Talk:Micro lathe

Topic notability; orthographic styling of name

just created the page. Currently sniffing around the internet for sources to cite that are not textbooks or too obscure to find.

will probably get around to adding a list of companies that make micro lathes shortly. May eventually incorporate information about micro mills or create a separate page for them.

will also search for information to see if there is any news reports citing Theodore Kaczynski (UNI BOMBER) use of micro lathes in the construction of his devices - likely as he fashioned his own screws

Statisticalregression 08:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations on your new page. I was wondering -- is it "Micro lathe" or "Microlathe"? Also I think the style is to start with the singular "A micro lathe is..."

PS: On WP people don't vote to keep pages. If someone doesn't like a page they will nominate it for deletion - I don't think that will happen here as the topic is notable. -- Sparkzilla talk! 08:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Would only take one vote to remove it then (so to speak). Micro lathe is the correct spelling (adjetive + noun) although I have been known to deviate from the rule with "sloppywife!" and I usually end up paying some kind of penalty.Statisticalregression 09:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I had a look at Google and there seem to be examples of both spellings, but perhaps an editor with stronger knowledge will assist later. Deletions are subject to WP:consensus. Unless there was a strong reason to remove by an ocverwhelming majority then it will survive. -- Sparkzilla talk! 09:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Either way works, although googling 'microlathe' does get a "Did you mean: micro lathe" suggestion. Maybe 'microlathe' is the new, sheik, young-looking progressive spelling and 'micro lathe' is for stubborn goats like me who still type 'colour' even though I never went to school outside of the US. Not that is matters any, but 'micro lathe' got 47 pages of hits on google and 'microlathe' got 24 pages.

OK, that's for other editors to play with. May I suggest you rename "capabilities" to "materials" and combine "use" and "applications" (which are the same) into the intro. Depending on your sources you might want to add an "operation" section (how the operation of a micro lathe is different from a standard lathe).

I was looking at the lathe page and I think that once this page is better formed you should add some information about mico lathes there. However, iot is inevitable that some editors there may suggest that you merge this article into that one. Whether this is a good idea or not depends on the kind of well-sourced detail you can add to this page.

PS: You should add a note on the Lathe discussion page to get other editors to get more input to this article. -- Sparkzilla talk! 10:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

There's only one article on Wikipedia that includes the term so far, opthalmology, which uses the form "microlathe". I've linked it to here via a redirect. It would be good, if you can find material covering it, to add a mention of micro lathes' uses in surgery.--Father Goose 20:24, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Issues with wording in current article

I take issue with the wording and content of the article. Microlathes are not capable of what anyone in the manufacturing industry would call "incredible" speed or accuracy, and certainly not enough to warrant mentioning. Not mentioned in the article is that movement controlled in thousandths of an inch is the standard on English machine tools of any size. Movement in ten-thousandths of an inch is now a standard feature on modern CNC tooling many times the size of large bench lathes. The article makes it appear as though turning to a thousandth of an inch is a feat rather than a fairly low expectation. Additionally, the small size of the tool is a hindrance to accuracy, as low weight and thin castings do not absorb shock or prevent twisting under load. Small lathes often do not have spindle speeds higher than 3000 rpm or so, which prevent small turning at an appropriate speed. Again, many larger CNC lathes have more resilient and faster bearings which will allow spindle speeds in excess of 10k rpm. Heat is another issue in this article. Small parts with low-horsepower cuts do not generate the heat a large lathe will generate during operation. A microlathe may produce a part that is warm for several minutes; the part does not have the mass to retain heat. However, a 500 lb casting on a larger machine, undergoing 15-20 horsepower cuts will remain hot for hours.

Microlathes are hobby machines for use in steam models and other similar pursuits, not well suited for commercial prototyping or production. While this type of machine may be beneficial to a small set of commercial users, the most popular lathe for small prototype work is the HLV-H and its clones. Not at all a micro lathe. - Toastydeath 02:57, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to clean up the wording - wasn't meant to compare the accuracy to large CNC machines, more along the lines of ' they are capable of incredible accuracy considering their size and weight" but I will change the text to something along the lines of 'considering their size and weight, they are still capable of high accuracy". some microlathes do have motors and step-up gearing to allow 7000K rpm and higher. Toastydeath, feel free to change the text so it reads accurately in your eyes. Statisticalregression 02:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I suggest generalizing this article into "Miniature machine tools"

I suggest generalizing this article into "Miniature machine tools", because it could easily cover both microlathes and micromills, as well as other misc small machine tools. However, I may not get around to doing this for a while. But it's a good idea for the future. — ¾-10 17:31, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

sounds like a good idea to me. I'm super busy over the holidays but if the change is made I will do my best to contributeStatisticalregression (talk) 23:44, 26 December 2008 (UTC)