What is the highest level of accuracy in motion control a Victorian society could achieve?

In my late-Victorian world high-precision clockwork is highly available, but I am having trouble finding out exactly how precise their work could be.

I have done some research on the subject, but cannot discover how people make more precise tools with less precise tools.

If, for example, one simply translates large movements into small movements by gears or levers there is the irregularity of the parts themselves, let alone the movement, that would cause defects in the final product if my thinking is correct.

This is how I am left with the question what is the highest mechanical precision achievable in a late-Victorian setting?

I am aware that clockwork was already very precise, but I could imagine that it would be possible to have even higher precision, even though it may have been impractical at the time (e.g. watchmaker using pincers to place a dust-speck-sized cog on a shaft the breadth of a hair, missing and damaging the entire apparatus).

EDIT: With precision I mean the smallest distance I can move a tool in a controlled and measurable fashion, e.g. a saw that lets me cut a groove x wide and y deep, x being the width of the saw and y being the 'precision' of the tool.

posted over 5 years ago

A Lambent Eye‭

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