In this case, the clay is the workpiece. The wheel is a rudimentary lathe, turning the workpiece at a set speed, and keeping it in one place. The head and cutting bits, in the example above, are the workman’s hands. They are the moving part – moving along the length of the workpiece (the “y” axis), and in and out towards the center of the workpiece (the “x” axis).

Harvey ToolCatalog

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Nearly everything! But today’s uses tend to fall in the categories of “industrial” and “artisan” machine tools. Industrial uses cover everything from a locally-owned machine shop making replacement parts for old cars, to state-owned enterprises producing heavy machinery. On the other end of the spectrum, craftsmen are using lathes to produce unique and breathtaking pieces in wood, metal, glass, epoxy, and nearly every other material imaginable.

Nor is a metal lathe limited to specific alloys or metals; some metals may be easier to work with, but in theory any metal can be turned on a lathe. Here’s a delicate piece baby’s cup in pewter:

“The Harvey Tool and Helical Solutions Brands serve some of the most advanced and demanding end users in the industry,” said Jerry Gleisner, Senior Vice President of Sales for Harvey Performance Company. “Micro 100’s product line, particularly their strong focus in turning tooling, will allow us to offer additional capabilities and value to our distributors and end users.”

Harveytable saw

The most basic lathes allowed craftsmen to free-hand the removal of material. Metal lathes and wood lathes technologically improved and eventually progressed into machine tools with integral heads. Each head mounted on cross-slides that ran the length of the lathe bed, over which the workpiece would rotate.

Most woodworking or machine shop tools are easily recognized. Drills, punches, and vises are fairly simple tools with a clear purpose. Other machines might be a bit more complicated and lathes, particularly high-end ones, fall into this category.At its heart, a lathe is a simplistic device, designed to hold a section of material as a turning tool carves, cuts or shapes it. This is called the workpiece. Unlike a simple vise, a lathe not only holds a workpiece, but also rotates it. This allows another part of the machine, the head, to move along the workpiece, holding various cutting tools  to shape the workpiece.

A skilled craftsman can turn a lump of metal into a cup, a lampstand, or even a chess piece with a lathe machine. There’s a huge variety of potential applications, and the ability to freehand the cutting and carving stages means that each piece still retains the unique touch of the craftsman.

Harveywoodworking

What is a lathe used for? Whatever you want or need! Go out and see what you can do with this incredibly versatile machine tool!

Harvey Toolcatalog pdf

A wood lathe carves wood into chair or table legs. Vertical lathes shape plastic and more and gunsmithing lathes fashion the barrel of a gun. Metalworking lathes are versatile and easily at home with a hobbyist or a professional.

Rowley, Massachusetts and Meridian, Idaho – Harvey Performance Company (“Harvey Performance” or the “company”), a provider of specialized cutting tools for precision machining applications through brands Harvey Tool and Helical Solutions, today announced the acquisition of Micro 100. Based in Meridian, Idaho, Micro 100 is a leading innovator in turning tools, specializing in internal boring, grooving and threading tools and milling tools.

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Micro 100’s position as a manufacturer of outstanding products in both the turning and milling categories makes it an ideal addition to the Harvey Performance portfolio of brands. Its products provide a strong complement to Harvey Tool’s miniature and specialty profile tooling and Helical Solutions’ high performance end mill selection. Because of this, the addition of Micro 100 significantly increases the company’s market opportunity.

Lathes on an industrial scale can be quite large, but a toolroom lathe tends to be a somewhat smaller machine tool. A metal lathe is the mainstay of many small machine shops or tool-and-die companies, due to its versatility. Beyond the machine shop, many other craftsmen and hobbyists find a lathe indispensable. You can use a lathe to create parts for an old car:

With the invention of the engine lathe, which used an automatic feed to the cutting tool, basic lathes were used for precision metalworking. Even then, each lathe was unique, but the lathe operation was consistent.  Engine lathes helped usher in the Industrial revolution, which in turn introduced steam-powered lathes, capable of ever-greater rotation rates and the torque to rotate heavier parts. Lathes were now heavy duty machining tools. Like the milling machine, the lathe machine simplified the machining process as they became even more complete.The next great leap forward came in the second half of the twentieth century, with the advent of Computer Numerical Control (CNC). CNC-equipped lathes allowed operators to program a set of instructions for each machine tool. This allowed the exact duplication of those instructions, which meant parts that were increasingly accurate, and reduced the number of operators necessary to keep each machining tool running simultaneously. Today’s innovation provides increasingly precise CNC programming, with ever-growing numbers of axes.

Harvey Tooldistributors

Moving forward, the Harvey Performance team will focus on scaling and growing each of the company’s three brands. “We will continue to manufacture Helical Solutions product in our Gorham, Maine facility and Micro 100 product in the Meridian, Idaho location,” said Brian McKahan, Vice President of Operations of the Harvey Performance Company. “We have plans for significant investment and growth across all of our brands.”

Lathes, in some form, have been around since the Egyptians. Think of the resemblance to the pottery wheel; thrown pottery has been around for thousands of years, so it makes sense that lathes, which follow a similar principle but instead use a workpiece moving against a stationary cutting tool, would come along afterwards.

