Nasmyth returned to Edinburgh and took temporary quarters in a little outbuilding 16 feet by 24 feet, within a few minutes’ walk of his father’s home. He hired one mechanic, Archie Torry, who remained with him the rest of his life and became one of his principal foremen. His power plant consisted of one husky laborer who turned a crank. Together they finished up the castings brought from Maudslay & Field’s, making first a lathe, then a planer 20 inches by 36 inches, and with these a few boring and drilling machines. He carried the expense of this by doing some work for an enthusiastic inventor of a wonderful rotary steam engine. Nasmyth honorably informed the inventor that his machine would not work, but as the inventor was bent on spending his money, Nasmyth executed the work for him, and the proceeds enabled him to build his machinery. In a few months he was ready to begin. He went to Liverpool and Manchester looking for a location, and soon made many powerful friends in both cities. In 1831 he rented a single floor in Manchester, 27 feet by 130 feet, with power, and ten days later Archie followed with the tools. It was a particularly fortunate time and place for starting such an enterprise. The success of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, just opened, created a great demand for locomotives and for machine tools. Orders came in fast, and the planer especially was busy all the time. If its profits were anything like those of Clement’s planer, it must have been a very heavy earner. As the business grew, Nasmyth added more tools, always making them himself and steadily improving their design and construction. He soon outgrew his quarters; and in 1836 he secured land at Patricroft, a mile or so outside of the city, admirably located between the new railway and the Bridgewater Canal, and built a new plant which he called the Bridgewater Foundry. In the new foundry he used the first worm-geared tilting pouring-ladle. As it eliminated a common and very dangerous source of accidents, he refrained from patenting it and in a short time its use was universal. He formed a partnership with Holbrook Gaskell, who took the business end of the enterprise, and the firm of Nasmyth & Gaskell had a very prosperous career until, sixteen years later, Mr. Gaskell was forced to retire on account of ill health. Nasmyth built machine tools of all kinds. In 1836 he invented the shaper which was long known as “Nasmyth’s Steel Arm.”