Lathe turning operations are where round parts need to be made the right dimensions. Instead of spinning the mill bit, like on a Milling Machine, the part is spinning and the bit is moved along the surfaces of the part.
The lathe is one of the most important inventions of our era as any machine in existence requires something round to make it either rotate or move in any direction. As the wheel is the essence of rolling action, and rolling action is what makes screws rotate, gears mesh and rotate, engines to spin and so forth.
Step 1 part is located
Step 2 Main Body is turned
Step 3 Part is Flipped
Step 4 Main Body Again is trimmed to the end, then light face is trimmed.
In our operations typically round parts are being modified to be trued up. For example one of our customers has several parts that are cast round. One part is a light can. The can requires several surfaces to be cleaned up. The part itself must be located initially, trued up and then the rest of the operations follow, even the repositioning of the part to do the opposite end.
The lathe is also used to perform simple clean up operations, or secondary operations on cast urethane parts. Sometimes the challenge of actually gripping the part uniformly is presented and in this case a 3d printed urethane filled fixture was used to grip the part securely while trimming the parts end.
