Lathes

A lathe is designed for pre­cisely machin­ing metals such as brass, cop­per, steel, alu­mini­um and plastics such as nylon and acetal.

Lathes work by hold­ing a work piece hori­zont­ally and rotat­ing it while a fixed cut­ting tool is moved along the work to remove excess mater­i­al. Because of its rota­tion around the z‑axis, parts are machined as cyl­in­ders and cuts are sym­met­ric­al about the axis. 

Dif­fer­ent tools can also be attached to its car­riage to per­form dif­fer­ent actions, like knurl­ing, part­ing and facing.

Please speak to a tech­ni­cian before turn­ing steel, stain­less steel or hardened steel.

No wood can be used on this machine.

The lathe can be used for any pre­cise machin­ing of many types of met­al and plastics, such as turn­ing tapers, bor­ing, drilling, ream­ing, knurl­ing, and tapping.

• Various - Metals, Plastics

To use this tool, you will need to email members@​instituteofmaking.​org.​uk and arrange a train­ing ses­sion with a suit­ably exper­i­enced technician. 

Once you have com­pleted the train­ing, email members@​instituteofmaking.​org.​uk to request a time to come in and use the tool along­side a trained tech­ni­cian. Please note, if a trained tech­ni­cian is no longer avail­able on the day of your arranged vis­it, we may need to rearrange.