Pierre Fardoil was an ingenious French maker of scientific instruments and small precision machine tools
Fardoil may have been the first person in France to produce a gear wheel cutting machine. He has also been credited as being one of the first, if not the first, to use an endless screw to operate a tool carriage. This was on a 1715 fusee-cutting machine.[1]. In fact an earlier example of a machine with a screw-traversed tool holder was described by Plumier ('Machine à manche a couteaux d’Angleterre' - see Early Planing Machines).
A machine dated at 1715, described as a 'machine a tailler les roues' (wheel cutting machine) (Inventory No. 1226), is on display at the Musee des Arts et Metiers. See photos. The machine has the hand-cranked milling cutter typical of early gear wheel cutting machines, the dividing wheel is a small diameter drum rather than the usual circular plate. More interesting is the fact that the machine is also a lathe. Note the hand tool rest and the pulley for a drive belt.
Another 1715 machine is described as a wheel dividing machine (Inv. No. 1231).
The Musee des Arts et Metiers also have several other small Fardoil machines on display, including a very small lathe dated at 1697, apparently for turning fusees (Inv. No. 1240), and two sophisticated file-cutting machines dated at c.1700 (Inv. Nos. 1217 & 1220).
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ 'Scientific Instruments of the 17th & 18th Centuries and their Makers' by Maurice Daumas, translated by Dr Mary Holbrook, Portman Books, 1972