Lathes are machine tools that mainly use turning tools to turn rotating workpieces. Drills, reamer drills, reamers, taps, dies and knurling tools can also be used on lathes for corresponding processing. Lathes are mainly used to process shafts, discs, sleeves and other workpieces with rotating surfaces. They are the most widely used type of machine tools in machinery manufacturing and repair factories.
As early as the ancient Egyptian era, people had invented the technology of turning wood with tools while rotating it around its central axis. At first, people used two upright trees as supports to support the wood to be turned, used the elastic force of the branches to roll the rope onto the wood, and pulled the rope by hand or foot to rotate the wood, and cut it with the tool in hand.
This ancient method gradually evolved and developed into a method of winding two or three turns of rope on the pulley, the rope was placed on an elastic rod bent into a bow shape, and the bow was pushed and pulled back and forth to rotate the processed object for turning. This is the "bow lathe".
In the Middle Ages, someone designed a "pedal lathe" that used pedals to rotate the crankshaft and drive the flywheel, and then transmitted it to the main shaft to rotate it. In the middle of the 16th century, a French designer named Besson designed a lathe for turning screws that used a screw rod to slide the tool. Unfortunately, this lathe was not promoted and used.
In the 18th century, someone designed a lathe that used pedals and connecting rods to rotate the crankshaft, which could store the rotational kinetic energy on the flywheel, and developed from directly rotating the workpiece to rotating the headstock, which is a chuck for clamping the workpiece.
This lathe has a precision lead screw and interchangeable gears.
Maudsley was born in 1771. At the age of 18, he was the right-hand man of the inventor Bramer. It is said that Bramer had been doing farm work. At the age of 16, he had to switch to carpentry work with low mobility because of an accident that caused his right ankle to be disabled. His first invention was the flush toilet in 1778. Maudsley began to help Bramer design hydraulic presses and other machinery until he left Bramer at the age of 26 because Bramer rudely rejected Moritz's request to increase his salary to more than 30 shillings per week.
In the same year that Maudsley left Bramer, he made the first thread lathe, which was an all-metal lathe with a tool holder and tailstock that could move along two parallel guide rails. The guide surface of the guide rail is triangular, and when the spindle rotates, the lead screw drives the tool holder to move horizontally. This is the main mechanism of modern lathes, and this lathe can be used to turn precision metal screws of any pitch.
Three years later, Maudsley made a more complete lathe in his own workshop, with gears that can be replaced with each other to change the feed speed and the pitch of the thread being processed. In 1817, another Englishman, Roberts, adopted a four-stage pulley and back wheel mechanism to change the spindle speed. Soon, larger lathes came out, making great contributions to the invention of steam engines and other machinery.
In order to improve the degree of mechanization and automation, in 1845, Fitch of the United States invented the turret lathe; in 1848, the return wheel lathe appeared in the United States; in 1873, Spencer of the United States made a single-axis automatic lathe, and soon he made a three-axis automatic lathe; in the early 20th century, a lathe with a gear transmission driven by a single motor appeared. Due to the invention of high-speed tool steel and the application of electric motors, lathes have been continuously improved and finally reached the modern level of high speed and high precision.
After the First World War, due to the needs of the arms, automobile and other machinery industries, various high-efficiency automatic lathes and specialized lathes developed rapidly. In order to improve the productivity of small batches of workpieces, lathes with hydraulic profiling devices were promoted in the late 1940s, and at the same time, multi-tool lathes were also developed. In the mid-1950s, program-controlled lathes with punch cards, latch plates, and dials were developed. CNC technology began to be used in lathes in the 1960s and developed rapidly after the 1970s.
Ordinary lathes have a wide range of processing objects, a large adjustment range of spindle speed and feed rate, and can process the inner and outer surfaces, end faces, and inner and outer threads of workpieces. This type of lathe is mainly operated manually by workers, with low production efficiency, and is suitable for single-piece, small-batch production and repair workshops. Turret lathes and rotary lathes have turret tool holders or return wheel tool holders that can hold multiple tools. Workers can use different tools in sequence to complete multiple processes in one clamping of the workpiece, which is suitable for batch production.
Automatic lathes can automatically complete multi-process processing of small and medium-sized workpieces according to a certain procedure, can automatically load and unload materials, and repeatedly process a batch of the same workpieces, which is suitable for large-scale and mass production.
Multi-tool semi-automatic lathes are divided into single-axis, multi-axis, horizontal and vertical types. The layout of the single-axis horizontal lathe is similar to that of an ordinary lathe, but the two sets of tool holders are installed in front of and behind the spindle or above and below, and are used to process disks, rings and shafts. Its productivity is 3 to 5 times higher than that of an ordinary lathe.
The copy lathe can automatically complete the processing cycle of the workpiece according to the shape and size of the template or sample. It is suitable for small batch and batch production of workpieces with more complex shapes. The productivity is 10 to 15 times higher than that of an ordinary lathe. There are multiple tool holders, multiple axes, chuck type, vertical type and other types.
