Founded in 1929, in Osaka, Japan, by Sinjiro Yasuda and his two assistants, the Yasda company's early enterprises were the manufacture of machines to bore the cylinders of internal combustion engines, and the making of pistons. This line of specialised business, which concentrated on cylinder boring machines of various types, continued until 1964 and the introduction of Jigmaster, a machine tool designed along the lines of the American De-Vlieg. Like the DeVlieg, the Jigmaster was intended to fulfil exactly the same function - to machine jobs to a very high standard of accuracy - a claimed 0.0004" (0.01mm) - without the need for expensive and time-consuming-to-set-up jigs and fixtures. Production of the Jigmaster in its original form continued in small numbers until late in that decade when, with more development, it was to morph into a machining centre with, to date, over 60 different designs of that type made.
In the late 1920s, Japan lacked a serious, indigenous machine tool industry and to correct this, in 1928 the Mitsui Company was formed. By copying the Swiss approach to metrology, they introduced sets of bock gauges, limit gauges and micrometers and, in 1933, a Universal Measuring Machine, one similar to those by Pratt & Whitney and SIP. In 1935 came their first Circular and Linear Dividing Machine, a jig borer (a machine type for which they became well known), a high-pressure compressor and, in 1940, a cylindrical grinder. In contrast to many Western machine tool companies of pre-WW2 years, both Yasda and Mitsui both continue successfully in business today.