THE LATHE 
The lathe operates on the principle of the work being rotated against the edge of
a cutting tool. It is one of the oldest and most important machine tools. The
cutting tool is controllable and can be moved lengthwise on the lathe bed and
into any desired angle across the revolving work.

LATHE SIZE
Lathe size is determined by the SWING and LENGTH OF THE BED. The swing
indicates the largest diameter that can be turned over the ways

(flat or V-shaped bearing surface that aligns and guides movable part of
machine). Bed length is entire length of the ways.

Bed length must not be mistaken for the maximum length of the work that can be
turned between centers.  The longest piece that can be turned is equal to the
length of the bed MINUS the distance taken up by the headstock and tailstock.

As an example, consider the capacity and clearance of a modern 13 in by 6 ft

(325mm by 1800mm) lathe:
Swing over bed                            13 in (325rnm)
Swing over cross slide                 8 3/4 in. (218mm)
Bed length                                     72 in. (1800mm)
Distance between centers           50 in. (1240mm)

MAJOR PARTS OF A LATHE

The chief function of any lathe, no matter how complex it may appear to be, is to
rotate the work against a controllable cutting tool. Each of the lathe parts in Fig.
10-4 falls into one of the following categories:
 
 1. Driving the late.
2. Holding and rotating the work.
3. Holding, moving and guiding the cutting tool.

Driving the lathe

Power is transmitted to the various drive mechanisms by belt drive and/or gear
train.
 

Holding and rotating the work

The headstock contains the spindle to which the various work holding
attachments are fitted.   The spindle revolves in heavy/duty bearings and is
rotated by belts, gears or a combination of both. It is hollow with the front tapered
internally to receive tools and attachments with taper shanks.   the hole permits
long stock to be turned without dangerous overhang.

Work is held in the lathe by a chuck, faceplate, collet or between centers.

The outer end of the work is often supported by the tailstock. It can be adjusted
along the ways to accommodate different lengths of work. The tailstock mounts
the "dead" center, and can be fitted with tools for drilling, reaming and
threading.    It can also be offset for taper turning.
 

Holding, moving and guiding the cutting tool

The bed is the foundation of a lathe. All other parts are fitted to it. Ways are
integral with the bed. The V-shape maintains precise alignment of the headstock
and tailstock, and serves as rails to guide the travel of the carriage. The cutting
tool is mounted on the carriage.

The carriage controls and supports the cutting tool and is composed of:

1. The saddle is fitted to and slides along the ways.

2. The apron contains the drive mechanism to move the carriage along the
ways using hand or power feed.
3. The cross slide permits transverse tool movement (movement toward or
away from the operator).
4. The compound rest permits angular tool movement.
5. The tool rest mounts the cutting tool.

Power is transmitted to the carriage through the feed mechanism.

Power is transmitted through a train of gears to the quick change gear box which
regulates the amount of tool travel per revolution of the spindle. The gear train
also contains gears for reversing tool travel.

The quick change gear box is arranged between the spindle and the lead screw.
It contains gears of various ratios which makes it possible to machine various
pitches of screw threads without changing loose gears. Longitudinal (back-and-
forth) travel and cross (in-and-out) travel is controlled in the same manner.

An index plate provides instructions on how to set the lathe shift levers for
various thread cutting and feed combinations. It is located on the face of the gear
box. The large numbers on the index plate indicate the number of threads that
can be cut per inch or pitch of metric threads. The smaller figures indicate the
carriage longitudinal movement, in thousandths of an inch or in mm for each
spindle revolution.

The lead screw transmits power to the carriage through a gearing and clutch
arrangement in the carriage apron. Feed change levers on the apron control the
operation of power longitudinal feed and power cross feed.

When place din neutral, the half-nuts may be engaged for thread cutting. The
gear arrangement makes it possible to engage power feed and half- nuts
simultaneously. The half-nuts are engaged ONLY for thread cutting and are NOT
used as "automatic" feed for regular turning.
PREPARING LATHE FOR OPERATION
Before an aircraft is permitted to takeoff, the pilot or crew must go through a
check-out procedure to determine whether the engines, controls, and safety
features are in first-class operating condition. The same applies to the operation
of a machine tool such as a lathe. the operator should inspect the machine for
safe and proper operation.
 

