Automatic lathe

An automatic lathe is a lathe (usually a metalworking lathe) whose actions are controlled automatically. Although all electronically controlled (CNC) lathes are automatic, they are usually not called by that name, as explained under "General nomenclature". The first kinds of automatic lathes were mechanically automated ones, from the 1870s until the advent of NC and CNC in the 1950s and 1960s. CNC has not yet entirely displaced mechanically automated machines. The latter type of machine tool is no longer being newly built, but many existing examples remain in service.

Because of the historical path of development of machine tool technology, the natural language terminology used to name automatic lathes, at least in English, is not hierarchical in quite the way that a manufacturing layperson might expect. Retronymy (and, in other respects, lack of retronymy) have shaped the nomenclature. However, it is easy enough to understand once a bit of history is known (as explained below).

The term "automatic lathe" is still often used in manufacturing in its earlier sense, referring to automated lathes of non-CNC types. The first kinds of automatic lathes were mechanically automated ones (whose control is via cams or tracers and pantographs). Thus, before electronic automation via numerical control, programmable logic controllers, and so on, the "automatic" in the term "automatic machine tool" always referred implicitly to mechanical automation.

The earliest mechanically automated lathes were geometric lathes. These included Rose engine lathes and others. In industrial contexts during the Machine Age, the term "automatic lathe" referred to mechanical screw machines and chuckers (discussed below), of which a large variety of types, brands, and models were built.

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