Boring, Drilling and Knurling on Lathe

By

Fahad

Report submitted to the faculty of Engineering at PIEAS in partial

fulfillment of requirements for the Degree of B.S. Mechanical
Engineering

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Pakistan Institute of Engineering & Applied Sciences,

Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan.

June 2020.
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Whoever fears Allah, Allah will find a way out for him and he will provide for him
from the sources that he could never have imagined .
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Department of Mechanical Engineering,

PakistanxInstitute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS)
Nilore. Islamabad 45650, Pakistan

Declaration of Originality

I, at this moment, declare that the work contained in this report and the intellectual
content of this report are the product of my work. This report has not been previously
published in any form, nor does it contain any verbatim of the distributed resources,
which could be treated as an infringement of copyright law.

I declare that I understand the terms' copyright' and 'plagiarism,' in case of any
copyright violation or plagiarism found in this work, I will be responsible for the
consequences of any such breach.

Signature: _______________________________

Name: __________________________________

Date: ____________________

Place: ____________________
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Dedication
The report is dedicated my mother who has always been a source of
inspiration for me and the people around her.
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Acknowledgment
I would like to express my thanks to my teacher Mr. Ammar Ahmad who has taught
us the knowledge of this subject.

Fahad
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction............................................................................................................1

1.1 How Boring, drilling and knurling are done on lathe?....................................1

1.1.1 How drilling and boring are done on lathe?.............................................1

1.1.2 How knurling is done on lathe?...............................................................2

1.2 Purpose of drilling, boring and knurling.........................................................3

2 Theory....................................................................................................................3

2.1 Drilling on lathe...............................................................................................3

2.1.1 Mounting work and drill on lathe for drilling..........................................4

2.1.2 Drilling operations...................................................................................5

2.2 Boring on Lathe...............................................................................................6

2.2.1 Mounting Workpiece for Boring on Lathe...............................................6

2.2.2 Mounting Boring Tool on Lathe..............................................................6

2.2.3 Straight Boring Operation........................................................................7

2.2.4 Boring Cutter Bit Setup............................................................................7

2.2.5 Guidelines for Boring Relative to Turning..............................................9

2.3 Knurling on Lathe............................................................................................9

2.3.1 Types of knurls.......................................................................................10

2.3.2 The Process of Knurling.........................................................................11

2.3.3 Mounting of Work and Knurling Tool on Lathe....................................11

3 Combined Case Study of Drilling, Boring and Knurling on Lathe......................13

4 References............................................................................................................16
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Drill Chuck.....................................................................................................1
Figure 2: Center Drilling................................................................................................1
Figure 3: Drilling on lathe..............................................................................................2
Figure 4: Boring on Lathe..............................................................................................2
Figure 5: Different Knurling Patterns...........................................................................3
Figure 6: Knurling on lathe............................................................................................3
Figure 7: Set ups for drilling with lathe.........................................................................5
Figure 8: Steadyin the drill.............................................................................................5
Figure 9: Boring Cutter Bit above the center.................................................................7
Figure 10: Boring tool bits and holders..........................................................................8
Figure 11: Proper position of boring cutter bit...............................................................8
Figure 12: The Process of Knurling on Lathe..............................................................11
Figure 13: Work and Tool mounting in knurling on lathe...........................................12
Figure 14: Multiple Tool Knurling..............................................................................12
Figure 15: Knurling on Knurled Nut............................................................................13
Figure 16: Drilling on the knurled nut.........................................................................14
Figure 17: Boring on the nut........................................................................................14
Figure 18: Final Shape of the nut.................................................................................15
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Executive Summary
In this report, three processes drilling, boring and knurling have been explained. The
main purpose of this report was to explain that how these processes can be performed
on lathe machine. The procedure of mounting tool and workpiece to the machines for
each of the processes drilling, boring and knurling has been explained. The theory
related to the processes has been explained and certain guidelines are given regarding
these processes being performed on the lathe machine. At the end a case study has
been given which shows the combination of these three operations performed on a
certain work on lathe machine.
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1 Introduction
1.1 How Boring, drilling and knurling are done on lathe?
1.1.1 How drilling and boring are done on lathe?
Drilling can be done on lathe, first of all drill chuck is used on tailstock. The drill
chuck is shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Drill Chuck

Morse taper shaft of the drill chuck is used to get fit into the tailstock and gets into
the locked position. So, as a first step of performing drilling on lathe center drill bit is
used to get a starting point of drilling. This step is required for successful drilling of
hole into the material, otherwise the drill bit may slip away. This step is illustrated in
figure 2.

