What Does "Engine Lathe" Mean?

[vincent-hua]

I have heard that it refers to a lathe for working on engines. BS. In reading thru Rose's 1901 Modern Machine Shop Practice, it is plain that to them, a little over a hundred years ago, it meant that the lathe had enough "engine" to it to be "self acting", or power fed as we would say.

John

Hi
Engine lathe, also called manual lathe, conventional lathe, compared with cnc lathe.

 

[Lester Bowman]

Early steam cylinders were bored using water wheel power just as early cannon were bored. These cannon boring setups took a long time to bore measured in months and fractional metal removable. If water power was elusive some cylinder's were finished by hand using various means to smooth a cast bore. Various means of packing was used to take up the inevitable gaps.

 

[michiganbuck]

I was told by an old old timer the engine lathe was a lathe that could produce an engine so had to be screw thread cutting, capable of key and flat machining, boring, and turning tapers.

I know some lathes are called Engine Lathe with not being able to turn tapers..but they do have taper attachment available.

So the notion that the term came from...

QT gvasale post #5: "I heard once that it was the type of lathe James Watt used to build his steam engine" seems logical.

Someone might search to find if the first use of the term "Engine Lathe" came from this time.
James Watt (1736 to 1819)

Just my opinion here like every other opinion.

Next, we might question what is an engine? Could a windmill or a water wheel be called an engine?
what is an engine - Search

Wind engine Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

Is the word "engine" limited to fuel-burning engines only?

*I am just throwing this out for thought / I don't wish to argue about it.

 

[trevj]

I was told by an old old timer the engine lathe was a lathe that could produce an engine so had to be screw thread cutting, capable of key and flat machining, boring, and turning tapers.

I know some lathes are called Engine Lathe with not being able to turn tapers..but they do have taper attachment available.

So the notion that the term came from...

QT gvasale post #5: "I heard once that it was the type of lathe James Watt used to build his steam engine" seems logical.

Someone might search to find if the first use of the term "Engine Lathe" came from this time.
James Watt (1736 to 1819)

Just my opinion here like every other opinion.

Next, we might question what is an engine? Could a windmill or a water wheel be called an engine?
what is an engine - Search

Wind engine Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

Is the word "engine" limited to fuel-burning engines only?

*I am just throwing this out for thought / I don't wish to argue about it.

I was taught that an Engine lathe had self feed, whether for screw cutting or otherwise.

The rest of the lathes, without such were "Plain Lathes"

And no, there are many types of engines. Some lift heavy objects, some do complicated mathematical calculations.

Pretty much every conglomeration of parts with an intended purpose, is an 'Engine'.

If you really want to poke at this, define the difference between an Engine, and a Machine!

 

[JST]

That....................... why is it a "dividing engine" and not a "dividing machine"?

 

[dana gear]

It's anyone's guess, but I recall many years ago a couple of large lathes in the shop had T slots on the top of the apron apparently for mounting different equipment and they called them engine lathes