WONDERFUL MACHINES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 102, 30 April 1892, Page 3 (Supplement)

WONDERFUL MACHINES.

They Turn Out Screws So Small That SOO.OOO Arc Required to Make a Pound, Not the least marvelous of the many Ingenious automatic machines of the present day is one for turning out the small screws and parts of a watch. The Roro logical Review says of it: "Some of the screws are so small that the thread and Blot for tho screw driver cannot be ssen by tho naked eye. It takes about £00,000 of these little screws, made by the automatic machines, to make a pound, and yet they are perfect in shape. They are made thus: The wire is fed iv the machine automatically through a swiftly revolving spindle, and is griped by a chuck. Instantly a circular cutter comer; into place and turns down the screw part. While the turning is being done a threading die is operating, and the instant the cutter is through with its part the die turns around on the turned part and screws on and off like a flash cutting the thread. At once a steel arm is seen to swing over, and just as the screw is being cut oil from tho wire it is picked up by steel lingers and carried over to a spot where a .saw is swiftly running. "Theslot is then cut and another motion of the arm and fingers releases the screw, which is carried by a stream of oil into a sieve among thousands of screws just like it. That part of the raeclianisni which grips tho screw is called 'arm and finger,' and the term seems apposite because tho motions accurately resemble those o£ a human arm and hand. That arm has an uncanny look as it works with ceaseless regularity. The operation goes on constantly and tirelessly for ten hours per day, and when night comes each machine has made 10,000 of the tiny screws. One motion follows another so quickly that a novice is filled with wonder and amazement. Oil is forced in tiny streams with great pressure upon the cutting parts and then rims otT through a drip, to be again pumped and forced to the machines."