11 ms·

I often wonder as I am building/fixing something (often my bicycle as it happens) and I happen to toss an extra screw in the trash how miraculous a simple screw

by entee 7y ago

I often wonder as I am building/fixing something (often my bicycle as it happens) and I happen to toss an extra screw in the trash how miraculous a simple screw of this type would have been to a middle-ages craftsman. The precision of keeping all those threads perfectly spaced is one thing, but the technology to make them in such volume at these sizes (often quite tiny), and in volumes so as to make them essentially disposable is a true marvel. We think a computer is an impressive piece of technology, but many of the things around us that we consider less than mundane are just as incredible if we look just a couple hundred years back.

roywiggins 7y ago
I recently read "The Perfectionists", which is a very readable book on the topic of how vital precision and machine tools was to the industrial revolution and the material world we live in. It really gets to the bottom of how the advances in our material capabilities and the invention of precision went hand in hand. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B072BFJB3Z/ https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B072BFJB3Z/
- galaxyLogic 7y ago
  Next: nano-tech
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    Femtotech! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtotechnology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtotechnology
    - sylk 7y ago
      GRIIIIIIIIIFFFFITH! (Cue berserk soundtrack) But for real, interesting read. Thanks for linking that. Would love to see some applications of such a thing.
Animats 7y ago
"The precision of keeping all those threads perfectly spaced is one thing" Making the first precision screw requires a "screw originating machine".[1][2] This is a special-purpose device which can make a better screw than the ones used in building it. Then you can install the first precision screw in a lathe and make more screws in harder metals. This is how precision is bootstrapped. [1] https://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/workshop/Turning-Mechanical/Maudslay-s-Methods-Of-Originating-Screws.html https://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/workshop/Turning-M... [2] http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co46546/tool-for-originating-screw-threads-made-by-henry-screw-cutting http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co46546/tool-...
- vageli 7y ago
  > "The precision of keeping all those threads perfectly spaced is one thing" > Making the first precision screw requires a "screw originating machine".[1][2] This is a special-purpose device which can make a better screw than the ones used in building it. I hadn't realized screws would be needed to create a screw-making machine. I love that we have machines that make better versions of their own components, something I never even thought to think of!
  - indenturedsmile 7y ago
    I don't have a source, and maybe I'm misremembering, but I think compilers (for software) and CPU production tooling (for hardware) both bootstrap off their own performance. A better compiler can compile itself more efficiently, same for CPU/chip layout systems.
    - tomstuart 7y ago
      You’re exactly right about this. Of course compilers which compile themselves come with their own risks! https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=358210 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=358210
      - dllthomas 7y ago
WalterBright 7y ago
It's similar with nails. If you tour Jefferson's home Monticello, there was a "nailery" where the nails needed were forged by hand, one by one. Being handmade, the each nail was valuable. People would burn scrap lumber to recover the nails.
- entee 7y ago
  That's wild! I thought nails were way easier because you could maybe just cast them. I guess forging would make them substantially stronger.
  - zrobotics 7y ago
    Casting parts like that is actually incredibly difficult. The iron will want to freeze before filling the mold cavity, since the cross section of a nail is so small. While tedious & time consuming, hand forging a nail is significantly easier than attempting to cast one. Plus, cast iron is much more difficult than forging simply due to the much higher temperatures required. A simple charcoal fire is adequate for forging, the higher temperatures required for casting necessitate specialized equipment. Hence why many village blacksmiths didn't have the capacity to produce cast iron parts.
    - entee 7y ago
      Oh interesting! TIL, thanks!
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Burn scrap nothing, In Colonial America they'd burn decrepit houses to get the nails. Enough that colonial governments passed laws against it. Which reminds me when I was a little kid people would carefully pull the nails out of old boards and save them.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    I did too. These days, I save nuts and bolts. Not because they are expensive to buy, but I don't want to spend a couple hours going to the hardware store to get one.
the8472 7y ago
While the our industrial capabilities are indeed incredible there still is an insane complexity gap between finely threaded screws and nanometer pattering ultra-purified materials, treating them with some of the most aggressive chemicals known to mankind as a mere cleaning step. The complexity of the patterns, so intricate that people can't even design them by hand anymore. Or those barely-practical national treasures that are EUV lithography machines. And all this is mass-production. There recently was an article on HN that fabs install microphones and other environmental sensors everywhere and use deep-learning to extract QA information from the sensors.
Iv 7y ago
There was a very interesting discussion on One Hour One Life mailing list about how fast we would go from prehistoric tech to modern tech if we knew all the steps and one key point was that we would have to make several iterations of increasingly precise machinery. I learned that in 1751, Vaucanson made this full-metal lathe: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/metal-turning-lathe/kwGbpYqKSyzcSg https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/metal-turning-lathe/... that was a kind of breakthrough and the ancestor of modern lathe, one of the first precision machine tool. Add that to his automata and his invention of punch cards to program looms and I am now realizing how much of a Da Vinci that guy was.
- mrob 7y ago
  I'd rate Henry Maudslay's invention of the three plate technique for producing extremely flat surfaces (popularized by Joseph Whitworth) as the most important step toward modern mass production. All precision machining ultimately depends on accurate surface plates, so without them interchangeable parts are impossible. See the excellent book "Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy" by Wayne Moore of the Moore Tool Company for details.
hyperpallium 7y ago
(Maybe not as precise as screws, I'm not sure, but) I'm freaked out by bicycle chains, so many pieces, each manufactured to precise tolerances. $15.
- entee 7y ago
  Especially fun are the fact that some of them are now asymmetric with hollow pins, though that one is a bit more expensive. Incremental improvements. A bike today looks fairly similar to a bike from 50-60 years ago, but every last bit is very different. https://bikecloset.com/product/shimano-cn-hg901-11-dura-ace-xtr-chain-quick-link-super-buy/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-ZrWw8G44wIVTL7ACh13MgpEEAQYASABEgJ4jPD_BwE https://bikecloset.com/product/shimano-cn-hg901-11-dura-ace-...
Gustomaximus 7y ago
Or consider how useless you would be if transported back 400 years. You would be able to offer great advice about washing hands or the solar system generalisations. But actually create something to show people....even the simplest things would be beyond most of us.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  You could draw/paint modern devices which would then eventually inspire others.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  If you could figure out how to make wire, you could make a working electric motor.
  - pushpop 7y ago
    You’d also need to make magnets, know their polarisation, create bearings, and have the skill to assemble all of that as well.
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      None of that is necessary. I built a working electric motor in cub scouts using several feet of wire, tape, some iron nails, some sheet metal cut from tin cans, a wood board to mount it on, and a battery. Tools required: tin snips and a hammer. A battery can be made from a jar, lemon juice, and two electrodes. Believe me, as an 8 year old, my skills were limited to using a hammer to mash my thumb with. :-) Electromagnets substituted for magnets, and bearings were a dent in the sheet metal that the point of a nail sat in and turned. Simple and effective. Once you showed this to a medieval craftsman, they could reproduce it and start improving it.
      - pushpop 7y ago
        I’m both impressed and have learned something new. Thank you :)
maxst 7y ago
Near Stonehenge they found a 4000 year olds dagger. Its handle "was decorated with 140,000 tiny gold studs, each almost as fine as a human hair and set into the wood at more than 1000 to the square centimetre." Even 21-century craftsman would find that impressive. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/stonehenges-most-intricate-archaeological-finds-were-probably-made-by-children-9738993.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/stone...

