Tool.
1. An implement adapted to be used by one person, and depending for its effect upon the strength and skill of the operator; or, as defined by
Webster, “any instrument of manual operation.”
It is, however, exceeding difficult to define the line separating tools from machines, and of late it has become usual to embrace in the general term
machine tools, such machines as the
lathe, planer, slotting-machine, and others employed in the manufacture of machinery.
See machine.
 |
|
Chaldean tools. |
Fig. 6526 represents a number of bronze and stone tools taken from the excavations of the buried cities of Mesopotamia.
They are knives, spears, a sickle, hatchets, and a piece, evidently a hinge of a door.
See
b c,
Fig. 2510, page 1104.
Plate LXX.
shows an arrangement of farmingtools on the ends and sides of a tool-house.
See also stone-worker's tools.
William Fairbairo, the celebrated machinist, states that when he commenced his career, at the beginning of the century, the human hand performed all the work that was done in the way of building machinery.
Bramah, the maker of the
Patent Lock, originated many descriptions of labor-saving machinery.
He found it necessary to give the greatest exactness to every part of the ward and key of this celebrated lock.
This he found very difficult to do without employing the very best workmen: and their charges were so exorbitant, that his invention was in a fair way of dropping out of use on account of expense In this dilemma, he was forced to turn his attention to the introduction of machinery to produce with unerring nicety the different parts of the complicated little apparatus with which his name is yet associated.
The workshop in which the many ingenious contrivances to perform this work with speed were invented may be
[
2592]
 |
|
Arrangement of tools in a Farmer's tool-house. |
[
2593]
said to have been the training-school for the early machinists, whose labors have, within the present century, built up the mechanical greatness of
England.
Accuracy of machine-work before his day was utterly unknown.
Watt had the greatest difficulty in getting his first model of the steam-engine constructed with sufficient truth to work; its cylinder was not bored, but hammered, and the piston could not be made to fit. The pumping-engine made a tremendous noise, and much astonished the spectators, who regarded it as one of the most remarkable and interesting parts of the performance.
Watt knew better, and would have loved a noiseless machine, but was so beset by open condemnation, faint praise, and legal botheration, that he kept his own counsel, and let the vulgar stare and wonder.
The invention of the famous fixed slide-rest by
Maudslay, the journeyman, who learned his trade with Bramah, was the first step in a series of inventions leading toward the same end.
Maudslay was the man who executed, from the drawings of the elder
Brunel, the man who executed, from the drawings of the elder
Brunel, the series of labor-saving machines at present at work in Portsmouth Dockyard for the manufacture of ships' blocks.
(See block-making machine.) These ingenious machines, forty-six in number, were, only a few years ago, the curiosities of the place, and may be, for aught we know, yet They were the first ever set up in a public yard, and, although they have been at work for sixty years, they remain still in good working order.
Maudslay afterward, in conjunction with his partner
Field, founded in
Lambeth Marsh the famous firm which is still carried on under their names.
Clements was another inventor who learned his art in the school of Bramah, and afterward worked for
Maudslay and
Field.
This ingenious machinist invented the
planing-machine, without which no perfect plane can be made.
The value of such a machine is incalculable.
Indeed, upon the truth of the plane depends the whole value of modern machinery.
Of old, by chipping and filing, an attempt to approach the plane was made, but of course perfect accuracy was out of the question.
Another pupil of
Maudslay was
Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer (which see).
Joseph Whitworth, the inventor of the gun bearing that name, improved on
Clements's
planing-machine (see
planing-machine) in his “Jim crow” planer, and also invented many ingenious and useful tools and appliances now commonly used in the workshop.
See list of metal-working tools, pages 1425, 1426.
The following general classification of tools, according to their functions and modes of action, has been proposed by a writer in the Scientific American :—
1. Geometrical tools, for laying off and testing work, as squares, gages, compasses, drawing and surveying instruments, etc.
2. Percussion tools; as the hammer, etc.
3. Compression tools; for pressing, rolling, polishing, etc.
4. Puncturing tools; needles, awls, punches, etc.
5. Cutting tools, including saws.
6. Combined percussion and cutting tools; as the axe, hoe, and scythe.
7. Combined compression and cutting tools; such as planes, shears, etc.
8. Abrading tools; as whetstones, and also that class of drills which act by abrasion.
9. Forming tools; molds for casting, formers for sheetmetal, dies, etc.
10. Motor tools; as the lever, screw, pulley, and in general those employed to impart motion to other tools, to cause a blast, as bellows, and for like purposes.
11. Holding tools; which employ adhesion or compression for supporting in a fixed position materials to be operated on by other tools.
This embraces vises, lathe-chucks, and vessels for containing liquids.
12. Separating tools, as sieves, filters, fanning-machines.
13. Directing tools, used as guides for other tools: such as the miter-box, for guiding the saw in cutting miters: funnels for directing the flow of liquids are included in this class.
 |
|
Combination-tool. |
14. Weighing-tools; scales, balances, and instruments for determining specific gravity.
15. Implements for measuring solid contents; measures of all kinds used for determining the volume of solids and liquids.
16. Agitators; for mixing different substances, or agitating the particles of the same substance among each other.
Fig. 6527 is a combined monkey-wrench and claw-hammer.
A nut may be grasped between the fixed and movable jaws
a b, the latter of which is operated by the screw.
By unloosing a screw at the back of the handle, the wrench part may be removed, if desired to have it out of the way.
Fig. 6528 combines a hammer, naildrawer, forceps, wrench, etc.
2. (
Bookbinding.) The stamping and letter appliances of the finisher.
Known as hand, hand-letter, lettering, roller, edge, fillet, pallet, dentelle, stamp, etc., according to purpose, construction, or pattern.
 |
|
Combined tool. |
3. The ordinary brush of the painter, consisting of bundles of bristles tied by string or binding wire to the thick end of a cleft handle.
 |
|
Coupling-tool for drilling. |
The larger sizes are, however, more commonly known by their ordinary name of brush, the term
tool being generally restricted to smaller sizes, as
sash-tools, etc.
 |
|
Tool-extractor. |
