"ATP" wrote in message
news
Allan Adler wrote:
I've read many times that the lathe (or rather the milling machine)
can be used to duplicate itself and to make any other machine in the
shop. On the other hand, I've also read that some lathes are too
small to do anything with. That led me to wonder whether those two
statements might contradict each other.

Specifically, suppose you have a small lathe and milling machine in
a shop. Can you use them to make a bigger lathe and bigger milling
machine? And, if so, can you use the resulting lathe and milling
machine to make still bigger ones, and so on?

You could use them to make most of the moving parts, but not the large
cast
iron parts. I suppose it would be possible to assemble a modular machine
out
of smaller parts but there would be disadvantages to such an approach that
would make it impractical or lessen the functionality of the final
product.
The other question is, maybe you can make the parts, but how many
operations
had to be performed on the raw material to even get it to the point where
it
could fit in your machine?


-- snip --

This is what you would have to do to make _any_ machine bigger than the one
you have, and it's presumably how bigger machines are made today.