Understanding Basic Lathes For Beginners

Table of Contents

The basic principle of the lathe process is to scrape objects and make them into a certain shape as desired, such as for making spare parts, materials and other supporting needs.

Having a lathe in the industry is certainly beneficial because it will increase productivity and time efficiency as well as cost efficiency. If you need spare parts, materials or repairs, you can provide them yourself with a set schedule.

This is certainly supported by lathe operators who have been able to operate lathes and produce quality workpieces. This operator's ability is not instantaneous but goes through a journey of learning about lathes.

The intended lathe operator learning includes a basic understanding to the level of how to operate and maintain a lathe.

In this discussion we will get to know the main parts of a lathe which is a basic understanding in completing lathe learning for beginners or new employees in the industry.

We see the picture below is the position of the main parts of the manual lathe. For automatic lathes, the parts are actually the same, the difference is how to operate them, for example, automatic lathes with the CNC program.

From the picture above it is known that a lathe has at least 8 parts:

• Head Stock
• Chuck
• Tool Post
• Tail Stock
• Feed Shafts
• Carriage
• Lead Screws
• Bed

Head stock can be said as a means of transmitting the speed of the electric motor rotation to the spindle rotation speed. This spindle speed can be adjusted according to the gear ratio setting in the head stock.

Because the head stock transmission gears rub against each other, it is necessary to pay attention to the lubrication system. Is the oil still at the appropriate level as seen on the sight glass head stock, is there an oil leak and is the oil still good for lubricating gear transmission.

Usually, the head stock transmission gear oil is replaced every year or when the oil is dirty, whichever comes first. The type of oil used has a high viscosity or use SAE 140 oil.

Spindle head stock serves as a place to install the chuck so that the rotational speed of the spindle head stock is the same as the rotational speed of the chuck.

Chuck has chuck jaws for gripping the workpiece to be formed. Each chuck has 3, 4 or 6 chuck jaws.

The tail stock and bed are considered 1 unit because the tail stock is above the bed machine while the tail stock will be attached with work equipment including drill bits, flashlights and drill chucks.

The carriage will direct the tool post toward or away from the workpiece, across and in the direction at the desired angle. The tool post itself is a place to clamp or install various types of lathe cutting tools

One of the most frequently used lathe cutting tools is the lathe chisel because lathe chisels can make various shapes of workpieces according to engineering drawings such as lathe surfaces, levels, flat, tapered, champer, grooves, threads, enlarging holes and cutting

Lathe tools can be made from one of 6 types of materials including carbon steel, high speed steel, non-ferrous cast alloys, carbide, ceramic, CBN (Cubic Boron Nitride) and diamond.

Next is the Carriage section. The shifting of the carriage is carried out on the work function of the lead screw and the feed shaft. The difference between the lead screw and the feed shaft is the shape of the surface, the lead screw is threaded while the surface of the feed shaft is flat.