Although much has been written about grinding machines and their background, in summary, it might be said that it was their accuracy - and the very fine surface finishes they created - that enabled the economical mass production of virtually all of today's machines. Apart from the clock - which can in any case be made out of cheap components - the first mass-market, finely engineered product was the sewing machine. Invented in 1846 by the American Elias Howe, it was a relatively straightforward engineering challenge to make one, but to scale up production so that it became affordable was another matter entirely. This highly-desirable but expensive machine, which was to revolutionise not only the garment trade but also shoemaking and upholstery (and often bought on the "never-never" for household use) needed to be compact, run easily from a treadle and operate smoothly. It also had to last, without the need for any sort of repair, for several decades. The only way of achieving these aims was to make it from very close-fitting, hardened steel parts - and therein lay a problem; take a piece of high-quality steel, beautifully finished on a lathe to critical dimensions and harden it - the result? it distorts. The solution was to make a dimensional allowance when turning a part, harden it and then grind to finish - on one of the machines specially adapted by Joseph R. Brown from his original design. This technique spread quickly into many other industries and soon a wide range of previously hand-fitted parts (slow to make and non-interchangeable) from firearms to bicycle parts were being made with improved accuracy and at a greatly reduced cost.
In 1885, the Englishman John Kemp Starley designed the first commercially successful 'safety' bicycle, the "Rover" an easy-to-ride machine that, with its lightweight chain and same-sized wheels, was to spark a bicycle craze with a huge demand for machines and, of course, ground-finished precision parts. The range of items affected by advances in grinding machines and techniques spread to the machine tool industry where, as an example, in 1862 the American John Stark was the first to introduce long-life all-hardened steel bushes and spindles able to run at very high speeds in both his small watchmaker and bench precision lathes.