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Wood Turning Lathe Machine

Wood lathe is a kind of wood machine that can turn wood into different shapes. We usually know two kinds of wood lathes, which include wood lathe with hand-held tools and wood lathe with CNC(Computer Number Control). Wood lathes are typically used to shape wood into cylindrical profiles. Objects made by a wood turning lathe include lamp posts, furniture legs, baseball bats, wood columns, bowls, vases, wood crafts and other ornamental forms. Wood lathe tooling includes securing and fixturing devices for the workpiece, a moveable tool rest, and hand-held lathe tools in the form of long handled scrapers, gouges, skews and parting tools. Some specialty toolings are also available for surface processing and internal shaping. Although wood lathes can take many forms depending on the primary turning operation, those on campus include the driven or rotating headstock, lathe bed, tailstock for longer objects, and an adjustable tool rest. You may call wood lathe as wood lathe machine, wood turning machine, wood turning lathe.

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How Does A Wood Lathe Work?

How does a Wood Lathe Work?

The wood lathe enjoys a special place among all wood machines. It combines the art of hand tool work and the mechanical operation of a modern machine, and may be considered as a complete unit in itself on which a complete project may be made without the aid of other machines or tools.

Other wood machines we have used have revolving knives or blades that pass over or through the work. It works in reverse, the work is revolved and the chisels are held more or less stationary.

It is a machine which is easy to operate. However, the ability to produce good turnings quickly and accurately requires considerable skill. This can be acquired only by a knowledge of the correct methods of turning and practice in the use of the wood turning lathe machine, because the tools are manipulated entirely by hand, a process which constitutes the art of woodturning.

It is often referred to as a speed lathe machine. This distinguishes it from a screw-cutting metal lathe machine. The principal parts of typical wood turning lathe machine are the bed, the headstock, the tailstock, and the tool rest. The bed is the main I Beamshaped cast iron base; the uppar surface is machined and is called the "ways". The headstock is the business end of the lathe which makes the wood revolve. It consists of a hollow spindle on which the pulley is attached at one end and the spur or live center at the other. The spur on most lathes is held to the hollow spindle which is internally ground to a morse taper by a friction fit because the shank of the spur is ground to an identical taper. The spur can easily be removed by inserting a wood turning lathe machine rod through the hollow shaft from the pulley end and tapping the spur.

The tailstock is machined so that it slides along the ways and can be clamped at any desired spot. The dead center is mounted in the tailstock in the same manner as the live center is held in the headstock. The two centers are the same height from the bed and in line with each other. There are two types of dead center.

1. The cup center.
2. The cone center.

The cup center is the one used on most modern lathes because it does not require a hole to be drilled to center the stock.

The tool rest is an important part of the lathe machine. It consists of two parts: the base which can be slid along the bed, and the tool rest which fits into the base and may be raised or lowered. Different-sized tool rests may be fitted in a standard tool rest base.

There are two general types of wood turning lathe machine:

1. "Spindle Turning" - Turning work between centers.
2. "Face Plate Turning" - Mounting and turning the work on a Hat metal face plate which is attached to the headstock in place of the spur center.