Wear-Resisting Materials for Lathe Construction

It was found, from tests of all the materials now in general use as the bearing surfaces of lathes, that the combination of hardened steel and alloy cast iron was far more wear-resistant than others and was adequately scoring-resistant.

A process referred to as “flame refining” was developed for improving the wear resistance of cast iron. An iron treated by this process and used with hardened steel formed the best combination tested, having greatly improved wear resistance and scoring resistance.

A wear test in simulated lathe service confirmed the earlier work and also showed that for minimum wear of a combination containing cast iron and hardened steel, the steel should form the carriage surface and the cast iron the bed surface.