1. Clean and lubricate the machine.

2. Be sure all guards are in position and locked in place.
3. Turn the spindle over by hand to be sure it is NOT locked nor engaged in
back gear.
4. Move the carriage along the ways. There should be no binding.
5. Check cross slide movement.
6. Mount the desired work holding attachment.
7. Adjust the drive mechanism for the desired speed and feed.
8. If the tailstock is used, check it for alignment.
9. Clamp the cutter bit into an appropriate tool holder and mount it in the tool
post. Do NOT permit excessive compound rest overhang as this often
causes tool "chatter" and results in a poorly machined surface.
10. Mount the work. check for adequate clearance between the work and the
various machine parts.
11. In addition, to the above procedures, the operator must take some
precautions. sleeves should be rolled up and rings, jewelry and necktie or
necklace removed.

            

 
 
              

 
 

LATHE SAFETY
WARNING! Lathe chips are sharp; do NOT remove them with your hands.
DANGER! an air hose should NEVER be used to remove chips. The flying
particles might injure you or a nearby person.
 

1. No attempt should be made to operate a lathe until you know the proper
procedures and have been checked out on its safe operation by your
instructor.
2. Dress appropriately!   Remove necktie, necklace, wrist watch, rings and
other jewelry, and loose fitting sweaters. Wear an apron or a properly
fitted shop coat. Safety glasses are a must!
3. Clamp all work solidly! Use the correct size tool and work holding device
for the job. Get help when handling large sections of metal and heavy
chucks and attachments.
4. Check work frequently when it is being machined between centers. The
work expands as it heats up and could damage the tailstock center.
5. Be sure all guards are in place before attempting to operate the machine.
6. Turn the faceplate or chuck by hand to be sure there is NO binding or
danger of the work striking any part of the lathe.
7. Keep the machine clear of tools!
8. Stop the machine before making measurements and adjustments.
9. Remember--chips are sharp! Do NOT try to remove them with your hands
when they become "stringy" and build up on the tool post. Stop the
machine and remove them with pliers.
10. Do NOT permit small diameter work to project too far from the chuck
without support from the tailstock. Without support, the work will be
tapered, or worse, spring up over the cutting tool and/or break.
11. Be careful NOT to run the cutting tool into the chuck. Check any
readjustment of work or tool for ample clearance when the cutter has been
moved left to the farthest point that will be machined.
12. Stop the machine before attempting to wipe down, a machine surface.
13. Before repositioning or removing work from the lathe, move the cutting
tool clear of the work area. This will prevent accidental cuts from the cutter
bit.
14. Avoid talking to anyone while running a lathe! Do NOT permit anyone to
fool around with the machine while you are operating it. You are the only
one who should turn the machine on or off, or make adjustments to the
lathe.
15. If the lathe has a threaded spindle nose, never attempt to run the chuck on
or off the spindle using power. It is also dangerous practice to stop such a
lathe by reversing the direction of rotation. The chuck could spin off and
cause serious injury to you. There is also the danger of damaging the
machine.
16. You should always be aware of the direction of travel and speed of the
carriage before engaging the half-nuts or automatic feed.
 17. Always remove the key from the chuck. Make it a habit NEVER to let go of
the key until it is out of the chuck and clear of the work area.
18. Tools must NOT be placed on the lathe ways. Use a tool board or place
them on the lathe tray.
19. When filing on the lathe, be sure the file has a securely fitting handle.
20. Stop the machine immediately if some off sounding noise or vibration
develops during operation.   If you cannot locate the trouble, get help from
your instructor.   Under no condition should the machine be operated until
the trouble has been corrected.
21. Remove sharp edges and burrs from work before removing it from the
machine.
22. Plan your work thoroughly before starting.    Have all needed tools on
hand.
23. Use care when cleaning the lathe. Chips sometimes stick in recesses.
Remove them with a brush or short stick., NEVER clean a machine tool
with compressed air.

DANGER! Stop the machine before making measurements or cleaning out chips!

SAFETY NOTE! Under NO condition should a lathe be reversed to brake it to a

stop!

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Lathe Parts
- being a brief description of the names and functions of parts -
We can supply parts & accessories for machine tools of all kinds: cross-feed screws and nuts, T-slotted cross slides,
backplates, gears of kinds, parts repaired, etc. one-off items a speciality. email your needs
Screwcutting    Countershafts    Backgear    The Watchmaker's Lathe
Quick-change Toolholders   Fitting a Chuck    Spindle Nose Fittings    More Names of
Parts
The names given to various parts of the lathe have changed over the
years - and are still not completely standardised. No doubt when the
government has finished organising every other aspect of our lives it
will appoint a highly-paid commission to look into the matter and
make "recommendations".
If you would like to buy a book or CD to extend your knowledge of
lathes - and how to operate them - look on the home page and here.
Illustrations of the parts discussed can be found by following the
various hyperlinks and also at the bottom of this page. It may be that
an Instruction Manual, an Illustrated Parts Book or informative sales
Literature may be available for your lathe: you can check by
clicking here.