Harvey Performance Company is backed by global growth investor Summit Partners. Jay Pauley, Summit Partners Managing Director and member of the Harvey Performance board, reiterated the strategic importance of this acquisition. “Micro 100 is a growth business with products that complement the Harvey Performance suite extremely well. We are excited to welcome the Micro 100 team to the Harvey Performance Company Family.”

HarveyPerformance Company

Enlarging a hole that already has been drilled or cored. Generally, it is an operation of truing the previously drilled hole with a single-point, lathe-type tool. Boring is essentially internal turning, in that usually a single-point cutting tool forms the internal shape. Some tools are available with two cutting edges to balance cutting forces.

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On the industrial side, big lathes produce countless numbers of parts: driveshafts on cars, legs for tables, etc. Heavy-duty, large-scale lathe tools can be used to turn a giant metal cone or disc, while small-scale machines can cut out a metal chess piece.

Machining grooves and shallow channels. Example: grooving ball-bearing raceways. Typically performed by tools that are capable of light cuts at high feed rates. Imparts high-quality finish.

Runs endmills and arbor-mounted milling cutters. Features include a head with a spindle that drives the cutters; a column, knee and table that provide motion in the three Cartesian axes; and a base that supports the components and houses the cutting-fluid pump and reservoir. The work is mounted on the table and fed into the rotating cutter or endmill to accomplish the milling steps; vertical milling machines also feed endmills into the work by means of a spindle-mounted quill. Models range from small manual machines to big bed-type and duplex mills. All take one of three basic forms: vertical, horizontal or convertible horizontal/vertical. Vertical machines may be knee-type (the table is mounted on a knee that can be elevated) or bed-type (the table is securely supported and only moves horizontally). In general, horizontal machines are bigger and more powerful, while vertical machines are lighter but more versatile and easier to set up and operate.

Today each industrial metalworking lathe is fully automated, with heads that can hold multiple bits. This means that the same lathe can perform numerous processes – rough bits for grinding out material, finer ones for refining parts, even bits for sanding and polishing. With a CNC lathe, a trained operator can program a metalworking lathe to bring a single workpiece from raw material to finished product with no human involvement at all once the program is initiated. A few individuals can oversee an entire production floor equipped with CNC lathes.

Metal Lathe Projects How to Become a CNC Operator A Brief Introduction to CNC Machining A Guide to Buying a Metal Lathe CNC Programming: A Master Guide

“We are on a journey to assemble and build a world-class company made up of outstanding brands and product lines supported by incredible people,” said Pete Jenkins CEO of Harvey Performance Company. “The addition of Micro 100 products to the Harvey Performance portfolio will help accelerate our ability to do just that. Micro 100 has a demonstrated dedication to quality products, excellent reputation and outstanding service – all traits that are consistent with the Harvey Performance way of doing business.”

Machining and measuring to exacting standards. Four basic considerations are: dimensions, or geometrical characteristics such as lengths, angles and diameters of which the sizes are numerically specified; limits, or the maximum and minimum sizes permissible for a specified dimension; tolerances, or the total permissible variations in size; and allowances, or the prescribed differences in dimensions between mating parts.

Lathes obviously work differently, utilizing a stationary cutting tool to trim the metal spinning around. Each lathe is a machine tool designed for heavy duty work, but modern lathes are designed for precision cutting and simplistic machining operation.

Harvey Toolspeeds and feeds

Harvey tool colocations

The acquisition of Micro 100 better positions Harvey Performance and its brands to compete and grow. “One thing that is a constant in our business is change, with regular consolidation amongst our competitors, our distributors and our end users,” said Jenkins. “We will continue to look to expand our product portfolio through acquisition. Scale matters, and we believe that – through thoughtful assembly of brands and products – we can enhance the end users’ productivity and increasingly earn their business.”

Process of both external (e.g., thread milling) and internal (e.g., tapping, thread milling) cutting, turning and rolling of threads into particular material. Standardized specifications are available to determine the desired results of the threading process. Numerous thread-series designations are written for specific applications. Threading often is performed on a lathe. Specifications such as thread height are critical in determining the strength of the threads. The material used is taken into consideration in determining the expected results of any particular application for that threaded piece. In external threading, a calculated depth is required as well as a particular angle to the cut. To perform internal threading, the exact diameter to bore the hole is critical before threading. The threads are distinguished from one another by the amount of tolerance and/or allowance that is specified. See turning.

Workpiece is held in a chuck, mounted on a face plate or secured between centers and rotated while a cutting tool, normally a single-point tool, is fed into it along its periphery or across its end or face. Takes the form of straight turning (cutting along the periphery of the workpiece); taper turning (creating a taper); step turning (turning different-size diameters on the same work); chamfering (beveling an edge or shoulder); facing (cutting on an end); turning threads (usually external but can be internal); roughing (high-volume metal removal); and finishing (final light cuts). Performed on lathes, turning centers, chucking machines, automatic screw machines and similar machines.

Machining operation in which metal or other material is removed by applying power to a rotating cutter. In vertical milling, the cutting tool is mounted vertically on the spindle. In horizontal milling, the cutting tool is mounted horizontally, either directly on the spindle or on an arbor. Horizontal milling is further broken down into conventional milling, where the cutter rotates opposite the direction of feed, or “up” into the workpiece; and climb milling, where the cutter rotates in the direction of feed, or “down” into the workpiece. Milling operations include plane or surface milling, endmilling, facemilling, angle milling, form milling and profiling.