From the course: Introduction to Mill and Lathe Operation
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Cutting heads
- [Instructor] Historically speaking, most end mills and lathes had a single working head. In the case of a lathe, the workpiece is attached to the spindle with the chuck and is spun. The tool moves to the workpiece and that's when chips fall. The working head is the spindle. On an end mill a tool is attached to the spindle and depending on the type of mill you have the table, the spindle, or both in conjunction move to cut your work piece. Now with modern tools such as mill turns you can have two or more spindles do the work concurrently or step-by-step depending on your needs. With more automation comes more spindles. Some mill turns have three or more spindles. Some spindles turn the part. Some spindles act like an end mill and this allows for greater dimensional accuracy. Since the work piece does not have to be moved into a different setup or there are fewer setups the final parts no longer have to deal with fixture variances. Also, if you're dealing with super high precision…
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