section_path: History/Machine tools
section_name: Machine tools
paragraph_text: Machine tools
  
  Machine tools occasioned a surge in producing new tools in the Industrial Revolution. Pre-industrial machinery was built by various craftsmen — millwrights built water and windmills, carpenters made wooden framing, and smiths and turners made metal parts. Wooden components had the disadvantage of changing dimensions with temperature and humidity, and the various joints tended to rack (work loose) over time. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, machines with metal parts and frames became more common.
  
  Other important uses of metal parts were in firearms and threaded fasteners, such as machine screws, bolts, and nuts. There was also the need for precision in making parts. Precision would allow better working machinery, interchangeability of parts, and standardization of threaded fasteners. The demand for metal parts led to the development of several machine tools. They have their origins in the tools developed in the 18th century by makers of clocks and watches and scientific instrument makers to enable them to batch-produce small mechanisms. Before the advent of machine tools, metal was worked manually using the basic hand tools of hammers, files, scrapers, saws, and chisels. Consequently, the use of metal machine parts was kept to a minimum. Hand methods of production were very laborious and costly and precision was difficult to achieve. With their inherent precision, machine tools enabled the economical production of interchangeable parts.
  
  Examples of machine tools include:
  
  Advocates of nanotechnology expect a similar surge as tools become microscopic in size.