Planing machine

“ But in other machines built in the form of planing machines, in which the head is traversed while cutting, as is the case with the profiling machine, the planer head form is not right. Both the propelling screw, or whatever gives the side motion, should be as low down as possible, as should also be the guide.
There is a principle underlying the Sellers method of driving a planer table that may be utilized in many ways. The endurance goes far beyond any man's original expectations, and the explanation, very likely, lies in the fact that the point of contact is always changing. ”

“ Planer-shaper. A metal-cutting machine in which the ram or slide carrying the tool is moved after the manner of a planing machine.
Planimeter (pla-nĭm′-e-ter) . An instrument for finding the area of irregularly shaped plane surfaces.
Planing-machine. 1. For iron. A machine having a travelling work-table sliding in guideways, the tool being carried in a slideway that spans the table, two or more slide-rests are used in the larger-sized machines. 2. Wood-planing machine. A machine in which the work is fed to a revolving shaft or head carrying long planing knives. ”

“ In small planing machines it is a great advantage to provide an extra apron carrying two tool posts, as in Fig. 1586, so that in planing a number of pieces, that are to be of the same dimension, one tool may be used for roughing and one for finishing the work. The tools should be wider apart than the width of the work, so that the finishing tool will not come into operation until after the roughing tool has carried its cut across. ”

“ Planing Machine Tables.—In order that the guides on the table of a planer may not unduly wear, it is essential that they be kept well lubricated, which is a difficult matter when the table takes short strokes and has work upon it that takes a long time to perform, in which case it is necessary to stop the planing operations and run the work back so as to expose the guideways in the bed, so that they may be cleaned and oiled. ”

“ The many modifications of the planing machine have names that indicate to the workman the purpose for which they are adapted—as the jack, a small portable machine, quick and handy; the jim crow, a machine for planing both ways by reversal of the movement of the bed, and it gets its name because it can “wheel about and turn about and do just so”; the key groove machine, the milling machine with a serrated-faced cutter bar, shaping machine and shaping bar, slotting machine, crank planer, screw cutting, car-wheel turning, bolt and nut screwing, etc. ”

“ The positions occupied among machine tools at the present time by shaping and planing machines are not as important as was the case a few years ago, because of the advent of the milling machine, which requires less skill to operate, and produces superior work. ”

“ In the exigencies of the general machine shop it sometimes happens that it is required to plane a piece that is too wide to pass between the uprights of the planing machine, in which case one standard or upright may be taken down and the cross slide bolted to the other, as in Fig. ”

“ Where they showed the possession, in any special degree, of a true mechanical faculty, I was enabled to select from the working labourers the most effective men to take charge of the largest and most powerful machine tools—such as planing machines, lathes, and boring machines. The ease and rapidity with which they caught up all the technical arts and manipulations connected with the effective working of these machines was extraordinary. ”

“ It planes flat, moulded, rabbeted, or beaded surfaces; it saws with both the rip and crosscut action; it cuts tongues and grooves; makes miters, chamfers, wedges, mortises and tenons, and is the general utility machine of the shop.
In Fig. 246 is shown a well known form of planing machine. Its work is to plane the surfaces of boards, and to cut the edges into tongues and groves, such as are required for flooring. This machine planes boards up to 24 inches wide and 6 inches thick, and will tongue and grove 14 inches wide. ”

“ In course of time various modifications of the machine were introduced—such as the planing machine, the wheel-cutting machine, and other beautiful tools on the slide-rest principle,—the result of which has been that extraordinary development of mechanical production and power which is so characteristic a feature of the age we live in. ”

“ They are found very useful to farmers; when requisite, they are mounted on wheels, and may be easily taken from place to place to saw up trees which could not conveniently be moved entire.
27. Planing Machines.—A numerous variety of planing machines are in common use. For flooring boards, Woodworth's machine is found to answer very satisfactorily. In planing mills at Philadelphia, four of them were working in one room side by side; they have three cutters on each horizontal axis, having a radius of 6 inches, and making 4,000 revolutions per minute. ”

“ The article to be planed is rigidly attached to the bed and travels with it. Between every two strokes the tool is automatically moved sideways, so that no two cuts shall be in the same line. After the whole surface has been "roughed," a finishing cutter is brought in action, and the process is repeated with the business edge of the tool rather nearer to the bed.
Joseph Clement, a contemporary of Babbage, Maudslay, and Nasmyth, is usually regarded as the inventor of the planing-machine. ”

“ The express purpose of that machine is to produce true surfaces, and it is itself constructed of slides, according to the truth of which will be that of the work performed. When it is considered that the lathe and the planing engine are used in the making of all other machines, and are continually re-producing surfaces similar to their own, it will manifestly appear of the first importance, that they should themselves be perfect models. ”

“ There were neither planing, slotting, nor shaping machines, and with the exception of very imperfect lathes and a few drills, the preparatory operations of construction were effected entirely by the hands of the workmen. Now, everything is done by machine tools, with a degree of accuracy which the unaided hand could never accomplish. The automaton, or self-acting, machine tool has within itself an almost creative power; in fact, so great are its powers of adaptation, that there is no operation of the human hand that it does not imitate. ”

“ Such machines as are used in shaping materials in the construction of the parts of other machines, and also many of those which perform work, such as boring, planing, riveting, etc., formerly only done by hand, and still performed manually to a greater or less extent, are nearly always called machine tools; the term, engine tool, is more in accord with general usage when referring to large and complicated machines. ”

