I started digging into Watt's challenges getting an accurate cylinder bore for his pistons, and it spiraled out from there :).
The article covers some of the key techniques developed during the industrial revolution to measure and make incredibly precise parts. There are a lot of animations and interactive figures to explore how it works.
Armchair metrologist here. Did metalworkers back then use 16ths, or 12ths and 24ths? I'm familiar with the use of 1/12th lines ''' and multiples of 1/144th points ''''.
Good question! From my reading, English engineering shops like these used 1/8ths and 1/16ths. Whitworth did push for "decimal inches" (1/10, 1/100, etc). It seems like the 1/12th and 1/144th were more common in watchmaking and optics.
Interesting that many of the early steam mills used a steam engine to pump water into a water tower, which then drove a conventional water wheel to power the millworks.
Yes, until they were able to get smooth rotation out of the engines, the water wheel was a much smoother source of power. Especially for looms and weaving machines, stable, smooth power was critical. "Power in the Industrial Revolution" by Richard L Hills is a deep exploration of the history there :).
The text was hand written, but reviewed by AI and light edits were made. The CAD models that drive a lot of the animations were either sourced or built based on pictures of historical machines. As called out in the credits, the interactive figures were built by myself and Claude Fable 5 (mostly - a bit of Opus 5.5 in there now).
What CAD do you use for the models, and does it have a CAM simulator (for example, you might actually be able to simulate the tread cutting in Fusion 360 CAM's simulator.
It's a code-first CAD kernel/toolkit specifically to help LLMs with CAD stuff, it's currently AI usable but not very human usable yet since I'm working on the editor UI. Get your Claude to clone it and give it a try and see if it's easier than your current workflow.
Very cool! Though my ChemEng degree obligates me to say that the animation in the "steam" section should really show boiling all the time if the pressure gauge is indeed showing the pressure in the container. Though in reality you'd never heat water at below atmospheric pressure in a real engine, if you did it would be boiling at any temperature at or above the triple point, and below the critical point, so long as there is no air in there.
Early iron rails wore out and had to be replaced after a given usage (measured in years on a heavily traveled section) --- this was a big part of the need for the Bessemer process to be developed.
> After repeated copying and correction, Maudslay made a master screw five feet long and two inches across, with fifty threads to the inch and a foot-long nut that engaged six hundred of them at once.
That's the stuff I like to read about the historical endeavors. A fifty-threads nut doesn't average the distance between the grooves quite accurately enough? Then let's make a nut with six-hundred threads on it, and so what if it's foot long.
I've sometimes thought of making a YouTube series where the foundations of precision are created as increasingly precise artifacts, building on each other and following the history. Something like the "Primitive Technology" channel but for machine tools.
It's a mixture of techniques. Using fully rigged CAD models is a huge help, it ensure physically realistic motions. Then, I built a custom exporter / renderer to render them realistically in CAD style.
For a lot of the animations, I first develop storyboards to cover the main beats, and decide on what would be interactive or not. Then a lot of iteration with Fable (and Opus 5.5 now!) on how to show things clearly. A lot of time is spent trying to show the key ideas visually. Eg. in the bench micrometer adding an overlay with the size of the micrometer closing over the part, as well as showing the screw spinning was a big improvement in "readability".
Oh my, I forgot to add him into the credits for this one! The Beam Engine article has this: "Thanks to Bartosz Ciechanowski, whose exceptionally well written and designed articles inspired this one."
Anyone interested in this might also enjoy the book The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created The Modern World, by Simon Winchester. I read it a few years ago, and thought it was a really interesting journey through bootstrapping precision and how that fundamentally changed our relationship to certain types of things, particularly related to mass production of "good enough".
Thank you for making this. My dad(now retired) owned a machine tool manufacturing space in the 70s and 80s in a small town in north india. After foreign CNC machines left no demand for manual/semi automatic ones in the country, he switched over to a foundry to manufacture cast iron parts in a blast cupola furnace and later a rotary furnace(better for smaller on demand work). But he kept the lathe around along with an employee to finish the parts. And your animation brings back a lot of memories for me. I learned to operate the lathe and had all manners of fun. It is kind of like yak shaving. Your clothes turn black but you just love the mechanical back and forth of it. He made pulleys, Truck engine parts, housing for water motors(fun fact municipal water is scarce and not of adequate pressurized in homes, farms, factories etc so these are ubiquitous) etc.
I sent this to my dad. I am sure he will enjoy reading this.
[OP] glinscott | a day ago
I started digging into Watt's challenges getting an accurate cylinder bore for his pistons, and it spiraled out from there :).
The article covers some of the key techniques developed during the industrial revolution to measure and make incredibly precise parts. There are a lot of animations and interactive figures to explore how it works.
ahazred8ta | a day ago
[OP] glinscott | a day ago
ahazred8ta | a day ago
[OP] glinscott | 2 hours ago
HPsquared | 2 hours ago
RivieraKid | 2 hours ago
[OP] glinscott | 2 hours ago
The text was hand written, but reviewed by AI and light edits were made. The CAD models that drive a lot of the animations were either sourced or built based on pictures of historical machines. As called out in the credits, the interactive figures were built by myself and Claude Fable 5 (mostly - a bit of Opus 5.5 in there now).
The article itself was built over about 4 months.
dekhn | an hour ago
YuechenLi | 26 minutes ago
https://github.com/yuechen-li-dev/Aetheris/
It's a code-first CAD kernel/toolkit specifically to help LLMs with CAD stuff, it's currently AI usable but not very human usable yet since I'm working on the editor UI. Get your Claude to clone it and give it a try and see if it's easier than your current workflow.
I built two 3D mechanical demos with it a couple of weeks ago that you can check out as well. https://aetheris-difference-engine-showcase.yuechenli.worker... https://aetheris-editable-v8.yuechenli.workers.dev/
HPsquared | 2 hours ago
Animats | 2 hours ago
Remember, this was all iron, not steel. The mass production of steel didn't get going until the 1880s. It's amazing that railroads predate steel.
WillAdams | 38 minutes ago
_doctor_love | an hour ago
[OP] glinscott | 28 minutes ago
gblargg | an hour ago
Joker_vD | 2 hours ago
That's the stuff I like to read about the historical endeavors. A fifty-threads nut doesn't average the distance between the grooves quite accurately enough? Then let's make a nut with six-hundred threads on it, and so what if it's foot long.
HPsquared | 2 hours ago
nayuki | an hour ago
jeeshan | an hour ago
[OP] glinscott | an hour ago
It's a mixture of techniques. Using fully rigged CAD models is a huge help, it ensure physically realistic motions. Then, I built a custom exporter / renderer to render them realistically in CAD style.
For a lot of the animations, I first develop storyboards to cover the main beats, and decide on what would be interactive or not. Then a lot of iteration with Fable (and Opus 5.5 now!) on how to show things clearly. A lot of time is spent trying to show the key ideas visually. Eg. in the bench micrometer adding an overlay with the size of the micrometer closing over the part, as well as showing the screw spinning was a big improvement in "readability".
nayuki | an hour ago
[OP] glinscott | an hour ago
qchris | 47 minutes ago
ghm2180 | 38 minutes ago
I sent this to my dad. I am sure he will enjoy reading this.
WillAdams | 34 minutes ago
https://gingerybookstore.com/
Chris Borges has done some pretty cool little machines using 3D printed forms filled with concrete:
https://www.printables.com/@ChrisBorge
and of course there are more CNC router designs than one can shake a stick at (ob. discl., I work for a company which makes one)