Which way to turn?

[PBARNHART]

Counter clock wise for the cutting tool on the left side of the work. This is considered climb cutting in milling machines. CLock wise for the cutting tool on the right side of the work. because you have the tool stationary the material is pulled over the tool.

Ok now if you put the tool in upside down all this changes. If you look at the rake angle of the tool, you will find that almost always a lathe tool is ment to have the material pulled from the top...

A Normal drill in the tail stock, should have a ccw material in the chuck.
Just to make a point there are left handed drills on the market. know your tools and how to use em...that is the ART of the craft.

[PBARNHART]

Bruce, this is interesting..
THe spinning I see here is the other way around. ON spinning it doesn't really matter. thanks for the idea though...with my spin on chuck I think I will stay with the ccw so it stays in place.

It sounds like your dad was a real artist...

[Bottomgottem]

All of the horizontal lathes that we use at my job are programmed to cut in the ccw direction.

However, we do have several large vertical lathes (by large, I mean a 68" spindle) in which the turret or ram will cross zero in the x-axis and allow you to cut on the negative "x" side of the workpiece. We do this to more effectively use our tooling space in the turret or tool carousel. In these instances, the spindle will turn in a cw direction.

Interestingly, we recently puchased several Daewoo horizontal cnc lathes. They came with some tooling already installed in the turrets, but the tooling was installed upside down. This would also necessitate that you program the spindle to turn cw. The Daewoo rep. who did the initial setup of the machines in our plant said that this was the typical turning method in S. Korea, where the machines were made. The turrets were designed to adapt to either method of tool installation, so we turn them over the right way first thing.

[rstegman]

The material should ALWAYS come DOWN into the tool, so the tool rest or tool holder keeps the tool from moving. It takes a lot more engineering or energy to hold a tool in place when it is being pulled up from the lathe bed or tool rest.

With metal working, many lathes will also reverse. One use of that is that you can put the tool inside the work. Running the lathe backwards allows you to cut the inside of your work and still see what you are doing. Otherwise you have to go through contortions to see what you are doing, as you do in wood turning.

[freb]

cw is usefull if you use a tap or a die in conjunction with the tailstock to apply pressure, use a centre for a tap, faced off MT sleeve for a die, tap wrench or die holder resting on the bed like a dog, reverse to get said tap or die off for 2nd and 3rd cuts. Not one for small threads though. Also you dont get nice clean sharp threads come to think of it. But it has its purpose. if you try it beware of the wrench flipping around and getting you under the chin when you put it in reverse.

[John N]

one of the clutches gave way on our rusky lathe so it would only run in reverse (clockwise, ie away from where your standing,) we put the tool in the holder upside down and it worked, kinda! hope this adds to the confusion

[John N]

to even further add to the confusion our large vertical borer (132" table dia) has 2 toolposts (columns) one on the right as your facing the machine (3 o'clock if you like) and one on the left (9 o'clock), so you have the left tool facing back, and the right tool facing forward !

Your very own IFI Ian seemed to get a bit hypnotised by this particular machine

edit....... errm ok the other way round right hand tool as you face the machine, cutting tip facing back... etc..., you can see where the confusion arrises !

[Ian]

Mate, great big gnarley machines that chew up even bigger lumps of metal would fascinate any bloke worth his salt. I think the one your on about was machining down some BIG bit of flanged pipe. It went round and round and round...... lol
The other one I really enjoyed watching was the size of a tennis court, some sort of plane? Big flat bed and the business end travelled up and down it. As everyone has by now probably guessed I know bugger all about Machinery work, but I do know John N so I can only learn

[arftist]

When I make pipe bending dies, I grind a form tool to a little more than half the radius width. I then rough the die,finnish the left side, turn the form tool upside down, reverse the lathe and finnish the right side. If the machine wants to chatter, then I swing the tool post to the back side, leave the tool right side up and run the lathe in reverse.

[VonDeemer]

Main concern should be DON'T stand in front of the chuck or rest you're arm on the headstock while it's turning clock wise or ( counter clockwise with the tool upside down.) If you snag a chip you could end up in compatiton with Nabisco shredded wheat's mascot!