The Biggest Lathe I've Ever Seen

[crokett]

I was at a machine shop today picking up a pulley for the planer. They had the biggest lathe there I've ever seen. The bed was probably 20' long and about 3' high. The headstock/motor was taller than I am and the chuck they had in it had to be 20" or so across. I am guessing that thing would turn something 36" in diameter - at least.

[dewi1219]

My first job out of college was at a cast iron pipe foundry, and they had a lathe like that. It was used to thread pipe up to 42" (IIRC) in diameter.

[BobSch]

Look at this monster: http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/10458...By_Tacchi.html

62+ foot turning length and 121,000 pound maximum workpiece weight!

[Uncle Cracker]

Now that thar is arn, boys...

[SARGE..g-47]

Big arn..... If any of you guys or gals get to attend the IWF Show in Atlanta Aug. 20-23... those are some examples of things you can see in action. It is truly amazing of some of the industrial machinery on the market.

And of course regular size machines for us also. And if you do get by.. please drop by Booth # 6429 Steel City Tool-works as I will be there all week demonstrtating machines. I would love to meet anyone from this forum.

[Tom Slick]

I love big machines!

This is a Giddings and Lewis horizontal milling machine with pallet changer at the Fadal milling machine factory. It takes bigger machines to make big machines. For scale, the door on the side is a standard sized door about 32" x 80". The blocks of iron you see sitting around are bases and saddlesfor the machines being assembled in the picture below it. It is fully automatic, the operator loads a rough casting on the far side, it takes the casting into the machine, and spits out finished 3,000 lb parts on the near side. Tool changes are automatic also, it holds 80 tools!





I was there for a factory certified maintenance class. It was really neat to see how they were built.

[gerti]

Use a tractor as WW lathe (just an example I could find with a quick google search, I have seen others):

http://www.proserpinewoodturners.com/The_Big_Bowl.html

[jussi]

Look at this monster: http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/10458...By_Tacchi.html

62+ foot turning length and 121,000 pound maximum workpiece weight!

I wonder what kind of bowl or pen you could turn with that?

[Tom Slick]

Use a tractor as WW lathe (just an example I could find with a quick google search, I have seen others):

http://www.proserpinewoodturners.com/The_Big_Bowl.html

you could eat alot of soup out of that bowl!!

[rja]

The largest lathe I ever saw was at Bethlehem Steel, Bethlehem, PA in the mid 1960s. It was used to turn turbine shaft forgings. The forgings were about 6 feet in diameter and many feet long.

[Whaler]

Here in Washington we have a histrory of building wooden ships and still have a woodshop that can turn masts up to 40" diameter and 122' length. I have never been to the shop but have seen several of their masts.
Here is a link to the site
www.thesparshop.org