LATHE MACHINE, TYPES & FUNCTIONS

In these articles we will try to learn Definition, Parts, operations we can perform on it, The
Types, Specification advantages, disadvantages, and application of lathe machine.

Lathe Machine Introduction:

Lathe machine is probably the oldest machine tool know to mankind. Its first use dates back to
1300 BC in Egypt. The first lathe was a simple Lathe which is now called a two-person lathe.

In this one person would turn the wood workpiece using rope and the other person would shape
the workpiece using a sharp tool.

This design was further improved by the Ancient Romans who added the turning bow and lather
the paddle (as there in the sewing machine) was added.

Further during the industrial revolution Steam Engines and water wheel were attached to the
Lathe to turn the workpiece to a higher speed which made the work faster and easier.
Then in 1950 servo mechanism was used to control the lathe machine.

From this crude begging and over a period of more than two centuries, the modern engine lathe
has evolved. Now we have the most advanced form of the Lathe Machine which is the CNC
Lathe Machine.

HENRY MAUDSLAY, a British Engineer is considered as the inventor of the metal lathe.

Lathe Machine Definition:

A lathe machine is a machine tool which removes the undesired material from a rotating
workpiece in the form of chips with the help of a tool which is traversed across the work and can
be feed deep into the work.

A lathe is a machine which is one of the most versatile and widely used machine tool all over
the world.

Lathe is also known as the ‘Mother of all Machines’.

Nowadays, Lathe Machine has become a general-purpose machine tool, employed in production
and repair work, because it permits a large variety of operations to be performed on it.

Lathe Machine Parts and the various parts of the Lathe Machine are:

BED:

The bed of the lathe machine is the base on which all the other parts of the lathe are mounted.

The bed is made from Cast iron or nickel cast iron alloy and is supported on broad box-section
columns.

Its upper surface is either scraped or grounded and the guiding and the sliding surfaces are
provided.

The bed consists of heavy metal slides running lengthwise, which forced upon them. It is rigidly
supported by cross grids.

The three major units mounted on bed are:

1. Headstock
2. Carriage
3. Tailstock

The scrapped or the ground guiding along with the sliding surfaces on the lathe bed ensure the
accuracy of the alignment of these three units.
  Headstock:

Headstock is present on the left end of the bed .The main function of the headstock is to
transmit power to the different parts of the lathe.

It supports the main spindle in the bearing and align it properly. It also houses a necessary
transmission mechanism with speed changing levers to obtain different speeds.

Accessories mounted on the headstock spindle are:

1. Three jaw chuck.

2. Four jaw chuck.

 Lathe center and lathe dog.

1. Collet chuck.
2. Face Plate.
3. Magnetic chuck.

 Tailstock:

Tail stock is a movable casting located opposite to the headstock on the way of the bed. The
basic function of the tailstock is:

1. To support the other end of the work when being machined.

2. To hold a tool for performing operations like drilling, reaming, tapping, etc.

It consists of the dead centers, the adjusting screws and the hand wheel. The body of the tailstock
is adjustable on the base which is mounted on the guide ways of the bed and can be moved to
and fro.

 CARRIAGE:

Carriage is located between headstock and tailstock. The basic function of the carriage is to
support, guide and feed the tool against the job during operation.

It consists of 5 main parts:

A. Saddle: It is an H-shaped casting mounted on the top of the lathe ways. It provides
support to cross-slide, compound rest and tool post.
B. Cross Slide:

Cross slide is provided with a female dovetail on one side and assembled on the top of the saddle
with its male dove tail .The top surface of the cross slide is provided with T slots to enable fixing
of rear tool post or coolant attachment. Carriage basically provides a mounted or automatic
cross-movement for the cutting tool.
 C. Compound Rest:

Compound rest is present on the top of the cross slide. It supports the tool post and cutting tool in
its various positions.

Compound rest is necessary for turning angles and boring short tapers and forms on forming
tools.

D. Tool Post:

The tool post is mounted on the compound rest. It is used to hold the various cutting tool holders.

The holders rest on a wedge which is shaped on the bottom to fit into a concave-shaped ring
(segmental type), which permits the height of the cutting edge to be adjusted by tilting the tool.

It is fixed on the top slide. It gets its movement by the movement of the saddle, cross slide, and
top slide.

The three types of tool post which are commonly used are:

a) Ring and rocker tool post: It consists of a circular tool post with a slot for accommodating
the tool or tool holder.

b) Quick change tool post

c) Square head tool post.

