Yesterday I was trying to recount a story I heard years ago. It was something like... a US company makes an incredibly small drill, drills a hole in something, sends it to their Swiss/German counterparts to show it off, Counterparts send the part back with the hole tapped and a screw in it.
Does anyone know the story and is it true?
I've heard that story too, doesn't mean it's true. - GWE
IIRC, it originated somewhere in fact but doesn't resemble the real story very much. I don't think you can call it true.
The one my father told me involved the Japanese and a ferruled hair.
GTO(John)
True, but your facts are a bit off. It was in a magazine a few months ago but I forget which one and they mentioned the hole maker's business names and all if I remember correctly.
The first company sent off a very small drill to some other company bragging about their hole drilling capability being so small, etc. Company #2 sent the drill back with a hole drilled in it across the diameter of the shank.
That's much closer to the true story but I'm sure it is missing some details or has "static" from my brain added.
Regards, Joe Agro, Jr.
"Joe AutoDrill" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net...
The story I heard went like this:
American company boasts that they make the world's smallest drill. Swiss company buys same and sends it back to American with hole drilled in it, crosswise. Japanese company buys Swiss drill and sends it back to Switzerland with hole drilled in it lengthwise. Now we're heard another one-up on this tale in which (Korean?) company sends the Japanese drill back to Japan with lengthwise hole drilled and tapped with a screw inserted. Probably in the next telling the Koreans will get the tap back from Singapore or someplace with yet a smaller screw inserted... etc. Tiny drills aren't usually twist drills. Usually some form of micro-spade drill. The really tiny holes that I've seen drilled were done with a very thin wire and abrasives or with an edm setup. With techniques like that, you can drill holes in the micron range. The smallest I've ever had to work with were some microscopic thermistors that had to go into the end of a #28 hypodermic needle. They arrived in a very small pill box, but I immediately lost them -- before I saw them. I sneezed or something. The supplier was nice and sent us replacements because the protective glass cover of the pill box had been left off. The really hard part of the job was soldering the leads to some working wire that went up the needle's shaft. I never had to drill really small holes. The smallest I ever saw was for a syringe that was used to inject stuff into the nucleus of a cell or to remove something like an individual chromosome or mitochondria from a cell. The design was quite simple. An ordinary 1cc tuberculin syringe with an appropropriate micro-pipete for a tip. About halfway up the barrel of the syringe, a tiny, tiny hole drilled. Into the hole went a lapped piston which was in turn attached to the movable anvil of a micrometer. Not only could one inject a precise quantity, but also remove a precise quantity. But all that was 40 or so years ago -- by now I'm sure that these tales of micro-machining have long been surpassed .. either that or the lies have gotten ever fancier.
Boris
Pete,
Public kudos to you! Should have checked Snopes first of course! I always tell folks to look there first.
Regards, Joe Agro, Jr.
Ouch. I wonder where *those* were going to be injected!
Reminds me of the old joke where the doctor goes to fill out a prescription, and starts writing with a thermometer.
Jim
Give that story another 10 years and the drill bit will have been nanomachined into a jet engine.
I think we're all going to have to get better eyeglasses to see the teensy stuff which may be commonplace technology in the near future.
Google around for MEMS, NEMS, nanotechnology or even nanomotor and you'll find stuff like this to blow your mind with:
Happy Holidays,
Jeff
That's about the way I heard it, Pete. The original was 0.003" diameter, allegedly, and it came back with a hole cross-drilled in it.
Supposedly a true story, from the early 1950s. It was told to me in 1977 by Andy Ashburn, then Chief Editor of American Machinist. And the company that cross-drilled the hole, the story went, was Swiss.
Ed Huntress
My father, who's 85, had a life-long friend, "Bailey", the same age. Until he retired, Bailey spent his working lifetime as a machinist with a large petrochemical plant in Texas.
I am now 55. At LEAST 45 years ago, I remember Bailey telling the story like this:
An American company creates "the world's smallest drill bit". They send it off to Germany. The Germans send it back, drilled, threaded, and capped, with a SET of drill bits inside.
Therefore, the story's been around for at least my lifetime. I'm pretty sure, without being able to prove this, that it originated during World War II. I know for a fact that Bailey was an infantryman in Germany.
As a result of the above, my belief is that the story, in any of its forms, is not really true. Rather, it is an anecdotal metaphor of admiration for the engineering prowess of whatever country is being admired. In Bailey's case this was obviously, Germany.
Anyway, that's my take on it. I.e., it's an urban myth with a purpose. The purpose is to heap grudging praise on the engineering know-how of the Germans, the Swiss, the Japanese, or whoever.
Vern> Yesterday I was trying to recount a story I heard years
The way I heard this 60 years ago was that the sent the drill as an example of their capabilities, and it came back drilled through and bolted to a plaque stating "drill made in USA, mounted in Switzerland" Gerry :-)} London, Canada
I remember reading a couple of interesting stories many years ago in a book about Bugatti cars. Apparently, Ettore Bugatti could fit a shaft accurately into a round hole completely by eye, using a file. Another story concerned the front axle used on the little Bugatti racing cars, no-one could work out how he made them.
Leon
The version my father (instrumentation designer/builder for Dow Chemical) told me (in the late '50s) was:
US company draws fine wire that they are very proud of. The send it to a Swiss rival who send it back with a hole drilled through. (I seem to remember my dad saying lengthways, but when I asked him recently he said that it was just crossways. This, for me, adds some credibility to the story.)
His other fine wire story is more related to some other threads seen here recently: A co-worker came into the instrumentation lab and asked my dad for a piece of the smallest wire he had. My dad reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a corked test tube, and handed it to him. The guy says, "There's nothing in there." My dad takes him over to a dissection microscope and shows that there is indeed a one inch piece of very fine wire in there. Dad says, "Now, what do you want to do with this wire?" "Oh, I need to clean out the nozzle of this can of spray paint." My dad went to the boxes of music wire on the shelf and selected one from the middle of the range and snipped him off a piece. So, the lesson is: specify by real requirements, not by asking for the limits of possibility.
-- --Pete "Peter W. Meek"
I think every guy that has spent much time in a shop has heard this tale in one iteration or another... 40 years ago I heard it as the Germans vs. the Americans....
It appears, though, that variations on this oneupmanship tale has existed for at least 2,000 years.
See:
My dad's version:
WWII / SRU (ship repair unit) made an extremely small drill bit, sent it to a comparable French ship. Sent back with a bit inside theirs with a threaded cap.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Keep the whole world singing . . . . DanG (remove the sevens) snipped-for-privacy@7cox.net
"Gene Kearns" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
Knowing something about Bugatti, and the way Bugatti automobiles were designed, I can well believe both stories.
--RC
Projects expand to fill the clamps available -- plus 20 percent
My grandfather told me this story in the early 50's. He worked for a company in Ipswich, England I believe the company's name was Reavals (sp?). This company had made the propeller screws for the Queen Mary which is currently docked in Long Beach. As such the company had earned some genuine bragging rights.
Ostensibly an American company had sent them a tiny drill bit.. blah blah, sent it back with a hole drilled lengthwise.
Coincidentally, we have a young man who just started working here two weeks ago. He was unaware that drill bits came in letter and number sizes so I showed him a #80 drill bit. He was suitably impressed. So I had the opportunity to tell him this legend of the drill bit.
He might as well learn some old machine shop lore along with the practical stuff.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.