A bottle cap was injected as molten plastic into a steel mould, held while it shrank and pushed out — one of thirty-two caps made every few seconds, each within a few hundredths of a millimetre of the next. Everything made is made by a few kinds of process, chosen for the shape, the material, the number wanted and the cost. Run on the page: materials, measurement and tolerances; casting and moulding; forging, rolling and sheet metal; cutting, machining and CNC; printing, joining and surfaces; quality, design for manufacture and inspection; factories, flow, planning, automation, cost and the people who do the work. Fill a mould, bend a bracket, program a cut, slice a print, chart a process and run a factory — every part, force, time and cost computed by the page.
Every part, chart and number on these pages is computed by the page or cited with its source; your progress stays in this browser. Machines and hazardous processes are taught, never instructed: nothing here tells you to operate a machine, melt metal or handle process chemicals — those are learned from qualified people with the right equipment, guards and training. G-code on these pages runs only in the page's simulator. Nothing here is business, legal, employment or safety advice, and the process values are teaching values; real parts need the standards in force and the supplier's data. The course endorses no product, machine builder or supplier: companies and products are named only for their place in the history of making. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any organisation, standards body, publisher or author mentioned here.