1. The birth of various special lathes in order to improve the degree of mechanization and automation, in 1845, Fitch of the United States invented the turret lathe; In 1848, the U.S. saw the appearance of the rotary lathe; In 1873, Spencer of the United States made a single axis automatic lathe, and soon he made a three axis automatic lathe; At the beginning of the 20th century, lathes with gear boxes driven by separate motors appeared. Due to the invention of high-speed tool steel and the application of motor, the lathe has been continuously improved, and finally reached the modern level of high speed and high precision.

After the first World War, due to the needs of the arms, automobile and other mechanical industries, various efficient automatic lathes and specialized lathes developed rapidly. In order to improve the productivity of small batch workpieces, lathes with hydraulic profiling devices were popularized in the late 1940s. At the same time, Multi Tool lathes were also developed. In the mid-1950s, program-controlled lathes with punch cards, latch plates, and dial plates were developed. Numerical control technology began to be used in lathes in the 1960s and developed rapidly after the 1970s.

2. Lathes are divided into many types according to their uses and functions.

The general lathe has a wide range of processing objects, and the adjustment range of spindle speed and feed rate is large. It can process the internal and external surfaces, end faces and internal and external threads of the workpiece. This kind of lathe is mainly manually operated by workers, with low production efficiency. It is suitable for single piece, small batch production and repair workshops.

Turret lathes and rotary lathes have turret tool holders or return wheel tool holders that can hold multiple tools. Workers can use different tools to complete a variety of processes in one clamping of workpieces, which is suitable for batch production.

The automatic lathe can automatically complete the multi process processing of small and medium-sized workpieces according to a certain program. It can automatically load and unload materials and repeatedly process a batch of the same workpieces. It is suitable for mass and mass production.

Multi Tool semi-automatic lathes are divided into single shaft, multi shaft, horizontal and vertical. The layout of the single shaft horizontal lathe is similar to that of the ordinary lathe, but the two groups of tool holders are respectively installed in the front and back of the spindle or above and below, which are used to process disc, ring and shaft workpieces, and their productivity is 3 ~ 5 times higher than that of the ordinary lathe.

The profiling lathe can imitate the shape and size of the template or sample and automatically complete the processing cycle of the workpiece. It is suitable for the small batch and batch production of workpieces with complex shapes. The productivity is 10 ~ 15 times higher than that of the ordinary lathe. There are many types, such as multi tool rest, multi shaft, chuck type, vertical type, etc.

The spindle of the vertical lathe is perpendicular to the horizontal plane, the workpiece is clamped on the horizontal rotary workbench, and the tool rest moves on the beam or column. It is suitable for processing large, heavy workpieces that are difficult to install on an ordinary lathe. It is generally divided into single column and double column.

While turning, the tool holder of the shovel lathe periodically makes radial reciprocating motion, which is used for forming the tooth surface of forklift milling cutters, hobs, etc. Usually with relief grinding accessories, a small grinding wheel driven by a separate motor is used to shovel and grind the tooth surface.

Special lathes are lathes used to process specific surfaces of certain types of workpieces, such as crankshaft lathes, camshaft lathes, wheel lathes, axle lathes, roll lathes and ingot lathes.

The combined lathe is mainly used for turning, but after adding some special parts and accessories, it can also be used for boring, milling, drilling, inserting, grinding and other processing. It has the characteristics of "one machine with multiple functions", and is suitable for repair work on engineering vehicles, ships or mobile repair stations.

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