“ Planing-machines are of many shapes. Some have an upright on each side of the bed limiting the width of the work they can take; others are open-sided, one support of extra strength replacing the two, enabling the introduction of a plate twice as broad as the bed. ”

“ In endowing iron with the cunning of genius and the terrific power of the fabled cyclops, the modern mechanic has revolutionized the field of human effort, transferring it from the foundery and the smithy to the machine-tool shop. It is here, and here alone, that steam-driven machines can be made. They may be conceived in the mind of a Watt or a Stephenson, but they can be made only by the automatic tools of a Maudslay, a Clement, a Bramah, or a Nasmyth. ”

“ The workmen very quaintly and appropriately call this new planing tool “Jim Crow.” A workman attends to each of the machines; and when the piece to be cut is fixed with great exactness on the moving table by a spirit-level, he has nothing to do but to watch that it remain so, and that the machinery work evenly and correctly. Where a very smooth surface is required, the operation of planing is repeated, and two plates thus finished will be so truly level, that they will adhere together. ”

“ Within a decade after that first discovery of the principles of mechanical thought the machine was made that could not only solve problems, but could also originate them. They had developed a brain. It was a great machine, which occupied an entire building, with its massive framework bolted down to the ground.
Man began a rapid decline, for the machines did all his work. With the construction of a machine that could originate a problem, man made a mistake. He had created a machine that was more powerful than he, except that it was immobile. ”

“ Another large group of problems for which we can foresee the use of machines that think is found in business and economics.
For example, consider production scheduling in a business or a factory. The machine takes in a description of each order received by the business and a description of its relative urgency. The machine knows (that is, has in its memory) how much of each kind of raw material is needed to fill the order and what equipment and manpower are needed to produce it. ”

“ If a very large and complicated engine of new pattern is to be built by any engineering company, no casting of the smallest kind is made until general plans have been outlined, detailed plans prepared from these, and then "working plans" made for the workmen. From the working plans, the workmen construct the various parts; sometimes in number several hundred. Finally, the whole intricate machine is put together, and the motive power applied. ”

“ People became so accustomed to the perfect functioning of a machine or a clock, so impressed with its regularity and intelligible complexity, that they began to look upon mechanism as a primary thing capable of “explaining” many non-mechanical things, not excluding the phenomena of life. Why should not man himself, the inventor of machinery, be a machine? ”

“ After the study of the first, second, and third problems had resulted in the discovery of certain clearly defined laws, which were expressed by mathematical formulae, the last and most difficult task of all lay in finding a means for solving the entire problem which should be so practical and simple as to enable an ordinary mechanic to answer quickly and accurately for each machine in the shop the question, "What driving speed, feed, and depth of cut will in each particular case do the work in the quickest time?" ”

“ The machines built machines, had been doing it for decades in fact, but now they did one thing more—they designed them. Now the problem could describe the type of machine needed, and the worker machine would design it, and turn out the completed machine! But these machines were rapidly perfecting the beginning that man had made. ”

“ Along with these practical advantages, its application in science is full of promise.
Among the machines, the extraordinary complexity and ingenuity of whose construction excited great admiration in America and Europe, is one for making paper bags. Many men, leading mechanics among them, had until then vainly sought to construct such a machine. ”

“ In truing surfaces with a file a great part of the operator’s time is occupied in testing the work for parallelism, and applying it to the surface plate to test its flatness or truth, whereas in a machine of this kind both the parallelism and the truth of the work are effected by the accurate guiding of the machine table in its guideways. Furthermore, a high order of skill is essential to the production of work by filing that shall equal for parallelism and truth work that is much more easily operated upon in the machine. ”

“ It requires the forethought, the close application, the keen interest, and the comfortable idea building.
Designing by the square foot is, however, a good preparation, and many a good brain has been developed by such work.
The importance of designing a machine to meet all the conditions necessary to success from a mechanical and business standpoint is fully recognized by every one. But the grouping of the ideas in the mind while working out the various phases must not be hampered by the bewildering picture of all of these problems, each demanding consideration at every move. ”

“ Therefore, since from the moment that the nature of the calculation to be executed or of the problem to be resolved have been indicated to it, the machine is, by its own intrinsic power, of itself to go through all the intermediate operations which lead to the proposed result, it must exclude all methods of trial and guess-work, and can only admit the direct processes of calculation [4] .
It is necessarily thus; for the machine is not a thinking being, but simply an automaton which acts according to the laws imposed upon it. ”

“ Probably the foremost problem which machines that think can solve is automatic control over all sorts of other machines. This involves controlling a machine that is running so that it will do the right thing at the right time in response to information. For example, suppose that you are mowing a lawn with a mowing machine. ”

“ How shall a machine be constructed that shall most efficiently embody, and accord with, not only those scientific principles, but also all of those principles of engineering practice that so vitally affect the economical value of every machine? ”

“ The simplest application of a principle of mechanics to an every-day hand-tool may convert it into what is called a machine. Take a three-pronged fork—one of the universal tools;—fasten a rope to the end of the handle; put a log under the fork as a fulcrum; and we have a lever, when pulled down by the rope, which will grub up a strongly-rooted large shrub in a few minutes. The labourer has called in a powerful ally. The tool has become a machine. ”