LATHE MACHINES

Basic Operation of a Lathe

A lathe is a machine tool which turns cylindrical material, touches a cutting tool to it, and cuts the material. The lathe is one of the machine tools most well used by machining (Figure 1). As shown in Figure 2, a material is firmly fixed to the chuck of a lathe. The lathe is switched on and the chuck is rotated. And since the table which fixed the byte can be moved in the vertical direction, and the right-and-left direction by operating some handles shown in Fig. 3. It touches a byte's tip into the material by the operation, and make a mechanical part.


CAUTIONS

When we use a lathe, the following things must take great care.(1) Don't keep a chuck handle attached by the chuck. Next, it flies at the moment of turning a lathe. (2) Don't touch the byte table into the rotating chuck. Not only a byte but the table or the lathe are damaged.


Three Important Elements

In orger to get an efficient propcess and beautiful surface at the lathe machining, it is important to adjust a rotating speed, a cutting depth and a sending speed. Please note that the important elements can not decide easily, because these suitable values are quiet different by materials, size and shapes of the part.


Rotating Speed

It expresses with the number of rotations (rpm) of the chuck of a lathe. When the rotating speed is high, processing speed becomes quick, and a processing surface is finely finished. However, since a little operation mistakes may lead to the serious accident, it is better to set low rotating speed at the first stage.

Cutting Depth

The cutting depth of the tool affects to the processing speed and the roughness of surface. When the cutting depth is big, the processing speed becomes quick, but the surface temperature becomes high, and it has rough surface. Moreover, a life of byte also becomes short. If you do not know a suitable cutting depth, it is better to set to small value.

Sending Speed (Feed)

The sending speed of the tool also affects to the processing speed and the roughness of surface. When the sending speed is high, the processing speed becomes quick. When the sending speed is low, the surface is finished beautiful. There are 'manual sending' which turns and operates a handle, and 'automatic sending' which advances a byte automatically. A beginner must use the manual sending. Because serious accidents may be caused, such as touching the rotating chuck around the byte in automatic sending,.