BED
The bed of the lathe provides the foundation for the whole machine
and holds the headstock, tailstock and carriage in alignment. The
surfaces of the bed that are finely machined - and upon which the
carriage and tailstock slide - are known as "ways".
Some beds have a gap near the headstock to allow extra-large
diameters to be turned. Sometimes the gap is formed by the
machined ways stopping short of the headstock, sometimes by a
piece of bed that can be unbolted, removed--and lost.
Some very large lathes have a "sliding bed" where the upper part, on
which the carriage and tailstock sit, can be slid along a separate
lower part - and so make the gap correspondingly larger or smaller.

SADDLE
The casting that fits onto the top of the bed and slides along it is
known, almost universally, as the "Saddle" - a self-explanatory and
very suitable term.

APRON
The vertical, often flat and rectangular "plate" fastened to the front
of the "Saddle" is known as the "Apron" and carries a selection of
gears and controls that allow the carriage to be driven (by hand or
power) up and down the bed. The mechanism inside can also engage
the screwcutting feed and various powered tool feeds, should they
be fitted. The leadscrew, and sometimes a power shaft as well, are
often arranged to pass through the apron and provide it with a drive
for the various functions. The sophistication of the apron-mounted
controls, and their ease of use, is a reliable indicator of the quality of
a lathe. Virtually all screw-cutting lathes have what is commonly-
called a "half-nut" lever that closes down one and sometimes two
halves of a split nut to grasp the leadscrew and provide a drive for
screwcutting.
Apron design can be roughly divided into "single-wall" and "double-
wall" types. The "single-wall" apron has just one thickness of metal
and, protruding from it (and unsupported on their outer ends) are
studs that carry gears. The "double-wall" apron is a much more
robust structure, rather like a narrow, open-topped box with the
gear-carrying studs fitted between the two walls - and hence rigidly
supported at both ends. This type of construction produces a very
stiff structure - and one that is far less likely to deflect under heavy-
duty work; another advantage is that the closed base of the "box"
can be used to house an oil reservoir the lubricant ion which is either
splashed around or, preferably, pumped to supply the spindles, gears
and even, on some lathes, the sliding surfaces of the bed and cross
slide as well.

COMPOUND SLIDE REST consisting of the CROSS SLIDE

and TOP SLIDE
Sitting on top of the "Saddle" is the "Cross Slide" - that, as its name
implies, moves across the bed - and on top of that there is often a
"Top Slide" or "Tool Slide" that is invariably arranged so that it can
be swivelled and locked into a new position.
Very early lathes had a simple T-shaped piece of metal against
which the turner "rested" his tool (all turning being done by hand)
but when it became possible to move this "Rest" across the bed by a
screw feed it became known, appropriately enough, as a "Slide-rest".
The earliest known example of a "Slide-rest" is illustrated in
Mittelalterliche Hausbuch, a German publication of about 1480.
After the "Top Slide" became a more common fitting the term
"Slide-rest" was not so frequently used - and the different functions
of the two slides led to their specific names being more widely
adopted.
When two slides are provided (or sometimes, on watchmaker's
lathes, three) the complete assembly is known as the "Compound" or
"Compound Slide" or even "Compound Slide-rest". Some makers
have been known to label the "Top Slide" as the "Compound Rest"
or even the "Compound Slide" - but as "to compound" means the
'joining of two or more' - not 'one' - this use of the term in incorrect.
The top and cross slide together should be referred to as "the
compound".

CARRIAGE
The whole assembly of  Saddle, Apron, Top and Cross Slide is
known as the "Carriage". Some American publications (even
makers' handbooks) have been known to casually refer to this as the
"Saddle" - but this incorrect.

HEADSTOCK.
The lathe Headstock used, at one time, to be called the "Fixed
Headstock" or "Fixed Head", and the rotating shaft within it the
"Mandrel". Today the mandrel is usually called the "Spindle", but
this can cause confusion with the tailstock, where the sliding bar is
known variously as the "ram", "barrel" - and "spindle".
The headstock is normally mounted rigidly to the bed (exceptions
exist in some production, CNC, automatic and "Swiss-auto" types)
and holds all the mechanisms, including various kinds and
combinations of pulleys or gears, so that the spindle can be made to
turn at different speeds.

