The extensive development of early machine tools filled a need created by a buoyant textile industry during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution in England, this being in the middle-to-late 1700s. Until that time, most of the machinery was fabricated from, in the main, wrought iron and hardwood, the latter often including hard wooden gearing and shafts. With the inevitable increase in such mechanisation, it necessitated more robust metal parts-due to higher production demands and potential wear. So metal components were customarily now being manufactured from either cast or wrought iron, rather than the previous hardwood. The major advantage of cast iron was that it could be cast in complex and intricate shapes, holding its geometric form as it slowly cooled in its mould. This fact is a real benefit of utilising cast iron, due in the main from its unique metallurgical properties (i.e. primarily as a result of the formation of graphite flakes, which sets the geometric shape due to secondary expansion of said graphite flakes while cooling and still being pliable enough to follow the mould's internal contours) allowing larger components, typically engine cylinders and gears, to be readily founded. Large cast iron parts were difficult to work with by simply hand filing-for any form of accuracy and precision-but unfortunately due to their mechanical properties they could not be hammered into the desired dimensions. However, a red-hot wrought iron part could be successfully hammered into shape. So, at room temperature a wrought iron product might be worked with a file and chisel and, as such, could be made into somewhat rudimentary gears. This hand-working gear lacked Chapter 1