Vertical Turret Lathe - VTL

Vertical Turret Lathe - VTL

Vertical Turret Lathe - VTL - A vertical turret lathe differs from an engine lathe or a turret lathe mainly in the sense that in an ordinary lathe, the chuck or face plate is in a vertical plane, whereas in a VTL the table/chuck/face plate is kept horizontally. With this position of the face plate, it is much easier to chuck; for any weight that a man can lift, he can place on the face plate and clamp.

This is not so on an ordinary lathe, for he must retain his hold while clamping takes place. In addition, it must be carefully balanced and run at a slow speed, owing to vibration caused by the wear in the spindle bearings unless the machine is new, whereas with work mounted on a vertical turret lathe, all the weight is evenly distributed downward on the bearings, so that smooth running results and heavy cutting is rendered possible.

Vertical Turret Lathe

VTL was developed to facilitate the mounting, holding and machining of large diameter heavy parts. It has all the features necessary for the production of duplicate parts. Fig shows general construction and part names of a vertical turret lathe.

The heavy center column supports the cross, rail, which is moved up or down by power driven lead screws. The tool-head is mounted on the crossrail and can be moved left or right and up or down. The tool head is of turret type having four, five, or six headed turret heads for multiple tooling.

The round worktable is supported on bearings both at the center and near the outside. It is of heavy, well braced construction to support heavy loads. Tee slots are cut into the table for holding clamps, bolts, special fixtures or jaws for mounting the job on the table.

VTL can be provided with a system of control that permits automatic operation of each head, including rate and direction of feed, change in spindle feed, indexing of turret, starting, and stopping.

Once a cycle of operations is preset and all tools are properly adjusted, the operator need only load, unload, and start the machine. The production rate is highly increased and the operator can attend more than one machine.