Pinions for watches and sometimes also for small clocks were usually made from pinion wire, but for larger clocks pinions were milled from a cylinder of steel left standing when the clock arbour was turned on the lathe. Determination of the dividing of the pinion was done by using a dividing plate in a manner rather similar to that used on a wheel-cutting engine, though the dividing plate for pinions had a much smaller range of divisions marked on it. Early pinion-cutting machines employed a simple hand-operated file cutter running parallel with the pinion arbor, the cutter being guided by a frame which also held the pinion being cut between centers; later, machines were devised on the same principle but using revolving cutters, travelling longitudinally to form the pinion leaves. Factory methods employed milling machines in which the pinions to be cut were presented to the revolving cutter by automatic means, each slot between the leaves being milled out in turn.