Iron Lathe: Machining Features

The lathe is a tool that allows parts to be machined through different processes, such as threading, cutting, straight turning, drilling, roughing and grooving parts of different geometric shapes and by revolution. These machines are characterised by rotating the workpiece, held in a spindle head or chuck. The lathe for iron allows this metal to be machined, one of the most widely used materials today.

What is a lathe for iron?

The lathe allows parts to be machined by revolution. In this type of machine tool the workpiece is held in the spindle head or chuck and turns at high speed until it meets the tip of the cutting tool. The cutting tool, for its part, performs a regulated movement (feed movement) against the surface of the workpiece and removes the excess material (swarf).

On the lathe for iron, the cutting tool is mounted on a sliding carriage on guideways that are parallel to the workpiece's axis of rotation (Z axis). On this carriage there is another carriage that can also move, but it does so in a radial direction relative to the workpiece (X axis). The movement made by the carriage will determine the machining; for example, when it moves along the axis of rotation, straight turning takes place; however, when the cross slide moves perpendicular to the axis of the workpiece, facing is carried out.

A lathe is capable of machining different materials of varying hardness, such as brass and bronze, which are among the soft metals, and nylon. Among the harder metals are steel and cast iron.

Iron in metalworking

It might be thought that iron is not important for the metalworking industry because it has some very particular properties, such as being able to rust easily. Furthermore, it is not much harder than copper. This would lead anyone to think that making parts from iron is not the best idea; however, it is one of the most important metals, since almost 90% of all the metal worked today is iron.

Iron, after aluminium, is the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust. It is, moreover, the most produced; iron production is far higher than that of all the other metals put together. But how is it possible that a metal that rusts so easily is the most widely used? This is because the minerals (oxides) can be smelted into iron at high temperatures if they are combined with a carbon residue.

This is how iron becomes steel, without ever ending up as solid iron. In addition, another part is used as wrought iron and cast iron. It is important to note that iron is not found in nature in its pure state; to obtain it, it has to be extracted from other minerals such as oxides and magnetite. The iron must be separated from these minerals through different processes such as magnetic separation or by density. Once this has been done, it undergoes another process in which an agglomerate is formed and placed in a furnace where it is subsequently converted into steel. The steel obtained is an alloy of this iron with carbon.

When mixed with carbon, iron acquires other characteristics that make it one of the most widely used metals for the machining industry.

Uses of iron-steel

Today, iron converted into steel has many uses in various industries. It can be used for the construction of infrastructure and buildings (from bridges to airports and railway lines); iron is also used to build heavy machinery, such as excavators and tractors; it is also used to make machine tools themselves. With this iron converted into steel it is possible to build lathes, milling machines, and so on. And it is also used to build more basic tools such as hammers.

Machining iron

Iron, like many other metals, can be machined through a series of operations that remove the excess material; these can be carried out with or without swarf removal, and by abrasion. Machining with swarf removal is one of the most common and uses different cutting tools such as blades, drills, milling cutters, etc.; these tools, in turn, are mounted on machines such as the lathe for iron.

Machining on a lathe for iron

The lathe for iron carries out machining operations by swarf removal and makes it possible to obtain parts of different shapes and characteristics. In the process of turning this metal, different phases of the machining process can be distinguished. It begins with loading and unloading, which is the time in which a part is loaded onto the machine tool.

Next comes the cutting process, which is where the workpiece is cut and, lastly, the tool replacement time (it depends on the type of lathe used); in this last phase of machining, tools can be changed to carry out one of the various processes that can be run on a lathe for iron. Some of these operations are straight turning, grooving, facing, drilling, boring, among others.