Franklin Peale Peale designed a new machine to cut planchets, or blanks, from metal strips. This machine remained in use, almost unmodified, until 1902. Another of the steam-powered machines Peale had installed on his return was a milling machine, which was used to "upset" the coin—to form a rim around it. A Contamin portrait lathe was imported from France and installed at the Philadelphia Mint in 1837. Prior to this time, all coin dies for American coins had to be made individually, by hand at Philadelphia. Once the lathe was installed, they could be reproduced mechanically by the pantograph-like device. The first
Vigier Guitars imported from India and Honduras respectively. Pre-cut raw wood logs are sorted and dried naturally for three to seven years to achieve the desired moisture content. Bodies and necks are drawn on the blanks using templates—then cut, dried, and stored in a controlled environment. In addition to wood, Vigier uses other materials such as copper and steel alloys (Delta metal and iMetal) and Phenowood, a resin-based composite material. Vigier builds bodies from two pieces. They machine cuts and bevels with CNC tools, and make fingerboards corrected to within 1/100 of a millimeter. The necks are fitted with the 90/10 design