Contents:
8 Different Types of Lathe Machine Accessories
In this post, I will give you information about the 8 major types of lathe machine accessories, show you how it looks like, what they are used for.
After reading this post, you will have a solid idea about all types of lathe machine accessories and their usage. And more importantly, this post will help you understand which lathe machine accessories are best for you and your needs.
Let's dive in.
Types of Lathe Machine Accessories and Attachments
According to the structure and application, lathe machine accessories can be classified into eight types:
Chuck
A chuck is a specialized type of clamp, mainly used for holding and rotating a workpiece in a lathe machine. It is mostly used to hold cylinder-shaped workpieces. However, it can hold a round, square, hexagon, or any other type of workpiece.
There are many types of chuck is you can use, such as four jaws chuck, three jaws chuck, magnetic type chuck, combination chuck, etc.
Due to their small size, and easy-to-use design, chucks are the most popular type of lathe machine accessory.
Center
This is a lathe machine accessory that has been ground to a point, used to accurately position a workpiece on an axis.
You can also use it to support a longer workpiece, where the cutting force may deflect the workpiece position. Which results in a low-quality finish and accuracy. Or the workpiece may fly out of its place and cause injury to someone.
Just like the chucks, the center comes in various sizes and designs such as dead center, soft center, revolving center, pipe center, cup center, drive center, spring center, etc.
Mandrel
A mandrel is a tapered axle, which has a center hole at both ends. It is a special-purpose lathe machine accessory, mostly used to hold thin hollow cylindrical workpieces.
You see, you cannot use a chuck or center to hold a thin and hollow workpiece, it can damage your workpiece during the machining operation.
So, what you do here is this: you insert the mandrel inside the hollow part, grip the part using a nut on the thread––hold the part between two centers of the lathe machine. Now you can perform machining operations on the external surface of the hollow workpiece.
Carriers
Also known as a lathe log, a Carrier is a mechanical lathe accessory used to rotate a workpiece while it is held between two centers or mandrel.
Carriers are suitable to hold square, rectangular or odd-shaped workpieces. There are two main types of carriers: straight tail and bent tail. It can have a single or double tail.
This lathe accessory is primarily used by professional woodworkers and manufacturing industries. You have to be careful while using carriers, your clothes can easily get stuck in them.
Drive Plate
The drive plate is a flat disk that mounts on the spindle. It is bored out and has threads on it. This bore-n-threads enables you to attach the drive plate to the spindle nose. It is mostly used to hold the lathe dog.
One more cool feature it has is that––it has a hole to insert a pin… in a straight-tail lathe dog to hold your workpiece.
But if you’re using a bent-tail lathe dog, you must pull out the pin, and insert the bent portion of the tail in the hole.
Face plate
The faceplate looks very similar to a drive plate. But the main difference is––it is bigger, and has additional slots and holes compared to a drive plate.
You should use faceplates mostly when you’re unable to hold your irregular-shaped workpieces using chucks or centers.
It works similar to drive plates, you have to attach the faceplate to the spindle, and you have to use bolts and clamps to hold the workpiece.
Angle Plate
An angle plate is simply a cast iron plate with two faces planed at right angles to each other and having slots in various positions for the clamping bolts.
It is used with the faceplate for holding such parts which cannot be clamped against the vertical surface of the faceplate.
When you have a workpiece that you hold on the faceplate or in a vertical position… you can use a combination of angle plate and faceplate.
But be careful, if you have an eccentric workpiece bolted to the faceplate, you must add a counterweight to balance the weight.
Rests
Rest is a cast-iron structure, commonly located in the middle of the two centers.
The main purpose of the Rest––is to provide additional support––to prevent the workpiece deformation––that can happen due to the heavyweight of the workpiece and workforce.
It is commonly used when the length of the workpiece is 10 times compared to its diameter.
There are mainly two types of Rests:
Steady Rest:
Steady Rest is mounted on the lathe bed, and it can slide on it. It commonly uses three-contact-points at 120° apart, to support the workpiece at the rest’s center.
Steady Rest can also be used to support the free end of a job during machining operations.
Follower Rest:
The follower Rest is clamped to the lathe carriage and moves along with it. The function of a follow rest is to support the job in such a way that it prevents deflection of the job when cutting action takes place.
This type of rest is used generally for finished turning operations.
Which type of lathe machine accessories will you choose?
Now that you know your options for the best lathe machine accessories, there’s only one question left to answer: Which type of lathe machine accessories is right for you?
Pick the accessories that best match your needs and go do some lathe machining… big or small.
Happy turning!