# Leonardo Da Vinci—Metal Hobbyist



## CalgaryPT (Mar 6, 2020)

My chronic insomnia has taken me on a biography kick lately. Recently I started reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Leonardo Da Vinci. I've learned lots about him and his inventions, but was really fascinated by his "Needle Grinding Machine" design. Needles were cherished during the Renaissance because they were labour intensive and difficult to produce properly—good ones were in fact handed down to your children.

Da Vinci designed a machine to make needles using a specialized grinding process, basically what we now call a _cylindrical grinder_. What I found really interesting was that—had this machine (see pic below) been made and worked—it could have secured him financially for life. (Engineers think it would have worked, unlike most of his other creations.) By his calculations a hundred machines like this could produce 40,000 needles per hour and make him the equivalent of $8 million dollars in today's money. Unfortunately, Da Vinci sucked at math, and made a tenfold error in his calculations. Nonetheless, it would have secured him enough coin to never have to work again churning out cheap Madonna paintings for beer money and painting supplies.

Sadly, Da Vinci rarely finished what he started and most of his inventions were never intended to be built outside of the theatre. He seemed to lose interest in many projects as soon as he solved the associated problem—weather is was an invention, painting technique, or nature study.

He was also the inventor of the modern day "oiler" we all have on our lathes and other shop equipment.

The book is: https://www.amazon.ca/Leonardo-Vinc...90733&keywords=leonardo&qid=1583547691&sr=8-2


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## Chicken lights (Mar 6, 2020)

He designed a bridge on paper, it was only a few years ago it was replicated in a lab and tested. It turned out to be a success. He’s a fascinating man


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## CalgaryPT (Mar 6, 2020)

Totally agree. People like this are my heroes.


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## Dabbler (Mar 6, 2020)

Unstoppable genius. Ahead of his time.


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## Bofobo (Mar 23, 2020)

Solve the problem and instantly bored with it, lol A.D.D some terrible


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## CalgaryPT (Mar 23, 2020)

Bofobo said:


> Solve the problem and instantly bored with it, lol A.D.D some terrible


Yup, I think you are right. I'll probably finish the book tonight in fact. Plus, he often didn't get paid for his work, or his clients put a bunch of harsh clauses in his contract to try to force him to finish because he had such a poor reputation of bailing on them. Some of his own students (whose work was inferior) made more money than he did because they finished things...including some of Leonardo's own work.

People are bloody fascinating.


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