Lathe vs Milling Machine: What's the Difference?

A milling machine mainly refers to a machine tool that uses a milling cutter to process various surfaces of a workpiece. Usually, the milling cutter mainly moves by rotation, and the movement of the workpiece and the milling cutter is the feed movement. It can process planes, grooves, various curved surfaces, gears, etc.

A milling machine is a machine tool that uses a milling cutter to mill a workpiece. In addition to milling planes, grooves, gear teeth, threads, and spline shafts, milling machines can also process more complex profiles. The efficiency is higher than that of planing machines. And it is widely used in machinery manufacturing and repair department.

The milling machine is a wide range of machine tools. On the milling machine, it can process planes, grooves (keyways, T-slots, dovetail grooves, etc.), gear parts (gears, spline shafts, sprockets), spiral surfaces (threads, spiral grooves), and various Surface. Besides, it can also be used to machine the surface and inner hole of the rotating body and cut off the workpiece. When we use milling machines to process workpieces, we need to install the workpieces on the worktable or indexing head and other accessories. Due to the multi-cut intermittent cutting, the productivity of the milling machine is very high. In short, a milling machine is a machine tool that can mill, drill and drill workpieces.

As the mechanization process continues to intensify, CNC programming has begun to be widely used in machine tool operations, greatly freeing up labor. CNC programming milling machines will gradually replace manual operations. The requirements for employees will be higher and higher, and of course the efficiency brought about will be higher and higher.

The lathe is applied to the tool and rotated to perform various operations. It can be used for turning, tapping, forming turning, spiral cutting, finishing, passivation, boring, spinning, grinding, polishing, etc.

The main function of the lathe is to remove the material from the work piece and make the work piece the desired shape and size. During the travel of the lathe, the work piece is rotated against the tool to achieve material removal and the direction of tool movement becomes feed.

The main parts of the lathe are:

Headstock:

The headstock is usually located on the left side of the lathe and is equipped with gears, spindles, chucks, gear speed control levers, and feed controllers.

Tailstock:

Usually located on the right side of the lathe, the work piece is supported at the end.

Bed:

The main parts of the lathe, all parts are bolted to the bed. It includes the headstock, tailstock, carriage rails and other parts.

Carriage:

The carriage is located between the headstock and the tailstock and contains apron, saddle, compound rest, cross slide and tool post.

Lead Screw:

Lead screw is used to move the carriage automatically during threading.

Feed Rod:

It is used to move the carriage from left to right and vice versa.

Chip Pan:

It is present at the bottom of the lathe. Chip pan is used to collect the chips that are produced during the lathe operation.

Hand Wheel:

It is the wheel which is operated by hand to move cross slide, carriage, tailstock and other parts which has hand wheel.