That does rather take us right back to the dividing line between craftsmen and engineers. The "engineer" looks at the product straight off the machine and says "thats as good as it can be" - hence the drive for more and more perfect and precise machines. The craftsman however makes the part as accurately as he can within the limits of the machine - and then uses his skill to handwork the part to the level of excellence required. The reason succeeding generations of machine tools are better than those before - old machine tools are always needed to make new machine tools. Still true - even without those craft skills - but now largely as a result of the ability of a computer to precisely measure variations and compensate for error within software - an engineering skill rather than a craft skill.
One major component needed to produce an accurate ball screw is the threadgrinder "Master Screw", a screw that is "lapped", using various measuring techniques, until it reaches the required level of accuracy. This can then serve as the screw in a machine able to manufacture the desired screws to the level required. This technique has long been superseded by the n'th generation of grinding machines - machines which effectively replace the craftsmen, but in doing so "lock-in" the technology of manufacturing such parts to those who can afford such equipment which is then operated by engineers who then actually lack the "craft" skills. Skills that are much older than they are themselves but actually led to the precision they take for granted - something of an anachronism.
This all leads to an interesting, almost philosophical, argument which needs to be resolved in order to define exactly how we should approach any industrialisation. Just how far back do we go in "doing it all" when so much developed equipment and hardware is available.
The least difficult approach for the Foundation would be to raise the necessary capital to purchase suitable machinery - install it - and, with the support of our own skill base, then train machine operators and engineers to use it to produce screws of an adequate standard for our new machine and machine upgrade projects. Most - including ourselves - would instinctively, or perhaps even logically, realise this would not work for very long - if at all. Without following that line with too much detail, we would simply say that the "understanding and feel" of the technology would be missing and the accumulated knowledge and infrastructure around that "suitable machinery" is not there. Not to mention the economic distortion that would arise from a cottage industry in a poor country needing a "million dollar" capital investment in equipment and infrastructure nobody understands.
The other approach - the one we have chosen - is to select a number of "apprentices" from the country where this part of the project is going, and drop them into a machine shop in Gothenburg along with two "Masters" - one of whom is over 80 and the other is just 60 - a youngster who remembers vividly the first major task he was faced with as a 15 year old apprentice was the hand scraping of an 8 ft long cast iron lathe bed. Their brief is to produce - with the resources they have - a ballscrew grinder able to manufacture P4 grade ballscrews suitable for the machine featured elsewhere on this site, and the Czechoslovakian knee mill chosen as a general purpose machine tool for other parts of the project. They are supported by our electronic hardware/software Masters who also have their own apprentices.
After completing this task - they are required to establish, in Ethiopia, a small facility able to produce the leadscrews required by the Swedish company established to manufacture our own CNC machine - and those required by another Ethiopian company supplying upgraded western machines to other aspects of the project and Africa generally.
While all this is going on we have our mining, smelter and steel Masters working on the needed supply of iron and steels - but that is another subject for another page later. None of this will be a speedy process - apprenticeships take time - but progress will be reported in links posted on the left over that time. If nothing else it will be interesting to see the chemistry between Old Masters who are intolerant of their own younger generations lack of craft skills - and young apprentices from another culture who have much enthusiasm, but little concept of what they are actually getting into.
