Chris from Click Spring has created a YouTube video demonstrating his experiments into how the ancient Greeks crafted complicated devices such as the Antikythera mechanism with simple tools.
He used a hand-powered lathe to create three tubes with incremental precision bores and matching pistons.
The pistons were fitted to the tubes using a jeweller’s rouge made from iron swarf recovered from the bench, ground to a paste using a mortar and pestle, and mixed with olive oil to create a fine abrasive.
Trueing up the bores on the lathe and adding the next-largest tube once the outer diameter was lapped to spec created a set of tubes that were concentric.
The video shows that it was possible to achieve precision using only the simplest tools and a high level of skill.
