What is the difference between a lathe and a milling machine?

Lathe can be used to process various rotary forming surfaces, such as inner and outer cylindrical surfaces, inner and outer conical surfaces, inner and outer threads, end faces, grooves and knurling.

Milling machine can process plane (horizontal plane, vertical plane), groove (keyway, T-groove, dovetail groove, etc. ), toothed parts (gears, spline shafts, sprockets), helicoids (threads, spiral grooves) and various curved surfaces. In addition, it can also be used to process the surface and inner hole of the rotary body and cut it off.

2. Different structures

Lathe is a rotating tool of workpiece, which is fixed and moves horizontally in the longitudinal direction to process circles and surfaces.

The milling machine fixes the blank through the three-grip chuck and clamps the parts on the spindle of the machine tool.

3. Different working methods

When the lathe is working, it mainly uses the turning tool to turn the rotating workpiece.

When the milling machine is working, the workpiece is mounted on the accessories such as the workbench or the indexing head, and the rotation motion of the milling cutter is the main motion, supplemented by the feeding motion of the workbench or the milling head, so that the workpiece can obtain the required machining surface.

4. Different relationships

Milling machines, drilling machines and other rotary machining machines are all drawn from lathes.

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