Online Encyclopedia

TOOL (0. Eng. tdl, generally referred...

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V27, Page 14 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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TOOL (0. Eng. tdl, generally referred to a root seen in the Goth. taujan, to make, or in the
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English word " taw," to
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work or dress leather)
  , an implement or appliance used by a worker in the treatment of the substances used in his handicraft, whether in the preliminary operations of setting out and measuring the materials, in reducing his
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work to the required form by cutting or otherwise, in gauging it and testing its accuracy, or in duly securing it while thus being treated . For the tools of prehistoric man see such articles as ARCHAEOLOGY ; FLINT IMPLEMENTS; and
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EGYPT, §
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Art and Archaeology . In beginning a survey of tools it is necessary to draw the distinction between hand and machine tools . The former class includes any tool which is held and operated by the unaided hands, as a chisel,
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plane or saw . Attach one of these to some piece of operating mechanism, and it, with the environment of which it is the central essential
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object, becomes a machine tool . A very
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simple example is the
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common power-driven hack saw for metal, or the small high-speed
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drill, or the wood-
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boring auger held in a
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frame and turned by a winch handle and bevel-gears . 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 liner, or the
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great
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gun
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lathe, or the
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hydraulic press, is so vast that the relationship is hardly apparent . 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 . A milling machine weighing several tons will often be seen rotating a tool of but two or three dozen pounds'
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weight . Yet the machine is fitted with elaborate slides and self-acting movements, and provision for taking up
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wear,and is worth some hundreds of pounds sterling, while the tool may not be worth two pounds . Such apparent anomalies are in constant evidence . 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 .

End of Article: TOOL (0. Eng. tdl, generally referred to a root seen in the Goth. taujan, to make, or in the English word " taw," to work or dress leather)
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THOMAS TOOKE (1774-1858)
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JOHN LAWRENCE TOOLE (1832-1906)

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