Edwin A. Battison 



SCREW-THREAD CUTTING BY THE 

 MASTER-SCREW METHOD SINCE 1480 



Among the earliest \nown examples of screw- 

 thread cutting machines are the screw-cutting lathe 

 of 1483, known only in pictures and drawings, 

 and an instrument of the traverse-spindle variety 

 for threading metal, now in the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution, dating from the late 17th or early 18th 

 century. The author shows clearly their evolution 

 from something quite specialized to the present-day 

 tool. He has traced the patents for these instru- 

 ments through the early 1930's and from this 

 research we see the part played by such devices in 

 the development of the machine-tool industry. 



The Author: Edwin A. Battison is associate 

 curator of mechanical and civil engineering in the 

 Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and 

 Technology. 



Directness and simplicitv characterize pioneer 

 machine tools because they were intended to ac- 

 complish some quite specialized task and the need 

 foi versatility was not apparent. History does not 

 reveal the earliest forms of any primitive machines 

 nor does it reveal much about the various early 

 Stages in evolution toward more complex types. 

 \i best we have discovered and dated certain de- 

 velopments as existing in particulai areas. Whether 

 these forms were new at the time they were first 

 found or how widely dispersed such forms may have 

 been is unknown. Surviving evidence is in the form 

 of pictures or drawings, such as the little-known 

 screw-cutting lathe of 1483 (fig. 1) shown in Das 

 mittelalterlu he Hausbm h. 



This lathe shows that its builder had a keen per- 

 ception of the necessary elements, reduced to bare 

 essentials, required to accomplish the object. Pres- 

 ent are the coordinate slides often credited to 

 Henry Maudslay. His slides are not, of course, 

 associated with the spindle; neither is there any 

 natural law which compels them to guide the 

 tool exactly parallel with the axis of revolution. 

 In this sense the screw-cutting lathe in the Hausbuch 

 is superior because it is in harmony with natural 

 law and can generate a true cylinder, whereas 

 Maudslay's lathe can only transfer to the work 

 whatever accuracy is built into it. 



In principle this machine shown in the Hausbuch 

 is very advanced as we see when we follow the design 



106 



lit I I T.TIN 240: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