The spindle of the vertical lathe is perpendicular to the horizontal plane, the workpiece is clamped on a horizontal rotary table, and the tool holder moves on a beam or column. It is suitable for processing larger, heavier workpieces that are difficult to install on ordinary lathes. It is generally divided into two categories: single column and double column.
While turning, the tool holder of the tooth relief lathe periodically reciprocates radially, which is used to form the tooth surface of the forklift milling cutter, hob, etc. It is usually equipped with a relief grinding attachment, and the tooth surface is relieved by a small grinding wheel driven by a separate motor.
Special lathes are lathes used to process specific surfaces of certain types of workpieces, such as crankshaft lathes, camshaft lathes, wheel lathes, axle lathes, roll lathes and ingot lathes.
Combined lathes are mainly used for turning, but with the addition of some special parts and accessories, they can also be used for boring, milling, drilling, inserting, grinding and other processing. They have the characteristics of "one machine with multiple functions" and are suitable for repair work on engineering vehicles, ships or mobile repair stations.
Although factory handicrafts are relatively backward, they have trained and created many technicians. Although they are not experts in making machines, they can make various hand tools, such as knives, saws, needles, drills, cones, grinders, shafts, sleeves, gears, bed frames, etc. In fact, machines are assembled from these parts.
Speaking of boring machines, we have to talk about Leonardo da Vinci first. This legendary figure may be the designer of the earliest boring machine used for metal processing. The boring machine he designed is powered by hydraulic or foot pedals. The boring tool rotates close to the workpiece, and the workpiece is fixed on a mobile table driven by a crane. In 1540, another painter painted a painting of "Pyrotechnics", which also had the same boring machine picture. At that time, the boring machine was specially used for finishing hollow castings.
In the 17th century, due to military needs, the cannon manufacturing industry developed rapidly, and how to make cannon barrels became a major problem that people urgently needed to solve.
The world's first real boring machine was invented by Wilkinson in 1775. In fact, to be precise, Wilkinson's boring machine is a drilling machine that can accurately process cannons. It is a hollow cylindrical boring bar with both ends mounted on bearings.
Wilkinson was born in the United States in 1728. When he was 20 years old, he moved to Staffordshire and built the first ironmaking furnace in Bilston. Therefore, Wilkinson was called "the master blacksmith of Staffordshire". In 1775, after continuous efforts in his father's factory, the 47-year-old Wilkinson finally created this new machine that can drill cannon barrels with rare accuracy. Interestingly, after Wilkinson died in 1808, he was buried in a cast iron coffin designed by himself.
If there were no steam engines, the first wave of the Industrial Revolution would not have been possible at that time. In addition to the necessary social opportunities, the development and application of the steam engine itself also require some technical prerequisites that cannot be ignored, because the manufacture of steam engine parts is far from as easy as a carpenter cutting wood. To make metal into some special shapes, and the processing precision is high, it is impossible without the corresponding technical equipment. For example, in the manufacture of the cylinder and piston of the steam engine, the precision of the outer diameter required in the piston manufacturing process can be measured from the outside while cutting, but to meet the precision requirements of the inner diameter of the cylinder, it is not easy to use general processing methods.
Smithon was the best mechanical technician in the 18th century. Smithon designed as many as 43 waterwheels and windmills. When making steam engines, Smithon felt the most difficult part was processing the cylinder. It is quite difficult to machine the inner circle of a large cylinder into a circle. For this reason, Smeaton made a special machine tool for cutting the inner circle of the cylinder at the Karen Iron Works. This boring machine, which is driven by a water wheel, has a tool installed at the front end of its long shaft. This tool can rotate in the cylinder to process its inner circle. Since the tool is installed at the front end of the long shaft, problems such as shaft deflection will occur, so it is very difficult to machine a truly round cylinder. For this reason, Smeaton had to change the position of the cylinder many times for processing.
For this problem, the boring machine invented by Wilkinson in 1774 played a big role. This boring machine uses a water wheel to rotate the material cylinder and align it with the tool fixed in the center. Due to the relative movement between the tool and the material, the material is bored into a cylindrical hole with high precision. At that time, the boring machine made a cylinder with a diameter of 72 inches, and the error did not exceed the thickness of a six-pence coin. This is a big error measured by modern technology, but under the conditions at that time, it was not easy to achieve this level.
However, Wilkinson's invention was not patented, and people copied and installed it. In 1802, Watt also talked about Wilkinson's invention in his book and copied it in his Soho Iron Works. Later, Watt also used Wilkinson's magical machine when manufacturing the cylinder and piston of the steam engine. It turned out that for the piston, the size can be measured outside while cutting, but it is not so simple for the cylinder, and a boring machine must be used. At that time, Watt used a water wheel to rotate the metal cylinder and let the tool fixed in the center move forward to cut the inside of the cylinder. As a result, the error of the 75-inch diameter cylinder was less than the thickness of a coin, which was very advanced at the time.
