What do you use your lathe for?

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

My wife has just been presented with a knurled aluminium handle to go on the potato peeler, to spare her arthritic hands. It took ages to knurl the 3.5 inches!

Apart from the odd job like that, it is a major tool used in making tools, or repairing worn / missing objects.

The Centre Lathe is the king of machine tools, being the only one that can reproduce itself.

Howard

[Anonymous]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 05/07/2019 15:14:52:

The Centre Lathe is the king of machine tools, being the only one that can reproduce itself.

This keeps getting quoted, but I'm at a loss as to how one would create a lathe using only a lathe? Anyone care to enlighten the masses?

Andrew

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember19781]

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[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Don't understand!

Thought that the statement was self explanatory.

With a lathe you can turn or mill. The only limits on what you can do are set by the machine and your ingenuity.

Cutting an internal key way, (I've done several ), or a gear is not impossible.

Howard

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember53456]

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[Anonymous]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 05/07/2019 16:38:22:

With a lathe you can turn or mill. The only limits on what you can do are set by the machine and your ingenuity.

Yebbut, on a mill you can mill and turn, so a mill could be used to reproduce itself too.

Andrew

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember53456]

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[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

In a forge you can make a hammer with a hammer…

[Bob McParticipant @bobmc91481]

I can now grind the edges of milling cutters on my Arduino controlled lathe…the ones I have ground have a pitch of 80mm. Bob.

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember19781]

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[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

If we are going to be pedantic, pouring liquid metal is not a machining process, any more than painting the finished article. Neither involves cutting material, which is what machine tools do.

Howard

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember53456]

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[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Howard, well talking about being pedantic, if a lathe is going to reproduce itself, then everything about it will have to be the same shape and size and of the same material. Pretty tall order I would think. Might be able to produce a similar smaller lathe, but as has been said, a mill should be able to make a similar smaller mill.

Regards Nick.

[BufferParticipant @buffer]

Surely a lathe could make a lathe if you don't include making the bed as that could be cast then scraped.

A mill cant make a mill because how do you make the spindles and circular bits with a mill?

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Would the main difference between a lathe and mill be that on a lathe we rotate the work and on a mill we rotate the cutter, I know that the opposite is possible on both machines but the primary functions are opposite.

Mike

[Anonymous]

Posted by Richard brown 1 on 05/07/2019 18:36:35:

A mill cant make a mill because how do you make the spindles and circular bits with a mill?

Yes it can, use your imagination!

A horizontal mill can be used to turn short, large diameter parts that would otherwise be too large. See here:

**LINK**

Andrew

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 05/07/2019 17:56:07:

If we are going to be pedantic, pouring liquid metal is not a machining process, any more than painting the finished article. Neither involves cutting material, which is what machine tools do.

Howard

There are lathes with round beds? Drummond comes to mind instantly, but there was a recent thread on a very much precision jobbie that was used by/for Rolls Royce? One could well simply buy in hydraulic ram piston rods for the purpose.

[BufferParticipant @buffer]

Posted by Andrew Johnston on 05/07/2019 19:06:34:

Posted by Richard brown 1 on 05/07/2019 18:36:35:

A mill cant make a mill because how do you make the spindles and circular bits with a mill?

Yes it can, use your imagination!

A horizontal mill can be used to turn short, large diameter parts that would otherwise be too large. See here:

**LINK**

Andrew

I had seen something like that in ME but I'd like to see you make a leadscrew on a mill

[Anonymous]

Posted by Richard brown 1 on 06/07/2019 09:28:42:

I had seen something like that in ME but I'd like to see you make a leadscrew on a mill

Not a problem. This is a picture of milling a high helix angle helical gear. It wouldn't be difficult to extend it to a leadscrew:

Thread milling is described in many old school books on milling.

Andrew

[egaParticipant @ega]

Couldn't that wrench have been mounted on a lathe's cross slide for boring?

I suspect most shop-made lathes have been the result of both lathe and mill.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

I don't see any reason why you couldn't make a lathe with a lathe, other than size. They are versatile machine tools.

In this CAD lash up the spindle, faceplate, and pulley are basic lathe jobs as is boring the headstock and tail-stock, and making any threads needed. (Didn't bother with a tool-post because it too could be very simple.)

The headstock, tailstock and bed are facing jobs, not difficult on a lathe provided the blocks of metal physically fit. Hardest is the slot in the bed, again only difficult because plenty of room across the saddle is needed. Not insoluble.

All this could be done on an ordinary general purpose lathe like wot I have. But we're not restricted to that. Why not make a couple of large lathe set-ups just to make big lathe parts? Dumping all conveniences would keep the lathes very simple. Might feature a wooden frame with large diameter faceplate, no precision bed, a fixed tailstock, and require careful setting-up. A second simple lathe could specialise in boring, and a third might make round parts only.

In the real world it's cheaper to make lathes using several manufacturing techniques: casting, grinding, drilling, milling & turning etc. But good lathes could be produced by going back to basics. The only component I'm not sure of making on a simple lathe is the lead-screw. Unless someone knows otherwise, that has to be made by hand in the first instance and then, by measuring and compensating for errors, used to make more refined versions until an acceptable level of accuracy is reached.

Dave

PS Aren't lathes the Queen of machine tools? Surely lathes are feminine.

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