Veterans Day is a day to show our veterans our gratitude for their service. Atlas Copco Compressors USA is proud to have more than 100 veterans currently employed and is always actively recruiting more. This year, Veterans Day will be celebrated on Friday, November 11. According to the Veterans Asso

Machine shop terminology can be confusing, particularly for a newcomer. And if you’re in the market for a new machine tool you can quickly get overwhelmed by jargon. Much of that confusion comes from the different machine tools themselves. You have lathes, mills, and routers, all of which ar

What do you need to know about machine shop safety? This blog post will give you an overview of the most important tips that every operator and machinist needs to be aware of. Despite cutting-edge technology and advanced machine tools, the average machine shop still poses a number of risks. Thi

Dive too deeply into the world of machine tools and modern machining techniques, and you’re likely to come across a discussion of subtractive and additive machining methods. What are these techniques, how do they work, and how are they used? We’ll explore both ideas in this blog,

Lathes are complicated pieces of modern machinery, but they all rely on basic parts. On a metal lathe, the clutch helps to control the speed of the lathe spindle. The clutch also performs a key role in slowing down the spindle, essentially working as a braking mechanism. There are a few easy

Lathes are rightly called the “mother tools” of the machine shop. In the right hands, lathes can be used to create all the parts you need for other machine tools, making them incredibly versatile and powerful. Of course, not all lathes are created equal. Perhaps your lathe predat

Mills and lathes are highly versatile machine tools that form the centerpiece of most machine shop floors. Boring mills, on the other hand, are more specialized, meaning they frequently appear as part of a larger production line. Boring mills play a key role in the world of modern manufactur

Cutting-edge CNC lathes are production powerhouses. You’ll find them everywhere from small machine shops to large-scale production facilities. They provide a level of automation and precision that’s simply not possible with manual machine tools, opening the door for greatly expanded

Lathes have an almost unmatched reputation among machinists. Powerful, versatile, and precise, lathes work just as well for large-scale production jobs as they do for one-off prototypes. There are multiple important measurements on a lathe. The swing refers to the room between the center of

Machinists looking for a new addition to their machine shop or home workshop face a number of choices. Which lathe or mill is the best, how large should they be, and of course – which make and model? For machinists working in small spaces, lathe/mill combination machines provide a temp

You can get overwhelmed by the different jargon surrounding a new lathe or mill. G-code, CNC, vector files – without prior knowledge of what each stands for, potential buyers can get confused. Two of the more common acronyms you might encounter are PLC and CNC. Both refer to methods of

What powered the Industrial Revolution? Machine tools. Lathes and mills were equipped with steam power, and from that came the factories and production facilities that pushed economies to new heights. In today’s manufacturing, Computer Numerical Control (CNC) technology fills a similar

Summit is committed to delivering cutting-edge machine tools to many of the world’s largest manufacturers and machine shops. Our HTM series of horizontal boring mills are trusted by engineers and craftsmen in need of boring mill solutions for heavy-duty applications. What Are Horizontal Bori

When you first hear the term “lathe spider,” you might be taken aback. It certainly sounds unusual, but a lathe spider is a straightforward piece of equipment. A lathe spider is essentially a specialized lathe chuck, designed to hold a workpiece securely while it rotates in the lathe. With t

When you need to cut a piece of wood or metal, you use a saw. When you need a hole punched through a workpiece, you use a drill. But what if you want to carve or hollow out something? To cut it, without cutting it completely? That’s when you use a router. From the old word “rout” – to

A lathe holds a workpiece between two centers. The workpiece is mounted on a spindle, which rotates and spins the workpiece. This is why lathe work is often referred to as “turning;” a piece is “turned” on a lathe, and the tool removes material from it to produce the desired part. So how fas

Cylinders aren’t just random geometric shapes that only occur in your textbooks. In fact, cylinders are some of the more common shapes found in industrial and machining applications. Screws, bushings, basic metal rods – all are cylinders or variations of them.  For most cylindrica

Walk into a modern machine shop, and it’s easy to be overwhelmed at the amount of advanced technology on display. CNC machines relying on computers and g-code to perform advanced cutting operations on 5-axis machines, or Electron Discharge Machines (EDMs) using electricity to cut through metal

Adding a lathe to your machine shop equipment roster vastly improves the range of jobs you can perform, but lathes are expensive machines. Even a secondhand model can cost thousands of dollars, and for a top-of-the-line CNC lathe, the price tag is frequently in the range of tens of thousands.

Introduction The lathe, one of the most significant machine tools, existed long before the Industrial Revolution. But once the Industrial Revolution well and truly took hold in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, the lathe quickly became a huge part of the explosion of industrial capacit