Lathe machine that was developed in earlier period of time was only a simple manual operated machine equipped with basic features for ordinary material reshaping tasks. The earlier lathe machines were capable of just reshaping and forming the cylindrical components out of hard materials like wood, plastics, metal and so on. But later on with introduction of newer technologies, the lathes became highly advanced with several complicated features and components hence enabling much variety and more complicated tasks to be executed with ease.
Lathe machine today has got different forms. For example there are light duty lathe machines specifically designed for lighter operations as well as those which can be applied for heavy work loads or bulk shaping operations with ease. There are machines that are manually operated as well as those which are designed for completely automatic, faster and accurate operations. An example of such lathe designed for accuracy and speed in material shaping tasks is the all geared lathe machine.
An all geared lathe machine used for shaping or cutting of metals, wood or plastics has usually gears equipped in its headstock and is efficiently designed for speed adjustment for efficiency and swiftness in work.
Some of the basic components as found in the modern all geared lathe machine tools are as follows. The detail description about components and all geared lathe machine, you can get from Yash Machine Tool Website.
Bed
Bed refers to the base or bottom part of the lathe machine on which various working parts of the lathe including the head stock, tail stock, spindle, carriage slide and much more are placed. Just as in any lathe machine, even in all geared lathe, it is the bed of the machine which speaks about its quality. Stronger the bed of a lathe means a stronger and durable the lathe is for better operations.
Headstock
Headstock is one of the most important components of all geared lathe machine that carries spindle and the mechanism to drive this spindle. An all geared headstock is more complicated than an ordinary belt-driven headstock. It is equipped with gears which can be used to adjust the speed of the headstock thereby enabling a convenient operation of the machine to carry out a specific task with the required speed. The gears of an all geared lathe are similar to the gears of an automobile except that these have more gear shifting combinations that enable more changes in speed to be done. Hence you can adjust your lathe for variant speeds. Attached to this headstock is a speed index plate which indicates the lever positions for the spindle speeds.
Headstock Spindle
Headstock spindle is an element of lathe which actually is responsible for the cutting tasks of the machine. It is this part that drives the work piece against the cutting tool and even drives the carriage that inserts the cutting tool into the work piece.
Tailstock
Tailstock is a part of the lathe where the drills, reamers, and drill chucks are held. It is this place on the machine that the dead center carrying other end of the work piece is held (work piece is clamped between two centers). This can moved along the length of bed to accommodate work piece of different lengths.
Carriage
Carriage is the component which homes the cutting tool responsible for cutting of the work piece. It carries the cross feed slide and the compound rest which holds this cutting tool. Carriage moves along the length of the bed for performing the cutting operation.
There are various other parts found in a lathe machine and may also vary with type of the lathe machine. But the above mentioned components are a few basic ones which are found in almost every lathe machine except the all geared headstock which is replaced by belt-driven models in ordinary lathe machines employed at workshops and industries like light duty lathes, heavy duty lathe machine, extra heavy duty lathe machines etc.
This article educates reader about components in an all geared lathe machine.