HEADSTOCK SPINDLE
The end of the headstock spindle is usually machined so that it can
carry a faceplate, chuck, drive-plate, internal or external collets - or
even special attachments designed for particular jobs. In turn, these
attachments hold the workpiece that is going to be machined.
The "fitting" formed on the end of the spindle is normally one of
five types:
      1) - a simple flange through which threaded studs on a faceplate
or chuck (for example) can pass and be tightened into place with
nuts. This is a secure method, and allows high-speed reverse, but is
very inconvenient on a general-purpose lathe.
      2) - A threaded nose onto which fittings screw. This is perfectly
acceptable for smaller lathes, but unsatisfactory on larger industrial
machines where, for reasons of production economy, the spindle
may need to be reversed at high speed. Reversing a screwed-on
chuck causes it to unscrew - with potentially disastrous results.
      3) - A "D1-taper Camlock" fitting - a long-used, standard system
that employs three or more "studs" that are turned to lock into the
back of chucks and faceplates, etc.
      4) - A  taper - either of the simple Hardinge type or, for bigger
lathes, the "taper-nose, long-key drive" - an older but excellent
American design where a large screwed ring was held captive on the
end of the spindle and used to draw the chuck, or other fitting, onto a
long, keyed taper formed on the spindle end. An ideal system for the
rigid mounting of heavier chucks, it has now largely fallen into
disuse. The fitting was available in various sizes starting at L00 (L
zero zero) and worked up through L0, L1, L2, etc.
      5) - various fittings that became increasingly complex and
apparently invented for the sake of being able to claim a National
Standard (the famous not-invented-here syndrome). All these
succeeded in doing was to raise manufacturing costs by preventing
the interchange of spindle-nose tooling between machines and
requiring firms to keep larger inventories of spares and numbers of
duplicated firings. Some of these included: British and ISO Standard
Spindle Noses - Direct Mounting; British & ISO Short Taper with
Bolt or Stud Fixing; British & ISO Short Taper with Camlock
Fixing; British & ISO Short Taper with Bayonet Ring Fixing and, of
course, German Standard Spindle Noses. Unbelievably, there
appears never to have been a French standard - and we still await
official announcement of the rumoured Botswana-Standard Triple-
cam with Over-locking Nose and Chinese-designed New Moon
Slide-and-Snap-Approximately fittings.

BACKGEAR
As its name implies, "backgear" is a gear mounted at the back of the
headstock (although in practice it is often located in other positions)
that allows the chuck to rotate slowly with greatly-increased torque
(turning power). At first, the ability to run a workpiece slowly might
seem unnecessary, but a large-diameter casting, fastened to the
faceplate and run at 200 rpm (about the slowest speed normally
available on a lathe without backgear) would have a linear speed at
its outer edge beyond the turning capacity of a small lathe. By
engaging backgear, and so reducing the speed but increasing the
torque, even the largest faceplate-mounted jobs can be turned
successfully.
Screwcutting also requires slow speeds, typically between 25 and 50
rpm - especially if the operator is a beginner, or the job tricky. A
bottom speed in excess of those figures (as usually found on most
Far Eastern and European machines but not those built in the United
Kingdom) means that screwcutting - especially internally, into blind
holes - is, in effect, impossible. These lathes are advertised as
"screwcutting" but what that means in reality is just power feed
along the bed. Even if you go to the trouble of making up a pulley
system to reduce the spindle speeds you will find the torque needed
to turn large diameters at low speeds causes the belts to slip. The
only solution is a gear-driven low speed and so a proper small lathe,
with a backgear fitted, not only becomes capable of cutting threads
but can also tackle heavy-duty drilling, big-hole boring and large-
diameter facing: in other words, it is possible to use it to the very
limits of its capacity and strength.
Beginners are sometimes confused about how to engage backgear -
especially if the lathe lacks a handbook - but with a little care
anyone can work out how it should be done, at least on a
conventional machine. On the main spindle of the lathe, the one
carrying the drive pulley, will be found a large gear, generally
referred to as the "Bull Wheel". The Bull Wheel is attached to the
pulley by a nut and bolt, a spring-loaded pin, a pawl that presses into
a gear on the pulley (or some other means) and, if this fastening is
undone - by slackening the nut and pushing it towards the pulley, or
by pulling the pin out - it should be found that the pulley will spin
freely on the shaft. By moving the "backgears" into position - they
generally slide sideways, or are mounted on an eccentric pin - the
mechanism will come into operation. If the pulley will not spin on
the shaft, or there seems to be no obvious way of disconnecting the
Bull Wheel from the pulley, it may be that you are dealing with an
"over-engineered" machine where some clever device has been
introduced to make life "easy" for the operator. Sometimes there will
be a screw, flush with the surface of the drive pulley and beneath
this a spring-loaded pin that pushes into the back face of the Bull
Wheel. Quick-action "Sliding-cam" mechanisms are occasionally
used (as on the Drummond and Myford M Series lathes) where a
knob on the face of the Bull Wheel has to be pushed sideways, and
so ride up a ramp, which action disengages the connecting pin
automatically. Some lathes, with enclosed headstocks (like later
Boxford models) have a "single-lever" backgear; in this system
moving the first part of the lever's movement disengages the
connection whilst the next brings the backgear into mesh.
LEADSCREW
Originally termed a "master thread", or described as the "leading
screw", but now always referred to as the "leadscrew", this is a long
threaded rod normally found running along the front of the bed or,
on some early examples running between the bed ways down the
bed's centre line. By using a train of gears to connect the lathe
spindle to the leadscrew  - and the leadscrew to the lathe carriage -
the latter, together with its cutting tool, could be forced to move a
set distance for every revolution of the spindle.

