Archimedes,The Mystery of Curves and CNC Lathe

Did You know that Early Mathematicians were able to calculate areas of Triangles, Rectangles and other polygons but what really confused them was the Area of Circles !The world was full of Curves but it was really difficult to figure out their area and properties. Then came one of the greats Archimedes ,best known for his discovering the principle of buoyancy and shouting the word Eureka sitting in his bathtub! The Great Archimedes replaced a circle with a polygon with many straight sides and kept increasing the number of sides to get closer to perfect roundness .He methodically calculated the value of pi by enclosing the circle between inscribed and circumscribed polygons ,and used the Pythagorean theorem to work out the perimeters of the inner and outer polygons,starting with a hexagon and increasing the number of sides to ultimately 96 .The results enabled him to prove that the value of pi lies between

3.1408 < < 3.1429

Thus was born the beginning of the seeds of calculus and the power of approximation and iteration , .After two millennia, this strategy matured into the modern field of numerical analysis, used in designing cars ,repetitive algorithms that enable computers to solve problems from biotechnology to the internet.

This brings us to our topic, how do you machine or make everyday circular objects like screws, candlesticks, gun barrels, cue sticks, table legs, bowls, baseball bats, pens, musical instruments (especially woodwind instruments),flanges, shafts all of which are circular, conical ,tapered & basically cylindrical parts?

The Lathe machine is the answer to the above question. As per Internet the use of Lathe goes as far back as 1300 BC in Egypt. There are round artifacts found in the remains of ancient Indus and Harappan Civilisation which were even older than 1300 BC .One wonders how they were made ?

Lathe was basically an apparatus where the rounded job to be machined would be rotated about its axis and a tool would be used to machine it to its size and shape. The lathe was very important to the Industrial Revolution. It is known as the mother of machine tools, as it was the first machine tool that led to the invention of other machine tools.

Machining on Manual Lathe

A standard Lathe Machine

To mass manufacture precision parts like crankshafts,bearings and flanges The modern version of the Lathe is the CNC Turning center or the CNC Lathe. The Rotation axis, the x and z axis movement are all controlled by Precision Servo Motors .An accuracy of 0.01 mm can be achieved on such Machines. CNC lathes have become mainstream with mass manufacturing of round parts in a fraction of the time it would take as compared to a Conventional Lathe Machine.

CNC Turning Centre

LMW – Lakshmi Machine Works Ltd is the premium CNC Lathe manufacturer of India. Established in 1988, LMW has been a pioneer in Machine tools Manufacturing.LMW collaborated with Japan’s Mori Seiki Co. Ltd to manufacture premium CNC turning centres,Mills and TurnMills in India.LMW guarantees an accuracy of 0.01 mm and capability of machining parts within 5 micron.

Our Company WeMachine , A premium Machine shop for high Precision components have purchased LMW CNC Turn –LLT 50 series.

Specifications:

1. Chuck Dia- 210 with Maximum Turning Diameter -320 mm

2. Length between Centres- 320 mm

Some picture of the Parts made on our very own CNC

Shafts made for Ship Building on CNC Turn

Please visit our website www.wemachine.in for further details and message us at info@wemachine.in for any enquiries