1.

SPEED LATHE/WOOD LATHE

Remember the Baseball bat, wooden bowl?
These are some of the products which can be easily made on wooden lathes or speed
lathes. As name suggest,there is a high speed spindle which can be operate in 3 to 4
varying speeds ,near 1000 to 2100 rpm,by shifting the position of the drive belts on the
pulley system.

Yes it is very simple in design because the components like gearbox ,feed rod, leadscrew,
carriage, are not the part of these lathes which make it more simple and easy to operate
in any condition. the major components of these lathes are headstock, tailstock, tool
rest, and bed.

unlike other lathes, there is less precision in these lathes since the cutting tool is
operated by hand. so these lathes require good skill and steady hands to provide spick
and span contours and smooth curves accurately on the workpiece.
Operations that can be done on these lathes are wood turning, metal spinning,
polishing, centering.

2. ENGINE LATHE
Do you want to do operations like turning, drilling, boring, reaming, knurling etc. on a
metal? (in short metal machining)
Then have a glance on this.
It all started during the 19th and 20th century when the Engine lathes were considers
as the ‘KING’ of allmachines. It was one of the most common machine set up in every
blacksmith shop. The usage of word “engine” is little confusing here. During its early
days it was operated on the steam engines, as steam engines were the major invention
and power source during the industrial revolution, and with the advancement of time
it shifted it power source to the motors( concerning eco-friendly environment).
Due to availability for low and high power operation these are widely used in industries
and available in many sizes which can vary up to 60 feet.

Now come to its major mounting parts like headstock, tailstock, carriage, compound
rest, cross slide, lead screw, feed rod etc. All are mounted on the machine in which
headstock and tailstock are mounted in the longitudinal direction of machine with gear
selector, rpm selector, feed selector in the former and barrel in the later one. More
importantly, similar to speed lathe, headstock contain spindle which has a wide range of
speed ratios in the presence of gearbox.

Carriage travels in the longitudinal direction of the bed for the turning operation.

Compound rest and cross slide are mounted on the top of the carriage to provide
angular movement and cross or transverse movement.

Lead screw is used to make threads on the work piece and feed rod is used to give the
linear moment to the carriage in the longitudinal direction of the machine.

3. TOOL–ROOM LATHE:
What if I want make precision tools and products?
Some products like metal die, precision tools, jigs and fixture require more precision
and accuracy to work; in that case tool room lathe machines are used.

Unlike engine lathes, these are much more precise and accurate.

These are also well-known as the standard manufacturing lathes and are used for
various operations such as boring, drilling, turning, reaming, producing screw threads,
knurling, taper turning, and sometimes adapted for the special milling operations with
the appropriate fixture.

These have gearbox attached in the headstock which provide wide range of speeds
ratios, can vary from a very low speed to a very high speed, and extended range of
thread pitches.
4. CAPSTAN AND TURRET LATHE:
What if someone wants to go for a mass production?
Because mass production produce work piece in large quantities with duplicate
products, which by nature known as interchangeability, reduces error, saves time.

All this can be done by using capstan and turret lathe.

It is essentially a tool for production of work piece in large quantities with duplicate
products, which by nature are usually interchangeable. It is used where sequence of
operations are required on the work piece.

Unlike engine lathe, these machines have hexagonal turret mounted on saddle instead
of tailstock on which multiple tools may be fitted and feed into the work with proper
sequence which also reduces the time to remove work piece from one machine and to
hold it on another for various operations such as turning, drilling, boring, reaming,
knurling etc. by manually or automatically alter the tool position which also reduces the
chances of error in alignment and machining process.

For operating these machines not so skilled labors are required. Whatsoever skill is
needed of the operator is the setting of the tools in the turret or capstan head, and after
the completion of this task further operations of these machines are automatic.

The difference between turret and capstan lathe is only that the capstan lathe is
somewhat enhanced version of turret lathe. Unlike turret lathe, hexagonal turret is
mounted on the ram and which can move in the longitudinal direction of the machine.
These ram is provided to absorb the vibrations.
5. SPECIAL PURPOSE LATHE:
These lathes are constructed for special product making which cannot be performed on
the standard lathes. As the name suggest, these lathes are used for special purpose such
as heavy duty production of identical parts. Some example of special lathes include
Automatic lathes, Crankshaft lathes, Vertical lathes, Wheel lathes, Multispindle lathes,
Production lathes, Bench type jewelers lathes etc.

Wheel lathes
These are very large in size and made for turning solid wheels and tired wheel worn out
treads of locomotive wheels, roadways wheels etc. into a proper required profile by
removing spots, shelling, unwanted shapes.

Bench type jewelers lathes

These are the miniature of standard lathes which are designed for the machining of the
small parts with greater precision. it contain collet type chuck, feed screw, precise
manual cross feed etc.. Since the controls and feeds are calibrated in smaller increment
which result in better precision of the work piece.

Automatic lathes
With the advancement of technology there is a transition from manually to
semiautomatic to automatic lathes. These are high speed, heavy duty, mass production
lathes in which all the job handling operations and all the processing operations are
done automatically.eg. Single spindle automat, swiss type automatic lathe, etc.

Crankshaft lathe
It carries all the attachments like taper turning, threading etc. it is used for turning very
long parts such as Turbine, Engine shafts and Crank shafts.
Vertical lathes
These machines are employed for jobs like heavy and dense flywheel, large gear blanks
etc.
Vertical lathe machine is similar to the horizontal lathe in which the machine stands up
on its ends. Some industries use this instead of horizontal lathe because sometimes
space comes up as a constraint. While others prefer it for doing turning and boring on
large and heavy rotating parts which cannot be otherwise supported on
other lathes.ithave a heavy and dense base to the lowermost part which carries a face
plate to grasp the work piece.

6. CNC LATHES:
One of the most prevaliling technology through which and shape and size can be
machined into a desired product.
Computer numeric control (CNC) has been incorporated into variety of new technology
and machinery ,in this case known as CNC lathes.It has been quickly replacing some
traditional and old lathes since the advancement in this technology ,which results in top
notch accuracy and precision.it can be easily setup and no skill set is required to
operate,though skill is required to programmed the tool path which often done by CAD
or CAM process,then coded files are updated to CNC machine which produce desired
path for which it was programmed to design the product.operator can actually see a
visual simulation of how the machine will works during the production phase.