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>They probably designed their tolerances assuming perfect welds and then didn't have them.

This sounds like terrible engineering practice.

It's perfectly normal engineering practice. Camshaft, gearbox profiles, and bearing surfaces in your car have very tight tolerances. A one slightly unbalanced turbine blade in your airliner engine would assure catastrophic failure. etc etc

Yes, but these items (camshaft, gearbox etc) are not made "by hand".

Camshafts were turned then ground manually on line lathes and surface grinders for many decades before advent of CNC, with about the same degree of dimensional precision as today.

It is more an issue of quality control and inspection routines.

Do you not see a difference between the intricate components of an engine and the welds on a tank as far as complexity?

Is it even possible to discuss anything Elon Musk anymore without 100% praise of his engineering prowess? Every single comment gets down-voted into oblivion, with very few replies. And, due to the "cool off", this prevents any balanced discourse.

Necessity is the mother of invention?

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