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TOOL (0. Eng. tdl, generally referred to a See also: work to the required See also: form by cutting or otherwise, in gauging it and testing its accuracy, or in duly securing it while thus being treated
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For the tools of prehistoric See also: man see such articles as ARCHAEOLOGY ; See also: FLINT IMPLEMENTS; and See also: EGYPT, § See also: Art and Archaeology
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In beginning a survey of tools it is necessary to draw the distinction between See also: hand and machine tools
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The former class includes any tool which is held and operated by the unaided hands, as a chisel, See also: plane or saw
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Attach one of these to some piece of operating mechanism, and it, with the environment of which it is the central essential See also: object, becomes a machine tool
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A very See also: simple example is the See also: common power-driven hack saw for See also: metal, or the small high-See also: speed See also: drill, or the See also: wood-See also: boring auger held in a See also: frame and turned by a winch handle and bevel-gears
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The difference between these and a big frame-saw cutting down a dozen boards simultaneously, or the immense machine boring the cylinders of an ocean See also: liner, or the See also: great See also: gun See also: lathe, or the See also: hydraulic See also: press, is so vast that the relationship is hardly apparent
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Often the tool itself is absolutely dwarfed by the machine, of which nevertheless it is the central object and around which the machine is designed and built
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A milling machine weighing several tons will often be seen rotating a tool of but two or three dozen pounds' See also: weight
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Yet the machine is fitted with elaborate slides and self-acting movements, and See also: provision for taking up See also: wear,and is worth some hundreds of pounds sterling, while the tool may not be worth two pounds
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Such apparent anomalies are in See also: constant evidence
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We propose, therefore, first to take a survey of the principles that underlie the forms of tools, and then pursue the subject of their embodiment in machine tools
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