The Fay automatic lathe was an

automatic lathe In metalworking and woodworking, an automatic lathe is a lathe with an automation, automatically controlled cutting process. Automatic lathes were first developed in the 1870s and were mechanically controlled. From the advent of NC and CNC in t ...

tailored to cutting workpieces that were mounted on centers (tools with pointed ends to accurately position a center-drilled workpiece about an axis, either directly or by using a

mandrel A mandrel, mandril, or arbor is a tapered tool against which material can be forged, pressed, stretched or shaped (e.g., a ring mandrel - also called a triblet - used by jewellers to increase the diameter of a wedding ring), or a flanged or t ...

). It could also do chucking work. (feeding of unformed blanks or pieces of stock from a magazine to be automatically gripped by the machine for turning). Examples of workpieces included automotive steering knuckles and transmission gears, and such work done on mandrels as flanges, disks, and hubs. The machine tool was developed by F.C. Fay of

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

and improved by Otto A. Schaum. It was originally manufactured by the Fay & Scott Machine Shop.

James Hartness James Hartness (September 3, 1861 – February 2, 1934) was an American business executive, inventor, mechanical engineer, entrepreneur, amateur astronomer, and politician who served as the List of Governors of Vermont, 58th governor of Vermont f ...

acquired manufacturing rights on behalf of the Jones & Lamson Machine Company. and manufactured an improved version, developed under the management of

Ralph Flanders Ralph Edward Flanders (September 28, 1880 – February 19, 1970) was an American mechanical engineer, industrialist and politician who served as a Republican Party (United States), Republican United States Senate, U.S. Senator from the U.S. state, ...

.. In 1937 Roe, writing for the

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing edu ...

, framed the importance of the Fay automatic lathe to the capabilities of machine tools by saying that, "This machine does for the engine lathe what Spencer did for the old hand-operated

turret lathe A turret lathe is a form of lathe (metal), metalworking lathe that is used for repetitive production of duplicate parts, which by the nature of their cutting process are usually interchangeable parts, interchangeable. It evolved from earlier lath ...

." These machines took an entire class of turned work formerly requiring an operator to execute the series of movements necessary to shape a piece of metal (manual control) and allowed the same work to be done automatically. This step forward in

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

lowered a manufacturer's

unit Unit may refer to: General measurement * Unit of measurement, a definite magnitude of a physical quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law **International System of Units (SI), modern form of the metric system **English units, histo ...

expense per part by reducing labor costs.. Numerically controlled (CNC) machine tools such as turning centers, turn-mills, and rotary transfer machines have largely supplanted cam-operated automatics.

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