Tools and Machinery

A tool, applicable to its common usage in mechanical engineering, is a device or a piece of equipment that typically provides a mechanical advantage in accomplishing a task or enables the accomplishment of a task not otherwise possible.

•  Cutting tools, such as the knife or sickle, are wedge-shaped implements that produce a shearing force  along a narrow face. Ideally, the edge of the tool needs to be harder than the material being cut or else the blade will become dulled with repeated use. But even resilient tools will require periodic sharpening, which is the process of removing deformation wear from the edge. Also gouges and drill bits.
•  Moving tools move huge and smaller things, e.g. concentrating force tools like the hammer moves a nail, which operates by applying physical compression to a surface. In the case of the screwdriver, the force is sideways and called torque. Also grabbing and twisting nuts and bolts with pliers, a glove or a wrench. All these tools move items by some kind of force.
•  Guiding and measuring tools include the ruler, set square and straightedge.
•  Shaping tools, such as moulds, jigs, trowels, concrete formwork, cement and concrete.
•  Fastening tools, such as welders, rivet guns, nail guns and glue guns.

Multi-use tools
•  A Multitool is a hand tool that incorporates several tools into a single, portable device.
•  Hand saws often incorporate the functionality of the carpenter's square in the right-angle between the blade's dull edge and the saw's handle.

Machine Tool

A machine tool is a powered mechanical device, typically used to fabricate metal components of machines by machining, which is the selective removal of metal. The term machine tool is usually reserved for tools that used a power source other than human movement, but they can be powered by people if appropriately set up.

Machine tools can be powered from a variety of sources. Human and animal power are options, as is energy captured through the use of waterwheels. However, machine tools really began to develop after the development of the steam engine, leading to the Industrial Revolution. Today, most are powered by electricity.

Machine tools can be operated manually, or under automatic control. Early machines used flywheels to stabilize their motion and had complex systems of gears and levers to control the machine and the piece being worked on. Before long, the machines could automatically change the specific cutting and shaping tools that were being used. For example, a drill machine might contain a magazine with a variety of drill bits for producing holes of various sizes. Previously, either machine operators would usually have to manually change the bit or move the work piece to another station to perform these different operations. The next logical step was to combine several different machine tools together, all under computer control. These are known as machining centres, and have dramatically changed the way parts are made.

From the simplest to the most complex, most machine tools are capable of at least partial self-replication since they are machines, and produce machine parts as their primary function.

Examples of machine tools are:
•    Drill press
•    Gear shaper
•    Lathe
•    Milling machine
•    Shaper
•    Grinders