Fasoldt Ruling Engine
date: label: date made
content: ca 1880
name: label: maker
content: Fasoldt, Charles
notes: label: Description
content: Charles Fasoldt (1819-1889) was born in Dresden, served an apprenticeship as a clock and watchmaker, and spent some time in the Saxon army He was involved in an unsuccessful 1849 attempt to overthrow the Saxon king and found it wise to immigrate with his family to the United States, settling first in the town of Rome, New York, and then, from 1861, in Albany. Fasoldt took up the manufacture of microscopes as well as timekeeping devices and then, in the late 1870s, began to produce finely ruled test plates to determine the resolving power of the microscopes. To create these gratings he used this ruling engine. Evans describes it is some detail, and notes that the existing object has been revised considerably from Fasoldt's original plans.
label: Description
content: The machine has eleven extra rachet wheels for the benefit of those wishing to vary the thinness of the grating. The instrument came to the Smithsonian in 1946.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: C. Evans, "Precision Engineering: an Evolutionary Perspective," MSc Thesis, Cranfiled Institute of Technology, 1987, esp. pp. 99-100.
label: Description
content: "Obituary," <I>New York Tribune</I>, May 13,1889, p. 7.
label: Description
content: G. Martin Sleeman, "Charles Fasoldt's Contributions to Microscopy," <I>Rittenhouse: Journal of the American Scientific Instrument Enterprise,</I>," vol. 2 #4, August, 1988, pp 147-152.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Albany
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
label: Subject
content: Ruling and Dividing Engines
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of A. R. McEwen
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.313042
label: accession number
content: 173843
label: catalog number
content: 313042
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Ruling Engine
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 14 1/2 in x 28 in x 28 in; 36.83 cm x 71.12 cm x 71.12 cm