The Evolution Of The Boring Machine

Although the factory handicraft industry is relatively backward, but it has trained and created a large number of mechanics, although they are not specialized in the manufacture of machines, but they can make a variety of hand tools, such as knives, saws, needles, drills, cones, grinding and shafts, sets, gears, bed frames and so on, in fact, the machine is assembled from these parts.

1. The earliest designer of the bed, Da Vinci, was called the "mother of machinery". Speaking of the bed, let's start with Leonardo da Vinci. The legendary figure may have been the first designer of a barn for metalworking. He designed the boring bed with hydraulic or foot pedals as the power, the boring tool is close to the work piece rotation, the work piece is fixed to the crane-driven mobile platform. In 1540, another painter painted a painting of Python, which was used to refine hollow castings.

2. The first barn (Wilkinson, 1775) was born for the processing of cannon barrels. In the 17th century, due to military needs, the development of artillery manufacturing industry is very rapid, how to make artillery barrel has become a major problem that people urgently need to solve.

The world's first real bed was invented by Wilkinson in 1775. In fact, wilkinson's boring machine is, to be exact, a drill capable of precision-processing cannons, a hollow cylinder-shaped bar with bearings mounted at both ends.

Born in the United States in 1728, Wilkinson moved to Staffordshire at the age of 20 to build Bilston's first iron furnace. As a result, Wilkinson was called "the master blacksmith of Staffordshire". In 1775, Wilkinson, 47, worked hard at his father's factory to create a new machine that could drill cannon barrels with rare precision. Interestingly, after Wilkinson's death in 1808, he was buried in a cast-iron coffin of his own design.

3. The boring machine has made an important contribution to Watt's steam engine. Without steam engines, the first wave of industrial revolution would not have happened. And the development and application of the steam engine itself, in addition to the necessary social opportunities, some technical prerequisites can not be ignored, because the manufacture of steam engine parts, far less easy than carpenters cutting wood, to make metal into some special shapes, and processing accuracy requirements are high, without the corresponding technical equipment is not possible. For example, the manufacture of steam engine cylinders and pistons, piston manufacturing process required the accuracy of the outer diameter, can be cut from the outside edge size edge, but to meet the accuracy requirements of the cylinder inner diameter, the use of general machining methods is not easy to do.

Smilton was the finest mechanical technician of the eighteenth century. Smilton designed as many as 43 water and wind trucks. When it it's time to make a steam engine, Smython's biggest problem is processing cylinders. It is quite difficult to round a large cylinder. To this end, Smilton created a special machine tool for cutting cylinders in the Karen Iron Plant. The machine, powered by a water truck, is fitted with a tool at the front end of its long shaft, which can be rotated in the cylinder to machine its inner circle. Since the tool is mounted at the front end of the long shaft, there will be problems such as the deflection of the shaft, so it is very difficult to machine a truly circular cylinder. To do this, Smilton had to change the position of the cylinder several times for processing.

Wilkinson's invention of the barn in 1774 played a big role in this conundrum. This boring bed uses a water wheel to rotate the material cylinder and push it against a fixed tool in the center, and because of the relative movement between the tool and the material, the material is called out of a cylindrical hole with high accuracy. At that time, a 72-inch diameter cylinder was made from a boring machine, with an error of no more than six pence. In modern technology, this is a big error, but under the conditions of the time, it is very difficult to reach this level.

But Wilkinson's invention was not patented, and people were copying it and installing it. In 1802, Watt also wrote about Wilkinson's invention and copied it in his Soho ironworks. Later, Watt used Wilkinson's magic machine when making cylinders and pistons for steam engines. Originally, for pistons, you can measure the size on the outside while cutting, but the cylinder is not so simple, non-use boring bed can not. At that time, Watt was using the water wheel to rotate the metal cylinder, so that the center fixed tool forward, to cut the inside of the cylinder, as a result, the diameter of the 75-inch cylinder, the error is less than the thickness of a coin, which is very advanced in the pair.

4. In the decades that went on, Wilkinson's bed was improved. In 1885, Hutton, England, created a work table lifting bed, which has become the prototype of modern boring beds.