Chipmunk Machining Operations

A new technological breakthrough has been made in the area of machining operations, specifically in the machining of wood. Recent advances in animal training has made possible the training of chipmunks to carry out detailed wood machining operations. This is a tremendous advance over the previous gold standard of using squirrels.

The history of using animals for forming wood products goes back to the days when the first beavers were trained to cut logs for cabins. By comparison to training chipmunks, beavers are much more easily adapted to these woodworking functions, since they have a natural affinity to wood. Unfortunately, their large size, and the large size of their teeth makes it difficult to use beavers for any sort of fine detail work.

The most difficult part of training beavers was in getting them to follow the blueprint. Although great woodcutters, they are accustomed to following their own whim, not concerning themselves with such trivialities as dimensions and tolerances.

In more recent times, muskrats and squirrels have been trained to replace beavers. While these smaller animals can never reach the peak of efficiency of even a sick beaver, their smaller size produces finer finishes and more intricate parts. Squirrels especially seem to have an affinity for following drawings and blueprints, almost mocking the designer in their unerring accuracy. Their ability to grasp the use of measuring devices was a true surprise to their trainers.

Yet, all this has been eclipsed with the new generation of chipmunk carvers. Being considerably smaller than even squirrels, chipmunks can provide a level of detail to their work which their larger cousins can only dream of. When fine intricate work is needed, chipmunks are truly a world-class choice. Not only do their smaller teeth give them the ability to do this detail work, but chipmunks seem to have a built-in measuring system, which surpasses the squirrels’ use of measuring devices. One look at a drawing and a chipmunk can reproduce every detail perfectly.

Experimentation is underway to expand the use of chipmunks for materials other than wood. An ongoing experiment, where their teeth are replaced by tungsten-carbide implants is underway, seeing if the natural machining ability of chipmunks can be applied to metal fabrications work as well.

There is also some interest in using them for the plastics industry, as training a chipmunk is much cheaper than building an injection mold. While it is sure that the chipmunks can gnaw their way through many plastics, it appears that they don’t like the flavor. New formulations are under development, creating flavored plastics, which will be much more palatable to the tongue of the chipmunk.

It is theorized that the new capabilities that chipmunks bring to the machining industry will revolutionize many designs, taking advantage of the new ability to provide greater detail and finer accuracy.