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Lathe

Spins a rod and cuts it continuously with a tool bit, for as long as it's turning. Rods become turned rods, and if you leave them they become swarf.

Crafting

Lathe:

I I I
B S B
I I I

I is an Iron Ingot, B is a Bearing and S is a Shaft.

Lathe Tool Bit: two Iron Ingots stacked vertically.

Setting it up

The lathe sits directly on a shaft line; connect it from any side. The faster it turns, the faster it cuts. It's a 40 Su load.

It has two slots:

  • Right-click with a Lathe Tool Bit to fit (or swap) the bit.
  • Right-click with anything else to chuck a workpiece (or swap it).
  • Sneak-right-click with an empty hand switches between a light and a heavy cut.

There's no cutting without a bit.

What it makes

Rod → Turned Rod → Swarf

Like every machine, it doesn't stop when the rod is finished. Leave it and it cuts the rod away to swarf. Swarf also pops out of the top while it works.

It also turns gun parts:

  • Grips: from an ingot of any gun metal, or from a Stick (wood), a Bone or Bamboo. A grip doesn't need to be strong.
  • Suppressors, from a cylinder.
  • Gun Barrels: chucked in the lathe, a barrel's outside gets thinner, 0.2 mm per Fu, for as long as it turns. Thin the wall too far and it's swarf.

The bit is 20, so it can cut anything up to and including steel (15). Hardened steel (25) needs the Grinding Wheel.

Light vs. heavy cut

Heavy (18 St) cuts more than twice as fast. Light (8 St) is slower, so there's more time to catch the turned rod before it's ruined.

The lathe is also a sensor

The lathe reports how much it has cut off the piece in it. Link it with a Data Connector and read it in a Controller program, then compare it and flip a Clutch to stop the lathe at exactly the right point. It's one of the cleanest automatic-stop setups in the game.

Calipers in your inventory show the same progress in Jade.

Wear

Here the bit wears, not the lathe. It wears when it's asked to cut something too hard for it, or keeps cutting once there's nothing left. A worn bit cuts less each pass, down to 40% condition, but it never stops cutting what it could cut before. Swap in a fresh bit when it gets slow.