by entee 7y ago

roywiggins 7y ago

I recently read "The Perfectionists", which is a very readable book on the topic of how vital precision and machine tools was to the industrial revolution and the material world we live in. It really gets to the bottom of how the advances in our material capabilities and the invention of precision went hand in hand. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B072BFJB3Z/ https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B072BFJB3Z/

galaxyLogic 7y ago
Next: nano-tech
- roywiggins 7y ago
  Femtotech! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtotechnology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtotechnology
  - sylk 7y ago
    GRIIIIIIIIIFFFFITH! (Cue berserk soundtrack) But for real, interesting read. Thanks for linking that. Would love to see some applications of such a thing.

Animats 7y ago

"The precision of keeping all those threads perfectly spaced is one thing" Making the first precision screw requires a "screw originating machine".[1][2] This is a special-purpose device which can make a better screw than the ones used in building it. Then you can install the first precision screw in a lathe and make more screws in harder metals. This is how precision is bootstrapped. [1] https://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/workshop/Turning-Mechanical/Maudslay-s-Methods-Of-Originating-Screws.html https://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/workshop/Turning-M... [2] http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co46546/tool-for-originating-screw-threads-made-by-henry-screw-cutting http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co46546/tool-...

vageli 7y ago
> "The precision of keeping all those threads perfectly spaced is one thing" > Making the first precision screw requires a "screw originating machine".[1][2] This is a special-purpose device which can make a better screw than the ones used in building it. I hadn't realized screws would be needed to create a screw-making machine. I love that we have machines that make better versions of their own components, something I never even thought to think of!
- indenturedsmile 7y ago
  I don't have a source, and maybe I'm misremembering, but I think compilers (for software) and CPU production tooling (for hardware) both bootstrap off their own performance. A better compiler can compile itself more efficiently, same for CPU/chip layout systems.
  - tomstuart 7y ago
    You’re exactly right about this. Of course compilers which compile themselves come with their own risks! https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=358210 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=358210
    - dllthomas 7y ago

WalterBright 7y ago

It's similar with nails. If you tour Jefferson's home Monticello, there was a "nailery" where the nails needed were forged by hand, one by one. Being handmade, the each nail was valuable. People would burn scrap lumber to recover the nails.

