On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 11:58:54 -0000, Halmyre wrote:

On Wednesday, February 27, 2019 at 9:25:57 PM UTC, Steve Walker wrote:
On 27/02/2019 20:24, newshound wrote:
On 27/02/2019 09:06, wrote:
On Wednesday, 27 February 2019 01:48:26 UTC, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 11:49:54 -0000, tabbypurr wrote:

I've got lots of stuff with imperial hardware, mostly AF & Whitworth.

I'm 43 and have never ever seen anything requiring imperial ****.
Just how antique is your stuff?

From modern to 1920s mostly.


NT

It was of course the good Joseph Whitworth who *started* standardisation
in 1841, a little ahead of Samuel Colt.

Only because Maudslay invented the screwcutting lathe and enabled
standardisation and interchageablity. He also used his newly accurate
threads to make a micrometer accurate to 1/10,000th of an inch for checking.

I remember my metalwork teacher explaining that not only did he invent (more properly, perfect) the screw-cutting lathe, but his design enabled him to cut increasingly accurate screw profiles. A clever chap.

The metalwork teachers I had were not inventors. One of them looked precisely like Roseanne Barr. When I pointed this out to her, she laughed hysterically, exactly like Roseanne Barr.