 Welcome back MechanicalEI, did you know that screws, gun barrels and crank shafts can be produced using a lathe? This makes us wonder, what is a lathe? Before we jump in, check out the previous part of this series to learn about what an assembly drawing is. First, let's look at the assembly drawing of a single tool post, which, as the name suggests, supports one cutting tool at a time. It is used on small sized lathes. The unit is fixed on the compound rest of the lathe carriage. The single tool post consists of a circular body, labelled here as one, with a collar at one end and a threaded hole at the other. A vertical slot is provided in the body to accommodate the tool or tool holder. The design permits rotation of the body about the vertical axis. A circular ring, labelled 4, having spherical top surface is slid over the body and the wedge label 3 is located in the vertical slot. The tool or tool holder is placed over the wedge. By sliding the wedge on the ring, the tool tip level can be adjusted. The tool is clamped in position by means of a square-headed clamping screw labelled 2 passing through the head of the body. Now, a lathe is a machine that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as turning, facing, grooving, boring and drilling, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object with symmetry about that axis. It consists of a bed that acts as the base on which the different fixed and operational parts of the lathe are mounted. The tool post is bolted on the carriage. It is used to hold the tool at correct position. Chuck is used to hold the workpiece. It is bolted on the spindle, which rotates the chuck and workpiece. Headstock are set of body parts placed at the left side of the bed. It serves as a holding device for the gear chain, spindle, driving pulley, etc. Tailstock is situated on the right hand side of the bed and supports the job when required. It is also used to perform drilling operations. Lead screw is situated at the bottom side of the bed and is used to move the carriage automatically during thread cutting. The carriage is used to hold and move the tool post on the bed vertically and horizontally. It slides on the guideways. Hence, we first saw what single tool post is and then went on to see what a lathe machine is. So, like, subscribe and comment with your feedback to help us make better videos. Thanks for watching. Also, thanks a lot for those constructive comments. You help the channel grow. So, here are the top mechanical EIs of our last videos. In the next episode of Mechanical EI, find out what a knuckle joint is.