Textile Machine Reverse Engineering

Machines outliving their documentation

Textile machinery routinely runs for decades, and the drawings rarely last as long as the machine. When a part finally fails and the original manufacturer no longer exists, the machine is stranded — not because the part is hard to make, but because nobody knows what it is.

Measuring what exists

The work starts with the physical parts: measuring features, recording how components relate to one another, and identifying which dimensions are functional and which are simply how the part happened to be made. That distinction matters — a reverse-engineered part that copies every incidental dimension is harder to manufacture than one that reproduces what actually matters.

Rebuilding as an assembly

Individual parts were modelled and then brought together as a sub-assembly, which is where measurement errors reveal themselves. If two independently measured parts do not fit in CAD, the measurement is wrong — the physical machine is, by definition, correct. Assembling the model is the check.

What was delivered

Parametric 3D models of the measured components, manufacturing drawings suitable for producing spares, and an assembly model documenting how the parts fit together — so the next failure does not repeat the whole exercise.