file collection is very large.

I was surprised when I first began studying period gunsmithing tools, on the huge range of files available in the 18th century. I wish some of the types they had were still available.

Gus

 

[tenngun]

I am put in mind of the Mosha-hadine that we supplied arms to in the 70s who made rather exacting copies of the guns under very primitive conditions.
My brother got a job for Tandy that made parts for aerospace company in the 60s. He could run the machine for making bearings but couldn’t read a mich. his hands on skills are very high, but his math skills was very low. When the industry downsized in the 70s he was out of work. He admitted then he made bearings by sight and could not mich them, and he had a failure rate of his go-no go production was lower then avarage for the plant.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I too once worked in manufacturing making a part that could not be automatically made by machine on a good day I could make about a 120 out of 1000 I had the highest rate . The next guy could make maybe 30 most people who tried to make them only made one to spec by accident .