People made many improvements to Wilkinson's boring machine. In 1885, Hutton of England manufactured a boring machine with a lifting table, which has become the prototype of the modern boring machine.
In the 19th century, the British invented boring machines and planers for the needs of the industrial revolution such as steam engines, while the Americans focused on the invention of milling machines in order to produce a large number of weapons. A milling machine is a machine with milling cutters of various shapes, which can cut workpieces of special shapes, such as spiral grooves, gear shapes, etc. As early as 1664, British scientist Hooke made a machine for cutting by rotating circular cutters, which can be regarded as a primitive milling machine, but the society did not respond enthusiastically to it at that time. In the 1840s, Pratt designed the so-called Lincoln milling machine. Of course, it was the American Whitney who truly established the position of milling machines in machine manufacturing.
Whitney made the world's first ordinary milling machine in 1818, but the patent for the milling machine was obtained by the British Bodmer (the inventor of the gantry planer with a tool feeding device) in 1839. Since the milling machine was too expensive, few people were interested in it at that time.
After a period of silence, the milling machine became active again in the United States. In contrast, Whitney and Pratt can only be said to have done foundational work for the invention and application of milling machines. The real credit for inventing a milling machine that can be applied to various factory operations should be attributed to American engineer Joseph Brown.
In 1862, Brown of the United States manufactured the world's first universal milling machine, which was a groundbreaking innovation in terms of being equipped with a universal indexing plate and a comprehensive milling cutter. The workbench of the universal milling machine can rotate a certain angle in the horizontal direction and is equipped with accessories such as a vertical milling head. The "universal milling machine" he designed was a great success when it was exhibited at the Paris Exposition in 1867. At the same time, Brown also designed a forming milling cutter that would not deform after grinding, and then manufactured a grinder for grinding milling cutters, bringing milling machines to the current level.
In the process of invention, many things are often complementary and interlocking: in order to manufacture steam engines, boring machines are needed; after the invention of steam engines, planers are needed from the process requirements. It can be said that it was the invention of steam engines that led to the design and development of "machine tools" from boring machines and lathes to planers. In fact, a planer is a "plane" for planing metal.
1. Planer for processing large planes (1839)
Since the plane processing of steam engine valve seats needs to start from the beginning of the 19th century, many technicians have begun research in this area, including Richard Robert, Richard Pratt, James Fox and Joseph Clement, who independently manufactured planers in 25 years from 1814. This gantry planer fixes the workpiece on a reciprocating platform, and the planer cuts one side of the workpiece. However, this planer does not have a tool feeding device and is in the process of transformation from "tool" to "machine". In 1839, a British man named Bodmer finally designed a planer with a knife feeding device.
2. Shaper for processing small planes
Another British man, Nesmith, invented and manufactured a planer for processing small planes in 40 years from 1831. It can fix the processing object on the bed, and the tool moves back and forth. Since then, due to the improvement of tools and the emergence of electric motors, the planer has developed in the direction of high-speed cutting and high precision on the one hand, and in the direction of large-scale on the other hand.
Grinding is an ancient technology known to mankind since ancient times. In the Paleolithic Age, this technology was used to grind stone tools. Later, with the use of metal tools, the development of grinding technology was promoted. However, the design of a truly grinding machine is still a modern thing. Even in the early 19th century, people still grind by rotating natural grinding stones and letting them contact the processed objects.
In 1864, the United States made the world's first grinding machine. This is a device that installs a grinding wheel on the slide tool holder of a lathe and enables it to have automatic transmission. Twelve years later, Brown in the United States invented a universal grinder that is close to modern grinding machines.
The demand for artificial grinding stones also emerged. How to develop a grinding stone that is more wear-resistant than natural grinding stones? In 1892, American Acheson successfully trial-produced silicon carbide made of coke and sand, which is an artificial grinding stone called C abrasive; two years later, A abrasive with aluminum oxide as the main component was successfully trial-produced, so that grinding machines were more widely used.
Later, due to further improvements in bearings and guide rails, the accuracy of grinding machines became higher and higher, and they developed in the direction of specialization, and internal grinding machines, surface grinding machines, roller grinding machines, gear grinding machines and universal grinding machines appeared.
Archaeologists have discovered that humans invented a device for drilling holes in 4000 BC. The ancients set up a beam on two pillars, and then hung a rotating cone from the beam, and then used a bowstring to drive the cone to rotate, so that holes could be drilled in wood and stone. Soon, people also designed a drilling tool called "windlass", which also used elastic bowstrings to make the cone rotate.
Around 1850, the German Martinoni first made a twist drill for metal drilling; at the International Exposition held in London, England in 1862, the British Whitworth exhibited a power-driven cast iron cabinet drilling machine, which became the prototype of the modern drilling machine.
Later, various drilling machines appeared one after another, including radial drilling machines, drilling machines with automatic feed mechanisms, multi-axis drilling machines that can drill multiple holes at the same time, etc. Due to the improvement of tool materials and drill bits, and the use of electric motors, large-scale, high-performance drilling machines were finally manufactured.
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