A milling lathe is a woodworking tool that uses an electric router to cut decorative flutes or grooves into round pieces of wood. It is similar to a traditional wood lathe but has a router mounted perpendicular to the axis of the lathe bed. The router is fed along the lathe bed by a screw arrangement, and as the workpiece rotates, the router bit cuts a spiral or groove along the length of the piece. Care must be taken when using a router on a lathe due to its high rotational speed.
A lathe is a power woodworking tool used to cut decorative flutes or whorls into round pieces of wood. Similar in many respects to a conventional wood lathe, the milling lathe differs in the inclusion of an electric router mounted perpendicular to the axis of the lathe bed. The milling machine is mounted on a pair of steel bars running the full length of the lathe bed and is fed along the bars by means of a screw arrangement. As the workpiece slowly rotates in the lathe, the router bit is lowered to make a cut in the wood while simultaneously being moved along the axis. This has the effect of cutting a spiral or groove along the length of the piece.
Traditional wood lathes rotate a workpiece rapidly between a spindle and tailstock with the cutting tool being advanced against the surface of the wood to make a profile cut. The router lathe shares many of these characteristics and consists of a conventional bed, spindle, and tailstock. What makes this tool unique, however, is the inclusion of an electric router mounted above the machine’s centerline. A router is a power tool designed to make vertical and linear cuts of various profiles in wood. The router rides on a pair of cylindrical steel bars and is capable of moving along the entire length of the lathe’s working area actuated by a lead screw arrangement which is either manually operated or driven by the lathe mechanism.
To cut a spiral, a suitable workpiece is inserted into the lathe chuck and the central lathe drive is started. Once the workpiece is rotating, the router is started and lowered to begin cutting the wood. The advance mechanism is also activated at the same time. This causes the router to cut along the length of the rotating workpiece, thus creating a spiral cut. The mill lathe turns the workpiece more slowly than other lathes; the rotational speed is carefully balanced against the feed rate of the cutter to cut a spiral of the correct pitch.
Decorative grooves or grooves are cut with the workpiece. Once the router has completed a cut, the workpiece is rotated slightly to position it for the next parallel cut. The spacing of the cuts requires careful calculation to ensure that all are spaced evenly around the circumference of the piece. A router has extremely high rotational speeds, and when using a lathe, care must be taken to follow proper operating procedures and always wear protective clothing.
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