...failure. The Society of Engineers in Holborn, of which Smeaton was the great luminary, had settled it that neither the tools nor the workmen existed that...could manufacture so complex a machine with sufficient precision, and it was asserted that all the ingenuity and skill of Soho had heen unable to conquer...

...failure. The Society of Engineers in Holborn, of which Smeaton was the great luminary, had settled it that neither the tools nor the workmen existed that...could manufacture so complex a machine with sufficient precision, and it was asserted that all the ingenuity and skill of Soho had been unable to conquer...

...complained, in regard to one of eighteen inches diameter, that it was so far from circularity, that ' at the worst place the long diameter exceeded the short by three-eighths of an inch ! ' The defect of the ordinary boring apparatus was that it was fixed from one end only of the cylinder,...

...bore the cylinder for his first steam engine, succeeded finally in hammering one out, he stated that "at the worst place the long diameter exceeded the short by three-eighths of an inch."29 John Smeaton, who examined Watt's engine and who had himself devised a boring machine in 1869...

...engine made them immediately essential. Smeaton's comment on the model of the engine is significant. He reported to the Society of Engineers that "neither...could manufacture so complex a machine with sufficient precision." At that time Smeaton must inevitably have regarded himself as one of the foremost authorities...