The various forms in which the lathe appears in ordinary machine shop manipulation may be classified as follows:—
The foot lathe, signifying that the lathe is driven by foot.
The hand lathe, denoting that the cutting tools must be held in the hands, there being no tool-carrying or feeding device on the lathe.
The single-geared lathe, signifying that it has no gear-wheels to reduce the speed of rotation of the live spindle from that of the cone.
The back-geared lathe, in which gear-wheels at the back of the headstock are employed to reduce the speed of the lathe.
The self-acting lathe, or engine lathe, implying that there is a slide rest actuated automatically to traverse the tool to its cut or feed.
The screw-cutting lathe, which is provided with a lead screw, by means of which other screws may be cut.
The screw-cutting lathe with independent feed, which denotes that the lathe has two feed motions, one for cutting threads and another for ordinary tool feeding; and
The chucking lathe, which implies that the lathe has a face plate of larger diameter than usual, and that the bed is somewhat short, so as to adapt it mainly to work held by being chucked, that is to say, held by other means than between the lathe centres.
There are other special applications of the lathe, as the boring lathe, the grinding lathe, the lathe for irregular forms, &c., &c.