TAILSTOCK
The Tailstock was once known in England as the "Loose headstock",
" Poppet head" or "Loose head" - the latter old-fashioned term being
used by Harrison and other English firms in some of their
advertising literature until the early 1970s. The unit is arranged to
slide along the bed and can be locked to it at any convenient point;
the upper portion of the unit is fitted with what is variously called a
"barrel", "spindle" "ram" or "shoot" that can be moved in and out of
the main casting by hand, lever or screw feed and carries a "Dead
Centre" that supports the other end of work held (by various means)
in the headstock.
Special centres, which rotate with the work, can be used in the
tailstock ; these are known as "Rotating Centres" and should not be
referred to as "live centres" - that term being reserved for the centre
carried in the headstock spindle.
Long ago centres were referred to by turners as "Poppets" -
presumably from "pop it in" - and they carried their own with them,
secured in cotton waste and jealously guarded in the top pocket of
their overalls.

COUNTERSHAFT
Most small electric motors in Britain spin at 1425 rpm, whilst those
in the USA and Europe are usually marked a little faster at 1600 to
1700 rpm or so.
If the lathe spindle was to be driven directly from one of these
motors, even using a small pulley on the motor shaft, and a larger
one on the lathe, it would be turning far too quickly to be useful for
the great majority of jobs; hence, it is necessary to introduce some
way of reducing the lathe's spindle speed  - and that is the job of the
countershaft.
In a typical arrangement, illustrated here, the motor is fastened to an
upright, hinged, cast-iron plate and fitted with a small pulley on its
spindle. Because the 1500 rpm motor is driving a much larger pulley
in a ratio of something like 5 : 1 - the speed is reduced to 300 rpm
(1500 divided by 5).
On the same shaft as the very large pulley is a set of three smaller
pulleys, arranged in the "reverse" order from those on the lathe. If
the middle pulley on the countershaft is made to drive the
identically-sized pulley on the lathe spindle that too, of course, will
turn at 300 rpm. The pulleys each side of it are normally arranged to
halve and double that speed - hence the creation of a speed set
covering a useful 150 rpm, 300 rpm and 600 rpm.
It is a simple matter to fit both a small and a large pulleys to the
motor shaft, and two correspondingly larger pulleys on the
countershaft, and so double the number of available speeds to six. If
a two-speed electric motor is used the range doubles again to 12 and,
should the lathe designer have managed to squeeze a four-step
pulley between the spindle bearings, a total of 16 would be
available; with a backgear fitted the total would rise to thirty-two
speeds that, typically, might start at 25 rpm and extend all the way
up to over 3000 rpm.

CHANGEWHEELS and TUMBLE REVERSE

These are the gears that take the drive from the headstock spindle
down to the leadscrew. They are normally contained within a cover
at the extreme left-hand side of the lathe - but many older lathes,
built in times when manufacturers were not concerned with saving
people from themselves, left them exposed.
The gears are called "changewheels" because of the necessity to
change them every time a different thread, or rate of tool feed, was
required  and the expression goes back to the earliest time that gears
were used for this purpose.  The gear train is usually carried on a
"quadrant arm" able to be adjusted by being swung on its mounting
to allow the mesh of the topmost gear with the output gear on the
spindle or tumble reverse mechanism to be set. In Great Britain the
arm is sometimes called the "Banjo" - although this expression
should really be limited to those with just one slot. Some
manufacturers, to make life difficult for themselves and their
customers, tried other systems as well. A drive through
changewheels often incorporates a "tumble-reverse" mechanism by
which means the drive to the leadscrew can be instantly reversed
and hence the cutting tool made to move towards or away from the
headstock at will. In its "neutral" position it also allows the
headstock spindle to rotate freely and quietly without having to drive
the screwcutting changewheels and leadscrew.
For more details of screwcutting, click here and for a further
explanation of the features required on a small here.
Labelled diagrams showing examples of nomenclature
used by lathe makers.
Further examples can be found HERE

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