Excerpt from Lathe Bed Design All the early lathe beds were made of wood. Engravings showing some of these wooden beds may be seen in old works on turning. They are to be found now only in some of the lathes used by wood-turners, and in some pattern-shops, although in the latter case, lathes with iron beds are now almost exclusively used. Fig. 1 shows a wooden lathe bed or stand. Difierent methods were used for attaching the bearers or shears to the uprights. At a very early date the wear of the top surfaces of the wooden bearers was prevented by screwing thin flat iron plates onto them. Strips of wrought iron were also fitted, having curved edges chipped and filed to shape, as shown in Fig. 2. There was not a great deal of durability in these shears, but the chief objection to this construction was that when the timber warped, as it was bound to do in the course of time, it pulled the iron strips with it, and threw the headstock, tailstock, and rest out of alignment. The first all-iron beds were of triangular section, the form prob ably originating with Henry Maudslay. The bed was built of two bars of triangular section, secured in brackets bolted onto the legs. There was a very good reason for the adoption of this form of bed in pref erence to any other. There were no planing machines at that period ln the latter part of the eighteenth century - so that it was an impor tant consideration to be able to reduce the chipping and filing to a minimum on a single bar. Besides, if the two upper faces were true, it made no difierence whether the bottom one was true or not, because there was clearance between it and the tailstock and rest. Lathe beds with a single shear of triangular section have often been built, although they are seldom seen now, except in the lathes used by watch and clock-makers. These beds are sufficiently rigid for light duty, and chips do not lodge on them. The triangular-section lathe bed also possesses the virtue of insuring self-alignment of the tailstock and rest, which bear on the upper edges only. The essentials of the triangular bar section have been revived and perpetuated in the Pittler bed - referred to later - but in a modified and stronger, stiffer, and steadier form. The Pittler bed consists of a bar of trapezoidal section. The bar is hollow, and the lead-screw, passing through the hollow section, is thus protected. In some watchmakers' lathes, the essential features of the triangular bed are retained, but the lower side is of convex form. Some lathe beds are of cylindrical cross-section, either solid or hollow. All these types are simply variations of the single bar type, and are illustrated later in this treatise. Mention may also be made of square and rectangular beds, the latter being employed in a few of the peculiar French lathes used for screw threading. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.