The engine lathe,one of the oldest metal removal machines,has a number of useful and highly desirable attributes.Today these lathes are used primarily in small shops where smaller quantifies rather than large production runs are encountered.
Tolerances for the engine lathe depend primarily on the skill of the operator.The design engineer must be careful in using tolerances of an experimental part that has been produced on the engine lathe by a skilled operator.In redesigning an experimental part for production,economical tolerances should be used.
The engine lathe has been replaced in today’s production shops by a wide variety of automatic lathes such as turret lathes,automatic screw machines.and automatic tracer lathes.