Bench lathe vs the other kind, vocabulary question

[Bill D]

To my thinking a bench lathe is self contained with the motor drive attached. It can be picked up and set down anywhere to be used.
What do you call the bigger lathes that come attached to a factory base stand to get them up to a comfortable height off the floor. Older examples had belt drive from a line shaft or motor sitting separately on the floor or hinged off the back. Engine lathe? horizontal lathe. Or is it just "lathe" since that is what they have always looked like.
Cars used to be called cars now we have ICE cars and BEV cars. No mention of steam engine cars in the modern world.
Bill D

 

[jim rozen]

What's the question here?

 

[rawen2]

What do you call the bigger lathes that come attached to a factory base stand to get them up to a comfortable height off the floor. Older examples had belt drive from a line shaft or motor sitting separately on the floor or hinged off the back. Engine lathe? horizontal lathe. Or is it just "lathe" since that is what they have always looked like.

My understanding is that "engine lathe" came into use when lathes became self-powered - no longer driven from a line shaft. Could be wrong though.
To me a "bench lathe" is one that needs a bench to be set upon and is usually on the smaller side capacity and weight wise. Like you said, pick it up and put it on a table or bench. But some "bench lathes" have been sold with or without an attached bench. And 12x36 or 13x40 (inches) "bench lathes" certainly aren't ones you'd carry around to put on a bench.
Bigger lathes seem to be called engine lathes or just lathe.
Curious to see how others define these terms.

 

[michiganbuck]

I GUESS ENGINE LAThES ARE FOR MAKING ENGINES
And BENCH LATHES ARE FOR MAKING BENCHES.






(NOT)

 

[L Vanice]

The term bench lathe was in common use well over 100 years ago, when little lathes sat on benches and big lathes had their own legs to sit on a floor. That was pretty much before electric motors were in use to drive lathes, so there were a lot of overhead belts in use. Some lathes could be driven by foot powered devices and that applies to both floor-standing and bench lathes. Motors became readily available in the early 20th Century and were applied to lathes of all sorts and sizes. Some motors just sat off somewhere and did what a steam engine used to do, using the same belts. Other motors were set up to power individual lathes.

Hardinge started making their Cataract bench lathes in 1903, and even made dedicated patented benches for them. The benches could be ordered with an attached electric motor which still used the same flat belt drive as the ones without motors. So is a bench lathe on a factory bench still a bench lathe? Hardinge said so, even when they introduced in 1935 their first bench lathe with enclosed V-belt driven headstock and motor mounted under the bench. The traditional bench could even be substituted with a bench that looked like a wooden office desk. So the enclosed headstock models really muddied the water of "what is a bench lathe?" Around 1940, Hardinge introduced welded steel cabinet bases and stopped calling the new model TR a "Cataract bench lathe." But Hardinge continued making flat belt drive open headstock bench lathes until around 1955.

Starting around 1916, Hardinge introduced two larger Cataract lathes on cast iron legs and did not call them bench lathes.

Here are some Hardinge ads from 1916 and 1935 to illustrate their use of bench lathe for some of their products.

Larry

 

[dalmatiangirl61]

For some odd reason Standard Modern decided to call their 26x30 lathe a bench lathe, at 4000+ lbs you are not just picking it up, or setting it on anything less than a concrete or heavy steel bench.

 

[M.B. Naegle]

I don't think there's a universally accepted classification. The gospel according to M.B. Naegle is that a Bench lathe is just that, a tool room lathe made to be mounted to your own work bench, typically smaller in the 10" or less swing. A Tool Room lathe would be a smaller lathe that while it can be used for production, typically is used for maintenance and repair, R&D, or shop tool making. No definitive size but typically less than 15" swing and often belt driven. An Engine Lathe is typically larger and more geared towards production work, and often with a geared head stock and other features meant to improve it's longevity and utility running long shifts. Lots of cross-over and each manufacturer will call things whatever they want.

 

[Cole2534]

To meeeee-
Bench lathe- self contained unit that may come on a factory stand or be placed on a stand of your choosing
Engine lathe- production oriented machine with lead screws to provide accurate feeds/leads, self contained power, dedicated support structure
Toolroom lathe- engine lathe with wider breadth of features not typically required of an engine lathe (taper/relieving attachments, wider range gear boxes, lower spindle TIR)

Of course, there are exceptions to all that. A fully optioned Pacemaker or Series 61 could well play toolroom or production machine.

 

[CalG]

Holtzappfel might be a good resource for historic usage. If I could remember where I "put away" the three volumes.

Jeesh CRS has hit bad... ;-)

With that, For MYSELF
An "engine lathe" has power feeds of some type.

A bench lathe is suited for small work (watches, electric motors, etc) with hand operated feed motion.
The drive means is not a consideration.
A precision lathe is just a matter of realized performance specification (fit and alignment)

 

[???]

Manufacturers will use and abuse the terms, at the end of the day they are trying to make sales. I have a Pacific lathe 300mm swing and 900mm between centers with a 38mm bore. It came with its own sheet metal stand, however the Chinese refer to this as a table top lathe. Tool room lathes in my experience tend to have larger bores.

 

[michiganbuck]

We had a like discussion a time ago, and it was decided that an engine lathe had its power built-in, so mot running off steam or water wheel or whatever.

 

[EmGo]

it was decided that an engine lathe had its power built-in, so mot running off steam or water wheel or whatever.

Now someone's gonna have to put a steam engine under the headstock of their 13" south bend

 

[Lewie]

:-) And before all that there were Treadle lathes and Springpole lathes. :-)
lewie

 

[michiganbuck]

 

[neanderthal mach]

I have a collection of Model Engineer magazines running back to the first one in 1898 and up into the 1960's. There's at least some mentions in the earlier one's of guys with home shops using line shafts and small gas engines and/or steam as power sources. I'd assume that was back when a lot of homes in the UK still didn't have electrical power yet.

Schlesingers book Testing Machine Tools does show better alignment and accuracy requirements for lathes built to that tool room classification. https://pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archi...s/Schlesinger_Georg/Testing_Machine_Tools.pdf