E. The Apron:

The Apron is fastened to the saddle and hangs over the front of the bed.

Apron consists of the gears and clutches for transmitting motion from the feed rod to the
carriage, and the split nut which engages with the lead screw during cutting threads.

Two types of Apron are extensively used:

1. i) Incorporating drop worm mechanism.

2. ii) Friction or dog clutches.

 Chuck– Chuck is basically used to hold the workpiece, particularly of short length and
large diameter or of irregular shape which can’t be conveniently mounted between
centers. It can be attached to the lathe by screwing on the spindle nose.

There are four (4) different types of chucks are most commonly used in Lathe:
 I. Independent or four jaw chuck:

It is used for irregular shapes, rough castings of square or octagonal in such jobs, where a hole is
to be positioned off the center.

It consists of four jaws and each jaw is independently actuated and adjusted by a key for holding
the job.

II. Three jaw or universal chuck:

It consists of three jaws which move simultaneously by turning a key and the workpiece
automatically remains in the center of the chuck opening.

It is used for holding round, hexagonal bar or other symmetric work.

III. Collet chuck

It is mostly used in the places where production work is required such as in Capstan Lathe or
automats.

It is used for holding the bars of small sizes (below 63mm).

IV. Magnetic chuck:

They are of permanent magnet type or electrically operated. In lathe it does not have a
widespread use.

 Feed Rod:

Feed rod is a power transmission mechanism used for precise linear movement of the carriage
along the longitudinal axis of the lathe. In some lathe machine instead of feed rod lead screws are
used.

 Lead screw:

Lead screw is used mostly in the case when threading operation are to be performed on lathe.

As we know for threading operation requires rotational movement of the job (work piece) and
the linear movement of the tool (tool post).

So rotation of the job is obtained by the chuck and the desired linear motion of the tool-post(as
the lead screw drives the saddle when it is engaged) is provided with the help of lead screw.
 Working Principle of the Lathe Machine:

A Lathe works on the principle of rotating the workpiece and a fixed cutting tool. The
workpiece is held between two rigid and strong supports called center or in a chuck or in face
plate which revolves. Lathe removes the undesired material from a rotating workpiece in the
form of chips with the help of a tool which is transverse across the work and can be fed deep in
the work.

The main function of the lathe is to remove the metal from a job to give it the required shape
and size.The normal cutting operations are performed with the cutting tool fed either parallel or
at right angles to the axis of the work.

The cutting tool can be fed at angle relative to the axis of the work for machining tapers and
angles.

Products which can be made from lathe machine are:

A variety of products can be made from the lathe machine. Some of them are;Nuts, bolts, piston,
Ram, pump part, electric motor parts, sleeves, Air craft parts, gun barrels, candlesticks, train
parts, cue sticks, wooden bowls, baseball bat, crankshaft and many more things.

Types of Lathe Machine:

The widely used type of Lathe Machine can be classified as below:

 Engine Lathe or center Lathe.

 Speed Lathe.
 Turret lathe.
 Capstan Lathe.
 Tool room Lathe.
 Bench Lathe.
 Gap bed lathe.
 Hollow spindle Lathe.
 Vertical Turret Lathe.
 CNC Lathe.

1) Engine Lathe or centre Lathe:

Engine lathe is the most important tool in the Lathe family and by far the most widely used type
of Lathe machine. Its name is derived from the fact that early machine tools were driven by
separate Engines or central engine with overhead belt and shafts.

The operations which can be performed by the Engine Lathe machine are turning, facing,
grooving, knurling, threading, and many more operations can be performed by it.

Engine lathe consist of headstock, Tailstock, bed, saddle, carriage and other parts.
  The headstock encloses the spindle and motor. It also consists of the gear and pulleys,
which are used to change the gear speed and the feed rate.

 Tailstock is provided to facilitate holding the work between centers and permit the use of
tools like drills, taps, etc.
 The cutting tool can be fed both in cross and longitudinal direction with reference to the
lathe axis with the help of the feed rod and the lead screw.

The Engine Lathe are available in sizes to handle to 1m diameter jobs and 1 to 4m long.

2) Turret Lathe:

It is a production machine that is used for the production of products on a large scale.It basically
handles heavy-duty workpieces.

The distinguishing feature of this type of lathe is that the Tailstock is replaced by hexagonal
Turret. In it, the several tools are set up on a revolving turret to facilitate in performing a large
number of operations on a job with minimum wastage of time.The turret usually accommodates
6 tools for different operations like drilling, countersinking, reaming, tapping, etc, which can be
brought into successively working positions by indexing the turret.

