What is CNC Lathing?
Save Time and Money with CNC Lathing
CNC lathing plays a pivotal role in the precision machining industry, creating intricate and precise components for various applications. Whether you’re a seasoned engineer or just starting to explore the world of manufacturing, understanding CNC lathing and how it works is essential to optimizing your operations. Successfully utilizing this process can save your business both time and money, helping you get to market faster and strengthening your bottom line. So, what is CNC lathing and how does it work? Let’s dive into the specifics.
How CNC Lathing Works
CNC lathing involves the removal of material from a workpiece to create a cylindrical or conical shape. It’s commonly used to create products with rotational symmetry, such as shafts, bolts, and bushings.
Before machining, the workpiece is prepared by securing it in the lathe’s chuck. Then, the operator will load a CNC program into the computer, which tells the cutting tool how to cut the piece. The lathe will then start rotating around the workpiece, and the cutting tools move along the specified paths to remove material. When the machine has finished the program, the part is ejected and the process can begin again.
Applications of CNC Lathing
This machining process is widely used in the automotive, aerospace, medical, electronics, and general manufacturing sectors. Whether you need shafts, bushings, engine components, landing gear parts, surgical instruments, connectors, pins, fasteners, or even hydraulic fittings, CNC lathing can do it all.
Advantages of CNC Lathing
Now that we understand how CNC lathing works and the applications of the process, how do you know if it’s right for you? Here are the advantages you can expect from pursuing this process:
High Precision
CNC lathing is renowned for its exceptional precision and accuracy. It can consistently produce parts with tight tolerances, ensuring that each component meets the required specifications. This level of precision is crucial for industries like the aerospace, medical, and ammunition sectors, where slight deviations could lead to massive consequences.
Create Complex Geometries
This manufacturing process is great for creating complex shapes, like intricate contours, threads, and tapers. If you’re creating parts with unique designs or complex features, you’ll want to explore CNC lathing.
Automate for Faster Production
For most applications, CNC lathing can be automated for “lights-out machining.” Once a program is set up, the machine can run continuously with minimal operator intervention. This can dramatically reduce labor costs, improve production efficiency, and minimize the risk of errors caused by manual machining.
Reduced Waste
Lathing produces less material waste compared to other machining processes. If you’re working with expensive materials, this is a great way to reduce your overall costs.
Cost-Effective
While it does take time and money to set up the initial programming and tools, this machining process is highly cost-effective for large production runs. While every business’ needs will be different, it’s likely the most efficient choice for mass production.
Ready to Explore This Manufacturing Process? Work with an Experienced Provider
If you’re looking for a partner to help with your CNC lathing, turn to Pivot Precision. With over 60 years of experience, we’re your one-stop-shop for all your tooling needs.
As a leading tooling manufacturer, we have a history of quality high-volume tooling production for the automotive, medical, ammunition, and firearm sectors. Our experience and extensive internal production capabilities allow us to deliver short lead times on complex, tight-tolerance, highly specialized tooling.
When you work with us, you’ll get high-quality products and great customer service, every time. Our workforce sustains a culture of meeting challenging specifications, delivering the best tooling and maintaining customer satisfaction standards. We’re so dedicated to quality that we maintain an ISO 9001:2015 certification to hold us to the highest standards in manufacturing excellence.
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Ready to hear more about what we can do for you? Reach out for a no-strings-attached consultation.