James Nasmyth

James Nasmyth (1808-1890), Scottish engineer, who invented the steam forge hammer and hydraulic punch. Nasmyth was born in Edinburgh. He left school at age 12 and made model engines that were so successful that when he was 19 years old he was commissioned to build a full-sized steam carriage for use on roads. At age 21 he went with his father to London, England, where he met the master machinist Henry Maudslay. Nasmyth worked for two years in Maudslay’s shop, where he built a special milling machine and designed hexagonal-headed nuts, among other contributions.

In 1834 Nasmyth moved to Manchester, England, a thriving manufacturing center, and in 1836 he built a foundry near the junction of a local railway and a canal. Machines and tools of all kinds were manufactured in his Bridgewater Foundry. In 1839 Nasmyth designed and built a steam hammer to forge large ship parts; he patented the device in 1842. The hammer greatly increased the possible size of forged pieces without sacrificing precision.

Nasmyth created several other important manufacturing tools in addition to the steam hammer. He also introduced the shaper, a popular adaptation of the planer that is still widely used in tool and die making and in producing limited numbers of small machine parts. Another innovation was his hydraulic press, which used water pressure to press tight-fitting machine parts together. All of these inventions became important in factories, and all remain in use in some modified, modern form. Nasmyth was among the first tool builders to market a standardized line of machine tools. Before him, manufacturers simply built each machine tool according to the custom specifications of individual clients, which created expensive and industry-limiting compatibility problems.

In addition to tools, Nasmyth’s Bridgewater Foundry produced 109 steam locomotives in 14 years. At the age of 48, Nasmyth retired to the English countryside, where he devoted himself to a lifelong interest in astronomy, especially the study of the moon. He published his first work in astronomy in 1848, and he won a prize at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London for his maps of the moon’s surface. In 1874 he published a book entitled The Moon Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite.