Over time things like machine tools have gotten more accurate, ie I assume early metalworking lathes had a much higher range of error than modern ones.
So how were the more accurate machines made using what must have been a less accurate machine?
In: Engineering
In addition to the other really good comments, there’s a couple of “shortcut” techniques that, unintuitively, allow you to get freakishly accurate references surfaces using just hand tools. The most well known is probably the “three plate method”, which lets you make a “perfectly” flat surface using just three roughly identical blocks and a hand scraper.
[https://ericweinhoffer.com/blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-three-plates-method](https://ericweinhoffer.com/blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-three-plates-method)
Once you have a surface that you *know* is flat, you can use that as a reference to make other very flat things. Then, with clever geometry and engineering, you can build that up to other very precises shapes. By “educated guess, cut, and test” you can then (carefully!) use relatively un-precise machines to make very precise results.
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