A CNC metal lathe is a machine designed to rotate a metal workpiece on a central spindle. This allows an accurate cutting tool to be used on the inside or outside of the workpiece, to create something bespoke.
Boxford CNC Lathes are designed predominantly for education and training use, within schools colleges and universities. However, they can also be found in some research and development departments and can be used for prototyping and small batch production.
Our Bespoke CAD/CAM Design Tools software, simplifies the design to manufacture process and gives students an appreciation of what it takes to program a CNC machine, without any prior CNC machine programming experience.
So how exactly does this work, and what can you make with a CNC metal lathe?
The many uses of a CNC metal lathe
A CNC metal lathe can be used for a range of purposes, including manufacturing and prototyping, research and development, and education.
Creating manufacturing parts is one major use of a CNC metal lathe, and many specialist parts can be created using this machine. In a similar vein, creating a prototype project or design using a CNC metal lathe is very common in certain industries, as it allows you to work on the design and test it out before investing in a full-scale, final version.
Research and development is an off-shoot of this, as creating new designs and parts can be sped up by a CNC metal lathe, and designers can experiment with different configurations before a final version is made. In similar contexts, a CNC metal lathe machine may be used in education settings to teach students about manufacturing processes
Finally, repairing and refurbishing existing components or metal parts can easily be done with a CN