The bed is a rigid casting with two longitudinal walls firmly connected by cross ribs integral with the casting. The bed serves as a base to support and align the rest of the machine. The upper surface of the bed is provided with parallel V-type and flat ways or guides for accurate aligning of the sliding parts of the lathe—the carriage and the tail-stock. The headstock is located and firmly bolted to the left-hand side of the bed and carries a pair of bearings in which the spindle-rotates. Many modern lathes have a motor built into the headstock-with the spindle serving as the motor shaft. The spindle ,-being one of the most important-parts of a lathe, is a steel hollow shaft with a taper bore for the insertion of the live or running centre on which the piece to be turned is placed. The other end of the work is" supported by the non-rotating dead or cup centre. The nose of the spin-die is accurately threaded for chucks to be screwed on it. The chucks, in turn, hold and revolve work pieces together with the spindle. The head- stock also incorporates the change gearbox driven by a set of speed-change levers. The change gearbox lathe at different speeds required work pieces of various diameters.
The tailstock located at the right-hand side of the bed, is a casting carrying a non-rotating sleeve, which together with the nut can be advanced or retracted by means of the tailstock revolving screw operated by the hand wheel. The tailstock may be moved anywhere along the lathe bed and can be clamped in place at any point. On changing the position, the tailstock slides along the two inner bed ways one of which named flat way is of rectangular cross-section and the other one is of V — section. The tailstock sleeve mounts a hollow spindle with a standard taper bore for holding the lathe centers or tapered tool shanks. The dead centre fits in a Morse taper hole in the sleeve and may be removed by retracting the sleeve, thereby bringing the end of the tailstock screw against the rear of the centre and forcing it out. The tailstock spindle has a large area bearing in both the front and rear of the tailstock. To facilitate measurement of the spindle travel the tailstock spindle is graduated.