Alan French wrote:


Howie,

You mean you're not heading into your shop and starting work on a ruling
engine? G I am continually amazed at what some ambitious folks manage to
do, and the Amateur Scientist column certainly had some interesting
examples. I suspect, however, that more than a bit of insanity would be
required to try ruling your own diffraction grating. I think a seismograph
would be a more reasonable, and interesting project.

Brian Manning, the man who built the "DIY" ruling engine still
has a website where it is discussed.

http://www.britastro.org/iandi/manning2.htm


and as its says there :

This article was originally published in the 'Amateur Scientist' column
of Scientific American, 232(4), April 1975, and here appears in a
modified form. Brian was an engineering draughtsman when the basic work
was completed, and a laboratory technician with the Department of
Engineering, University of Birmingham (UK), when the article was
originally published. He had the distinction of being the first amateur
to make diffraction gratings of unsurpassed optical quality with an
instrument of ultimate mechanical precision - a ruling engine. This
project occupied him for two decades. He subsequently devised a
refinement to his ruling engine (see Addendum, above) by utilising the
piezoelectric effect on a crystal to minimise the 'rubbery' consistency
of metal at the molecular level that his ruling engine probed. After his
retirement he received an honorary PhD from his university and was
awarded the Horace Dall Medal of the British Astronomical Association.

Steve