screwcutting lathe

NAME: Screw-cutting lathe

ALTERNATIVE NAME/S: None

DETAILS/DESCRIPTION:  The screw-cutting lathe was developed in 1797 by British engineer Henry <developed by> Maudslay*.   It brought together various elements used before.

Maudslay’s lathe was steam-powered.   Basically, the metal spindle (the work-piece) on which threads were to be cut was fixed in a lathe.  The cutting tool (which was to make the grooves on the spindle work-piece) was brought into contact with the work-piece, which was spinning.  The cutting tool’s move along the work-piece was controlled by being held in a kind of carriage which was moved along by means of the turning of a ‘lead screw’ (the master which was to be copied).  Gearing moved the control screw at the required speed to move the tool more or less fast, as it cut the work-piece.  The slower it moved, the more grooves were cut per inch (and the finer the finished thread).

The lathe cut screw-threads with exact precision and was essential to the machining of all metal required by the industrial revolution, because it made interchangeability of  exactly-similar parts possible, by making possible the fine control of metal-cutting machines,  and precise measurement by means of a micrometer screw (held at a tangent to a circular metal plate on which, say, a cutting instrument was mounted, a fine micrometer screw could be turned so as to move the plate as little as 1/10,000th of an inch.

OTHER CONNECTIONS: None

ONELINER: The screw-cutting lathe

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

EB

Wikipedia

Dictionary of Scientific Biography