When Bramah began manufacturing the locks he found almost immediately that they called for a better quality of workmanship than was available, with even the best manual skill about him. A series of machine tools had to be devised if they were to be made in the quantities and of the quality desired. He turned first to an old German in Moodie’s shop who had the reputation of being the most ingenious workman in London; but while he, with Bramah, saw the need, he could not meet it. One of his shopmates, however, suggested a young man at the Woolwich Arsenal named Henry Maudslay, then only eighteen years old. Bramah sent for him and Maudslay soon became his right-hand man, and was made superintendent of the works at nineteen. The work of these two men in developing the tools needed laid the foundation for the standard metal-cutting tools of today. The most important improvement was the slide-rest. Nasmyth later said that he had seen the first one, made by Maudslay, running in Bramah’s shop and that “in it were all those arrangements which are to be found in the most modern slide-rest of our own day” (i.e., fifty years later). Other parts of the metal-cutting lathe also began to take shape; it has been said that parts of the lock were milled on a lathe with rotary cutters, and that the beginnings of the planer were made. How much of this work was Bramah’s and how much Maudslay’s it would be hard to say. Bramah was a fertile, clever inventor; but Maudslay was the better general mechanic, had a surer judgment and a greater influence on subsequent tool design. About this time Bramah invented the hydraulic press. As he first built it, the ram was packed with a stuffing-box and gland. This gripped the ram, retarded the return stroke, and gave him a lot of trouble until Maudslay substituted the self-tightening cup-leather packing for the stuffing-box, an improvement which made the device a success. Bramah’s restless ingenuity was continually at work. He invented a very successful beer-pump in 1797, the four-way cock, a quill sharpener which was in general use until quills were superseded by steel pens, and he dabbled with the steam engine. He was a bitter opponent of Watt and testified against him in the famous suit of Boulton & Watt against Hornblower. He maintained the superiority of the old Newcomen engines and said that the principle of the separate condenser was fallacious, that Watt had added nothing new which was not worthless, and that his so-called improvements were “monstrous stupidity.”