Word: lathees
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"The Method of Three." For the working man, life became an Orwellian nightmare of cant and slogans, pressures and penalties. He went to a job picked for him by the government. At day's end he shuffled from the plant in shoddy shoes that cost too much (about 100...
Andrew Kramer's first instrument shop was set up in the Smithsonian's stable, which he shared with a taxidermist and Dr. Langley's horse and buggy. There he set up his footpower lathe, forge, anvil and other primitive equipment; there he made metal parts for Langley...
Delicate Skill. An instrument shop in those days had no automatic machine tools, no electronic measuring devices, almost no electricity. Such lacks did not bother Kramer, who made many of his own tools with his forge, lathe and grindstone. Slowly, by sheer craftsmanship, he turned out delicate devices (bolometers, pyrheliometers...
The world around him changed with dizzying speed. Science grew prodigiously, and its instruments-oscilloscopes, electronic computers, cyclotrons-enlisted superhuman precision and almost supernatural forces. But although Kramer's shop moved out of the stable after 27 years, it changed hardly at all. (The Smithsonian itself never budged from...
Last week, as Kramer finally retired, the old Smithsonian gave him an old-fashioned farewell party with cakes and punch. It also gave him a valued present: the key to his workshop. The old belts and pulleys still whisper overhead. The old lathe can still turn out beautifully finished parts...