Turret lathe are basically used for repetitive batch production.

3) Capstan Lathe:

Capstan Lathe are similar to the Turret lathe. It is used for the mass production of the light duty
workpiece. It incorporates capstan slide which moves on auxiliary slide and can be clamped in
any position.

It is best suited for the production of the small parts because of its light weight and short stroke
of capstan slide.

4) Speed Lathe:
 It is the simplest form of the lathe and consists of a simple Headstock, tailstock and a
tool post.
 It has no gearbox, lead screw and carriage.
 It has a very high speed of the headstock spindle. The speed of the spindle ranges from
1200 to 3600rpm.
 Tools are hand operated. Cone-pulley is the only source provided for speed variation of
the spindle.
 Speed Lathes are intensively used in wood turning, metal spinning and polishing
operation.
 5) Tool Room lathe:
 Tool Room lathe is a modern engine lathe which is equipped with all the necessary
accessories for the accurate tool room work.
 It is best suited for the production of small tools, dies, gauges, etc.
 It is a geared head driven machine with considerable rage in spindle speed and feeds. Its
speed can range from very low to a very high speed of up to 2500 rpm.

6) Bench Lathe:

Bench Lathe machine is a type of small lathe machine which has all the parts of the engine
Lathe machine and speed lathe machine.

It is mounted on a work bench and is used for doing small precision and light jobs.

7) Special purpose Lathe machine:

Special purpose lathe machine is used for performing the specific special tasks which cannot be
performed by ordinary lathe. Some types of special purpose lathe are as follow:

a. Gap bed lathe: In gap bed lathe, gap is provided over the bed near the headstock
to handle the job having flanges or some other protruding parts. Mostly a
removable portion is provided in the bed so that when it is not required it can be
inserted.
b. Wheel lathe: Wheel lathes is special purpose lathe machine which is used for
finishing the journals and turning the tread on locomotive wheels.
c. T- Lathe machine: T- Lathe machine is a type of machine which has T shaped
bed and is used in the aerospace industry for the machining of the rotors of the jet
engine.

8) Automatic Lathe Machine:

As the name suggest automatic Lathe machine is machine in which the complete work and the
job handling movements required for the completion of the job is done automatically.They are
heavy duty, mass production and high-speed machine.

9) CNC Lathe Machine:

Computer Numeric Control (CNC) is the most advanced form of the lathe machine. CNC lathe
machine produces the most accurate products as compared to the other type of the lathe machine.

In CNC Lathe machine program are being fed to the computer system which controls the overall
working of the lathe. CNC lathe machines are used for large scale Production. Semi- skilled
workers are required for the operation of this machine.
 Operations which can be performed on the Lathe Machine:

The operations which can be performed on a lathe machine are as follows:

 Turning
 Facing
 Taper turning
 Eccentric turning
 Boring
 Drilling
 Reaming
 Knurling
 Scroll cutting

i. Turning

Turning is the most common operation performed on the lathe.

Turning is a machining operation in which the diameter of the workpiece is being reduced by
removing the excess material from the outer diameter of the job(workpiece) which is mostly
cylindrical or conical in shape. Turning operation results in good surface finish of the metal.

The various type of turning operation are:

a. Tapered Turning:

Tapered Turning is a machining process in which the cylindrical jobs are being machined to
produce a conical surface. In taper Turning the tapered component will be produced.

The various methods used for Taper Turning are:

1. Compound Rest Method

2. Tail stock Method.
3. Taper Turning Attachment method
4. Form tool Method.

b. Shoulder Turning:

Shoulder Turning is used in the case where several diameters are to be turned on the workpiece.
The surface forming the step from one diameter to the other is called as the shoulder. There are
four kind of shoulder.

ii. Facing operation:

Facing is a process in which the end of the workpiece is being machined by the tool which is at a
right angle to the axis of the rotation of the workpiece. Facing is frequently the first operation
performed in the production of the workpiece and often the last. We can relate it to the phrase”
ending-up”, which will help us in remembering its sequence.

iii. Thread cutting operation:

Thread cutting is a type of operation in which the threads are being cut on the internal and the
outer surface of the workpiece as per the requirement. In the thread cutting operation only the
automatic feed is given.

The automatic feed required for the thread cutting operation is given by using lead screw and
the feed gear box.

