Watt had tried unsuccessfully for several years to obtain an accurately bored cylinder for his steam engines, and was forced to use hammered iron, which was out of round and caused leakage past the piston. Joseph Wickham Roe stated in 1916: "When [John] Smeaton saw the first engine he reported to the Society of Engineers that 'Neither the tools nor the workmen existed who could manufacture such a complex machine with sufficient precision ' ".