Machine for threading spindles

The clockmaker’s craft is dependent on perfectly adapted precision tools. In their quest for perfection, clockmakers made their own compasses, files and chisels to cut and thread increasingly minute components. In the 17th and 18th centuries they created machines that executed the most painstaking and repetitive operations of their trade. Their innovations gave extraordinary impetus to the history of mechanics. Thiout, inspired by his peers, constructed lathes for cutting very small screws. He added an adjustable articulated frame that guided the chisel’s action along the spindle, a threaded piece with a subtly tapered form. The talent of these men and the technical solutions they devised in their quest for precision foreshadowed the most sophisticated machine tools of the Industrial Revolution.