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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millwright
In modern usage, a millwright is a craftsman or tradesman engaged with the erection of machinery. This includes such tasks as leveling, aligning and installing machinery on foundations or base plates and setting, leveling and aligning electric motors or other power sources such as turbines with the equipment, which millwrights typically connect with some type of coupling. The exact duties of a millwright vary depending on whether they are unionized or not, with union rules typically being more restrictive than non-union situations, which may have their own job description. Related but distinctly different crafts include machinists and mechanics.
Historically, millwrights built watermills and windmills, mostly of wood with a limited number of metal parts.[1] More generally in the English speaking world, early millwrights were specialist carpenters who erected machines used in agriculture, food processing and processing lumber and paper. In the early part of the Industrial Revolution, their skills were pressed into service building the earliest powered textile mills.
Modern millwrights work with steel and other materials and must often combine the skills of other mechanical trades in order to successfully install industrial machinery or to assemble machines from pre-fabricated parts. Modern millwrights must also be able to read blueprints and other schematics to aid them in the construction of complex systems. Millwrights are frequently unionized, with estimated numbers of around 45% in the US
A millwright, originally, was a specialized carpenter who had working knowledge of driveshafts, bearings, gearing and mechanical belts . The "mill" in millwright refers to the genesis of the trade in building flour mills, sawmills, paper mills and fulling mills powered by water or wind.
A number of prominent early-modern civil engineers originally trained as millwrights, including James Brindley, John Rennie and William Fairbairn.
Oliver Evans was a prominent American millwright who published a manual for millwrights.