entee 7y ago
That's wild! I thought nails were way easier because you could maybe just cast them. I guess forging would make them substantially stronger.
- zrobotics 7y ago
  Casting parts like that is actually incredibly difficult. The iron will want to freeze before filling the mold cavity, since the cross section of a nail is so small. While tedious & time consuming, hand forging a nail is significantly easier than attempting to cast one. Plus, cast iron is much more difficult than forging simply due to the much higher temperatures required. A simple charcoal fire is adequate for forging, the higher temperatures required for casting necessitate specialized equipment. Hence why many village blacksmiths didn't have the capacity to produce cast iron parts.
  - entee 7y ago
    Oh interesting! TIL, thanks!
Gibbon1 7y ago
Burn scrap nothing, In Colonial America they'd burn decrepit houses to get the nails. Enough that colonial governments passed laws against it. Which reminds me when I was a little kid people would carefully pull the nails out of old boards and save them.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  I did too. These days, I save nuts and bolts. Not because they are expensive to buy, but I don't want to spend a couple hours going to the hardware store to get one.

the8472 7y ago

While the our industrial capabilities are indeed incredible there still is an insane complexity gap between finely threaded screws and nanometer pattering ultra-purified materials, treating them with some of the most aggressive chemicals known to mankind as a mere cleaning step. The complexity of the patterns, so intricate that people can't even design them by hand anymore. Or those barely-practical national treasures that are EUV lithography machines. And all this is mass-production. There recently was an article on HN that fabs install microphones and other environmental sensors everywhere and use deep-learning to extract QA information from the sensors.

Iv 7y ago

There was a very interesting discussion on One Hour One Life mailing list about how fast we would go from prehistoric tech to modern tech if we knew all the steps and one key point was that we would have to make several iterations of increasingly precise machinery. I learned that in 1751, Vaucanson made this full-metal lathe: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/metal-turning-lathe/kwGbpYqKSyzcSg https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/metal-turning-lathe/... that was a kind of breakthrough and the ancestor of modern lathe, one of the first precision machine tool. Add that to his automata and his invention of punch cards to program looms and I am now realizing how much of a Da Vinci that guy was.

mrob 7y ago
I'd rate Henry Maudslay's invention of the three plate technique for producing extremely flat surfaces (popularized by Joseph Whitworth) as the most important step toward modern mass production. All precision machining ultimately depends on accurate surface plates, so without them interchangeable parts are impossible. See the excellent book "Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy" by Wayne Moore of the Moore Tool Company for details.

hyperpallium 7y ago

(Maybe not as precise as screws, I'm not sure, but) I'm freaked out by bicycle chains, so many pieces, each manufactured to precise tolerances. $15.

entee 7y ago
Especially fun are the fact that some of them are now asymmetric with hollow pins, though that one is a bit more expensive. Incremental improvements. A bike today looks fairly similar to a bike from 50-60 years ago, but every last bit is very different. https://bikecloset.com/product/shimano-cn-hg901-11-dura-ace-xtr-chain-quick-link-super-buy/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-ZrWw8G44wIVTL7ACh13MgpEEAQYASABEgJ4jPD_BwE https://bikecloset.com/product/shimano-cn-hg901-11-dura-ace-...

Gustomaximus 7y ago

Or consider how useless you would be if transported back 400 years. You would be able to offer great advice about washing hands or the solar system generalisations. But actually create something to show people....even the simplest things would be beyond most of us.

hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
You could draw/paint modern devices which would then eventually inspire others.
WalterBright 7y ago
If you could figure out how to make wire, you could make a working electric motor.
- pushpop 7y ago
  You’d also need to make magnets, know their polarisation, create bearings, and have the skill to assemble all of that as well.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    None of that is necessary. I built a working electric motor in cub scouts using several feet of wire, tape, some iron nails, some sheet metal cut from tin cans, a wood board to mount it on, and a battery. Tools required: tin snips and a hammer. A battery can be made from a jar, lemon juice, and two electrodes. Believe me, as an 8 year old, my skills were limited to using a hammer to mash my thumb with. :-) Electromagnets substituted for magnets, and bearings were a dent in the sheet metal that the point of a nail sat in and turned. Simple and effective. Once you showed this to a medieval craftsman, they could reproduce it and start improving it.
    - pushpop 7y ago
      I’m both impressed and have learned something new. Thank you :)

maxst 7y ago

Near Stonehenge they found a 4000 year olds dagger. Its handle "was decorated with 140,000 tiny gold studs, each almost as fine as a human hair and set into the wood at more than 1000 to the square centimetre." Even 21-century craftsman would find that impressive. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/stonehenges-most-intricate-archaeological-finds-were-probably-made-by-children-9738993.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/stone...