Vertical lathe?

I've been idly thinking while on a long train journey, and I found myself wondering why you get horizontal or vertical milling machines, but only ever horizontal lathes.

With a vertical lathe - a turntable/chuck with a nice chunky girder running up from the edge of it to which cross slides and tailstocks can attach, instead of a bed - the work wouldn't have gravity acting at 90 degrees to its rotation, which of course creates a sinusoidal-wrt-time force of 20 m/s^2 peak to peak... less sideways forces on the spindle and so on.

So... why isn't this done?

ABS

Reply to
Alaric B Snell
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they did when they machined up fly wheels for the old steam engines

Reply to
Colin French

They also have smaller units that are inverted spindle vertical lathes. They're used for high production work I believe.

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Regards,

Robin

Reply to
Robin S.

My son spent a bit of time using a Bullard VTL (vertical turning center). They have their place, but for most parts having the chips and swarf buildup around the part is a real PITA. FWIW, these units (HUGE) go for scrap price at most auctions.

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

Because you would need a ladder to adjust the tailstock.

Reply to
Tony

...but on the other hand, you might not need the tailstock as much since the work wouldn't be cantilevering out of the headstock.

Anyway, many shops seem to have high ceilings but not enough floor space

- extending vertically sounds like a logical idea :-) I once was renting a small room to live in, and I extended it vertically by putting my bed on top of my bookcases. Once I'd learnt to not be afraid of falling out, it was great.

ABS

Reply to
Alaric B Snell

-- Visit my website:

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foundry and general metal working and lots of related projects. Regards Roy aka Chipmaker // Foxeye Opinions are strictly those of my wife....I have had no input whatsoever. Remove capital A from chipmAkr for correct email address

Reply to
Roy

It is. There are millions of tons of vertical lathes in the world.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Reply to
Gunner

When I started work (not long ago, 1976). We had vertical boring mills which were, to all intents and purposes, vertical lathes. They were used to machine the bores of the frames of electric motors. The largest had a table about 30 feet across.

These days I doubt if the authorities would look kindly on the operator checking the cut by gently walking around the table in the opposite direction so as to keep up with the tool :-)

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
Mark Rand

Here are some Pix-

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Reply to
James E. Baldock

Hmmm. Huge cross slides!

ABS

Reply to
Alaric B Snell

I worked for an outfit that machined heavy equipment wheels ( 63 inch dia.) with vertical boring machines. There were three guys that had serious accidents on those things. None of these people were walking properly after. One almost bled to death when some swarf caught his leg as he was standing beside the machine. Great machines but bloody dangerous unless totally enclosed and CNC. Randy

When I started work (not long ago, 1976). We had vertical boring mills which were, to all intents and purposes, vertical lathes. They were used to machine the bores of the frames of electric motors. The largest had a table about 30 feet across.

These days I doubt if the authorities would look kindly on the operator checking the cut by gently walking around the table in the opposite direction so as to keep up with the tool :-)

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
R. Zimmerman

Roy snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

We all are going, er, go through those times. FM

Reply to
Fdmorrison

Gunner wrote: It is. There are millions of tons of vertical lathes in the world. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Then there must be BILLIONS and BILLIONS of horizontal lathes. (Synthetic quote from Carl Sagan.)

Reply to
Leo Lichtman

Reply to
Bob

The little vertical lathe we had at work would only take about 6' diameter x 6' long pieces. It did have three tool posts, though. One was a turret arrangement that did only horizontal or vertical. One could be set and fed at angles (great for chamfers) as well as horizontal and vertical. The third tool holder only fed vertically (for OD turning). I watched an operator set multiple tools in each head for a series of step cuts. There were four cutting on the 'face' and three cutting on the OD at the same time! As I remember, the machine had a 50 HP motor, but it could have been more.

I got to use this one to recut a set of circular 'v' ways on a production machine once. The most fun was to create a gage to measure the male and female 'v's. Got it to blue almost 80% on the first try. Didn't take much to scrape it in.

Reply to
TreeMoose

Most (all?) of the vertical lathes I've seen don't have chucks at all ... just a big faceplate, usually with several T-slots. You clamp whatever you need to turn to the faceplate. OR, you can use 'boring mill jaws' ... each like a single screw-adjustable jaw, that can be clamped to the faceplate. The result is rather like an independent 4- jaw (or MORE, if needed) chuck.

Many, like the Bullards, have semi-automatic indexing toolposts, making them vertical turret lathes. Some have more than one toolpost, and can make multiple cuts at one time.

Turning LONG items is NOT what these machines are used for. Normal work tends to be wheels, flywheels, large gears and the like, and especially for boring large holes. The machines are sometimes referred to as 'vertical boring mills', though they are certainly used for more than boring. None of the ones I've seen had tailstocks, though I suppose one could be rigged to the crosslide if needed.

Most of these machines are LARGE ... 36" or larger faceplates. I've seen only a couple that had perhaps 24" faceplates. They are VERY stocky and robust (meaning heavy) machines for their size. The smallest ones I've seen are about the size of a BIG milling machine (far more massive than a Bridgeport).

Dan Mitchell ==========

Gary Coffman wrote:

Reply to
Daniel A. Mitchell

No doubt true, but I don't think it's so much because of the vertical spindle. These are just LARGE powerful machines, and make LARGE chips that can be very dangerous. I've seen horizontal lathes make chips that could cut your arm off too.

Dan Mitchell ==========

"R. Zimmerman" wrote:

Reply to
Daniel A. Mitchell
28 or so years ago I worked in the machine shop at Bucyrus-Erie. They made some REALLY big things!! A Bullard VTL with a 25' or so table. A hor. lathe
Reply to
Tom Wait

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