Existing comment:
Heavy Machine Shop
"I will have the best equipped & largest laboratory extant, and the facilities incomparably superior to any other for rapid & cheap development of an invention ... -- in fact there is no similar institution in existence... We can build anything from a lady's watch to a locomotive."
-- Thomas A Edison, draft letter to J Hood Wright, c August 1897
Experiments to Build On:
Skilled machinists worked in this shop, using these large machine tools to make and repair machine parts. The shop was for experimental work, not manufacturing. Sometimes they made parts for inventions and lab experiments. Other times they made machines for Edison's nearby factories, which turned the new inventions into manufactured products for sale. The foreman of the shop used this desk as he tracked incoming work orders and finished jobs going out. He ordered materials and assigned tasks to the machinists.
What are Machine Tools?
Machine tools is the term for lathes, drill presses, planers, and other metalworking tools such as those in this room. You could say that machine tools are machines used to make other machines. Machinists are people trained to use these tools. |