Learn about machines

Metalworking Is Literally a High-Pressure BusinessYou watch as a seasoned blacksmith takes a piece of red-hot iron with tongs out of the forge and lays it on his anvil. He picks up his heavy hammer and starts to beat the metal into a shape. You marvel at the skill of this craftsman in shaping the metal to his will, ...

Bending Metal to Your WillWhile forging—the verb—is what a blacksmith does with hot iron, a forge—the noun—is what heats up the metal for the blacksmith to work. Heating metal to make it more malleable dates to prehistoric times, and even though presses and other forging machines have greatly improved the efficiency...

The Daily GrindA common tool found in machine shops and metal fabrication facilities alike is the metal grinding machine, usually just referred to as a grinder. While certain types of grinders can remove large amounts of material in an operation, many are used for smaller jobs, such as more intensive finish work whe...

Not Your Standard Metal Fabrication MachineThe employee at the used machine tool company witnessed a new arrival being brought in. It looked very different than any of the other machines they had in stock, like lathes, leaf brakes, or plasma tables. The machine was largely white, almost pristine looking when compare...

Time to Shape UpWhen the term “shaper” is heard these days, most people in the U.S. and Canada think of the manually fed woodworking tool that uses a powered rotating cutting head. (The machine is known as a “spindle moulder” in the United Kingdom.)The metalworking machine tool of the same name is not as well known ...

You Know the DrillThe drill is one of the oldest—and most common—tools known to humankind. After rocks and clubs were first used to pound things, along came tools for cutting material away from objects (axes, knives) and cutting into workpieces (awls, saws). The first drills were simply pointed rocks or wooden stick...

Simply a Run of the Mill QuestionThe owner of the metalworking machine sales company woke up predawn to his cell phone ringing. The number was from the Eastern U.S., a couple of time zones away, so he immediately roused himself and answered it. He assumed that the call was about the milling machine he had listed onl...

Take Your Metal for a SpinIn metalworking, a lathe is a machine that rotates a piece of metal at high speeds so that a tool applied to the surface of the spinning workpiece can cut or perform some other action to the metal as it makes contact. When a machinist needs to create a cylindrical part that is symmetrical, ...

How’s the Weather?The new secretary at the used machine tool company was helping her boss with the annual inventory. Stopping in front of an optical comparator, she asked, “Does this measure atmospheric pressure or something?”Confused, the business owner replied, “No, it projects a silhouette of a machined part, and...

That Ain’t No Drill BitThe machinist had been pestered by his neighbor’s son into giving him a part time job working in his shop. “I know all about machine tools and working with metal,” the kid declared, saying that he wanted to get some hands-on experience in case it became a career option for him.As the machinist...