Mill, lathe

= Mill, lathe = From most kind Alberto we have received a Nantong vertical mill and a lathe.

Lets read about it before breaking something.

Alberto is the lathemaster. 0544209910 base10 PLUS 10 base 2

LESSON 1
DO NOT USE THE LATHE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, INCLUDING KNOWING ALL THE RULES ESPECIALLY THOSE OF LESSON 1, NAMELY, DO NOT USE THE LATHE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, ETC.

LESSON 2
consider the lathe.



It is a noble instrument to be used for good. The crude representation above cannot do justice to the work of art we have.



The lathe has a 'headstock' which is a revolvulating doo-dad that holds the 'work' aka the item you would like to shape, by means of scraping off metal. Observe the headstock, above. The headstock is designed to grasp an object of cylindrical (or threefold (or multiple thereof)) symmetry. There are two feed levers which can each disengage the feed screw from power, or engage it in forward or backward directions - why are there two ? There is probably a reason but it escapes me.



This part has the 'tool post' which holds the cutting tool. It is located in the middle of the lathe and can be moved left/right and in/out automatically or manually. The cutting tool is generally a sharp metal spike that digs into the rotating object to be carved.

There are knobs here for manually moving the tool post in/out and left/right - and also knobs to do these movements automatically, powered by the feed screw. The x-axis control is a lever which goes up to engage, down to disengage. The y-axis control has one knob to engage and another to disengage on the right side.

Since the speed of workpiece rotation can be synchronized to that of tool post right-left movement, screws can be cut.



This is a gearbox on the left hand of the machine. It has a belt that can be swapped about to change the headstock and feed speeds, if you slack the belt by releasing the aptly-named 'snoggle bar' indicated clearly in the professionally-composed photograph you will find above this paragraph.