History of Machining

During the time of the Industrial Revolution the machining and cutting of metals portion of manufacturing became an important role. During the time of 1775, John Wilkinson invented the cannon-boring machine located in England. The machine that John Wilkinson invented became a major role for boring the cylinders for Boulton & Watt’s steam engines. This process was the only one that could produce the smooth, tightly toleranced bores required of the cylinder of a steam engine.

When the year 1818 came around Eli Whitney invented the milling machine in New Haven Connecticut. Eli Whitney was also known as the inventor of the cotton gin. Prior to any of these inventions a machinist’s tools consisted of files and this job required a highly skilled operator. When the milling machine was invented this invention allowed for the less skilled operators to work with the machinery, and still produce the same type of work and quality as the more skilled operators. The milling machine also found use to making rifles for the government.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute stated, “Today’s modern machinery is CNC (Computer Numeric Control) milling machines and lathes. A microprocessor in each machine reads the G-Code program that the user creates and performs the programmed operations. Personal Computers are used to design the parts and are also used to write programs by either manual typing of G-Code or using CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) software that outputs G-Code from the users input of cutters and tool path. If you would like to research this topic further into debt you can go to: http://www.me.wpi.edu/MFE/HCCM/cnc.html. Wikipedia also has information on this topic at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machining.