Tube drills at GP were not done by ancient Egyptians.

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: anonentity

I heard a story, which could be entirely apocryphal, about a Japanese company who were trying to promote their technology to the jet engine production facility at Rolls Royce in the UK.

The Japanese company was producing very small diameter (sub-millimeter) drill bits and were very proud of their achievement.

The Rolls Royce people said that they would rather stick to their traditional methods, as they were superior and they were already able to produce much finer drilled holes.

The Japanese sales representative was taken aback and said he didn't think so, because their tech was unique and cutting edge.

Then the Rolls Royce presented the Japanese company with a number of their smaller drills back and said to check them out under a microscope.

When the drills were examined, they had had holes drilled right down the core of the drills, with such accuracy that the drilled holes did not divert off-center. Apparently they had also tapped a thread inside the Japanese drills and provided a threaded bit of wire to screw into the hole.

My father, who was a watchmaker, used to make his own 'wire' drills and other tiny tools, so I believe it was entirely possible that this could be done by a skilled enough worker

The Rolls Royce guys did not say how it was done, but they did say that it was done with hand tools, not some precision technology.

So, when I hear of amazing feats that seem to require amazing tech, I take it with a grain of salt.

I have heard the same story, except with US engineers versus German ones, with the bit exchange being conducted by mail, the US having first sent an "impressively" microscopic drill bit to Germany only to later receive it back, drilled down.