127 toothed gear is used for producing Metric threads on engine Lathe. Feed of the lead screw
has to be changed in order to get different pitch of thread on the job. Job speed during threading
is up to 1/4th of the job speed during turning.

iv. Parting:

Parting is operation in which the deep groves are being made on the parent material to remove
the specific portion from the parent material resulting in dividing the workpiece into two or more
parts.

v. Chamfering:

Chamfering is the operation of beveling the extreme end of a workpiece. Chamfering is provided
for:

1. Better look.
2. To enable the nut to pass freely on threaded workpiece.
3. To remove burrs
4. To protect the end of the workpiece from being damaged.

Chamfering is done usually after knurling, thread cutting etc…

vi. Knurling:

The process of making the surface of the work piece rough by embossing (impressing) a
diamond shaped regular pattern on the surface by making use of a knurling tool is called as
knurling operation.

Knurling is done at a lower speed and the plenty of oil is used. Knurling provides effective
gripping surface on workpiece to prevent it from slipping when operated with hand.
 vii. Drilling Operation:

Drilling operation is a type of machining operation which is used to remove the material from the
workpiece by making use of drill bit, which is held stationary in the Tailstock. Finally creating a
hole in the work piece.

Drill bits are generally made up of high-speed steels and carbon steels.

viii. Boring :

Boring is an internal turning operation used for enlarging the existing holes by some amount. It
can further be divided as:

 Counter boring:

Contour boring is an internal turning operation used for enlarging the end of the holes.

 Counter sinking:

Counter Sinking is the operation of conical enlargement of the end of the hole. It requires a large
size drill bit than that required for hole.

ix. Reaming:

Reaming is machining process which is done after drilling to make internal holes of very
accurate diameter. Reaming removes very small amount of material from the holes which are
already drilled.

Specification of the Lathe:

In order to specify the lathe completely the following parameter should be included:

1. a) Length between the two center: It is the measure of the maximum length of the
workpiece that can be fixed between the lathe center.
2. b) Height of the center: The distance between the lathe axis and the lathe bed is called
the height of the center.
3. c) Swing Diameter over the bed: It is the maximum diameter of the workpiece that can
we turned on a lathe without hitting the lathe bed.
4. D) Maximum bar diameter:

It is the maximum diameter of the workpiece that can be passed through the hole in the
headstock.

Other factors for the lathe specification are:

i) Tailstock sleeve travel .ii) Metric thread pitches. iii) Leads crew Pitch.
iv) Motor horse power and RPM. v) shipping dimension— length x width x height x weight.

Applications of Lathe Machine:

The application of lathe machine is widespread base on the machining operations.

Metal working operations, metal spinning, thermal spraying, in automobile industry mainly in
the crankshaft, wood turning, Glass turning operation, for forming screw threads, also used for
reclamation of the parts, etc.

A CNC lathe machine finds extensive use in the several tasks being performed by it in various
industries like:

 Textile
 Power Generation
 Defense
 Medical
 Plastic
 Aerospace
 Automotive
 Automobile industries.

Advantages of the Lathe machine:

Lathe Machine has numerous advantages, some of them are:

i)High Quality Products: Lathe machine specially the CNC Lathe machine produce final
products with high quality.

ii) High Speed: The machining in the lathe can be done a very high speed specially in automatic
and CNC lathe machine.

iii) Saves time:Lathe machine because of its extensive high speed and high accuracy saves a lot
of time, resulting in the increased production.

iv)Saves Money: Lathe machine helps in reducing the cost of machining because less operators
are required for machining.

Disadvantages of Lathe Machine:

i) Initial cost is very high.

ii) High skilled operators are required for the initial setup of CNC machine.

iii) Control systems are complex.

iv) CNC machine cannot be used for small scale production method.

SAFETY PRECAUTIONS WHEN WORKING WITH LATHE MACHINE

 Always be sure that all the guards are in place before running the machine.
 Always clamp the workpiece and tool properly with correct size of work and tool holding
device.
 Always keep the machine clear of tools.
 Always wear on a properly fitted workshop coat, goggle glasses and gloves
 Remove neckties, wrist-watch and jewelries when working.
 Check the work frequently when machining.
 Do not operate the lathe machine without know- how on the proper procedure.
 Check the face-plate or chuck by hand to be sure that there is no danger of the workpiece
touching any part of the lathe.
 Stop the machine and remove chips with pliers, brushes. Do not use bear hands to remove
chips.