Jean Maritz

Jean Maritz (1680–1743), also Johan Maritz, was a Swiss inventor, born in Burgdorf, Canton of Bern, who moved to France, becoming "Commissaire des Fontes" at Strasbourg (Commissioner of the King's Foundry),[1] and invented the vertical drilling machine, as well as the horizontal drilling machine for cannons in the 18th century.

Jean Maritz first invented a vertical drilling machine for cannons while in France in 1713.

[5][6] These methods involved the drilling of a bore from a solid casting.

[5] These inventions were vast improvements over previous methods, which involved founding the cannon around a clay core, which was removed after founding, leading to imprecision and shifting of the core, and therefore poor performance.

[5] In the horizontal method developed by Maritz, the solid-cast cannon itself was revolved horizontally, while the drill remained static, in a method similar to that of a lathe.