Saving the world, one machine tool at a time

Pat Delany is on a mission. He has devoted the past 13 years to the Open Source Machine Tools project – a means to bring to the developing world the ability to create the tools needed to build and repair agricultural, household, and light industrial goods. Delany sees machine tools as key to creating indigenous mass production in rural villages and urban slums. Also, he believes such tools can form the basis of trade schools to train the next generation of mechanics, artisans, and machinists and can help create economic opportunity for under-occupied young people, even in the most impoverished nations.

 

Delany and his 7,000-member strong Open Source Machine Tools Yahoo Group promote designs for simple, inexpensive tools made from scrap parts available throughout the world. The open-source designs are freely available via the Internet, and ideas and information come from engineers and machinists around the globe who are eager to help.

 

A 100-year-old design for a lathe uses a frame of concrete instead of steel to build the initial element of a machine shop – or a trade school or small factory. A wood-framed drill to cut steel, a foot-powered treadle that uses a salvaged automobile generator to generate electricity, and multi-machine metalworking lathe and milling machine are all designed to help spark village-level jobs in manufacturing and equipment repair in areas of the world where poverty traps millions of people without the means to succeed.