[Damogran6]

A few years back, I committed myself to learning how to machine metal. Bought a mid-60's lathe and tore it down to the bits to clean and restore it.

Someone told me to buy How To Run a Lathe (https://idoc.pub/documents/how-to-run-a-lathepdf-x4e6k0o189n...) First print was in the early 1910's, and the intro described how the magic of a lathe is that a less-precise tool can be used to make a more precise tool...how you could start with a hand powered lathe between two trees and end up with a machine that could hold half-a-thousandth of an inch in a surprisingly small number of iterations.

Also, the Gingery series (https://kk.org/thetechnium/bootstrapping-t/) showed how you could bootstrap a machine shop with scrap aluminum and charcoal.

We've been smart apes for thousands of years.