Figure 2: Center Drilling

After that centering is done, now we can drill the hole of desired diameter using
particular drill bit. Feed can be given by tailstock wheel. The value of feed depends
upon the depth of cut or depth of hole we want to achieve in the workpiece. This
process is shown in Figure 3.
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Figure 3: Drilling on lathe

Now, boring is a process to enhance the diameter of already drilled hole to a small
amount. Boring bar is used for boring. There can be two ways to do boring on lathe
these are:

Mounting the holder and boring tool bar with cutter bit on the tool post and revolving
the workpiece.

Workpiece can be fixed to the carriage of the lathe and boring toll bar and cutter bit
can be attached with the spindle of the headstock.

Figure 4: Boring on Lathe

The purpose of boring is to get accurate dimension of hole after drilling.

1.1.2 How knurling is done on lathe?

Knurling is a process which is generally done on lathe to impress a pattern comprising
of straight, angled or crossed lines onto the material. Different knurling patterns are
shown in the Figure 5.
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Figure 5: Different Knurling Patterns

To perform knurling the knurling tool is first set in the tool post with the face of
knurls in parallel to the worksurface. Figure 6 shows how knurling can be done on
lathe. In the figure it can be seen that there is a wheel shaped tool of knurling which is
attached with tool post and is imprinting a pattern on work.

Figure 6: Knurling on lathe

1.2 Purpose of drilling, boring and knurling

The process of drilling has its own importance in engineering. We need to do drilling
for variety of purposes. For assembly or disassembly the holes are made to
accomplish our tasks. The holes are drilled to pass bolt through it which is at heart of
machine mechanics. All in all we can see applications of drilling everywhere.
The process of boring is done to refine the hole after drilling is done. It is used to
achieve final dimensions of the holes.

The process of knurling is done so that gripping of the workpiece becomes easy and it
may not slip. It may also be done for appearance or decorative purposes only.

2 Theory
2.1 Drilling on lathe
Although lathe is not a drilling machine yet drilling is performed on it to avoid effort
and more time consumption. Because if many operations are to be performed on a
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workpiece then it would be time consumping and difficult to again and again remove
workpiece from machine. So, drilling can be done on lathe machine for convenience.

2.1.1 Mounting work and drill on lathe for drilling

If we want to make the workpiece rotate and give feed to the twist drill into the end of
the work then workpiece is mounted in the chuck on collet or on faceplate. As it is
already described that first of all center of the hole is marked accurately and then
drilling is performed. Center drill is used for the purpose of marking center on the
workpiece. So, center for the drill should be accurately marked.

There can be another of mounting, the twist drill can be rotated by headstock spindle
and the workpiece can be supported by a V- center mounted in the tailstock, the work
must be precisely located by hand and the drill is moved lightly into contact with the
workpiece before starting the lathe. Care should be taken while supporting workpiece
during drilling operation so that the workpiece can be prevented from being thrown
from the lathe.

Tapered shank twist drills can be directly adjusted into tapered tailstock spindle if
there is a good fit but if the shank is not fit to the size of the tailstock spindle then drill
sleeve or socket can be used to adjust it.

Twist drills can be supported by a twist drill holder with the tailstock center. The drill
is adjusted into the drill holder and then the tailstock center is placed in the center
hole which is located at the back of the drill holder. The drill holder rests on the cross
slide or compound rest and is supported by hand until it is held secure by pressure
between the tailstock and headstock. One should never withdraw or loosen the
tailstock spinlde while lathe is working.

Another way of supporting a large twist drill in the tailstock is to fasten lathe dog to
the drill shank and support the back of the drill with the help of tailstock center. The
following Figure 7 shows some setups for drilling with the lathe.
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Figure 7: Set ups for drilling with lathe

2.1.2 Drilling operations

First of all, before starting the drilling operation the correct rpm for the drill is
computed and hence spindle speed is also set according to it. It is to make sure that
tailstock is clamped down on the lathe ways. Secondly, the feed will be controlled by
turning the tailstock handwheel. There are graduations on the tailstock spindle that are
used to get desired value of depth of cut or the depth of hole that we need in the
workpiece. Suitable cutting fluid should be used while drilling. To check the depth of
the hole draw out the drill and then brush out the chips. If the drill starts wobbling in
the hole then use a tool holder turned backwards as shown in the figure 8 to make the
drill steady.

Figure 8: Steadyin the drill

Care should be taken while drilling on the lathe. Following points should be kept in
mind
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1. For a particular material the drill that is particularly ground for that material should
be used.

2. Care must be taken while feeding the drill into the workpiece so to avoid breaking
off the drill in the workpiece.

3. Drill must not be removed from the workpiece while the spindle is rotating because
the drill may be pulled off the tailstock spindle and can cause serious injury or other
damage.

2.2 Boring on Lathe

Boring is subsequent process of the drilling. In this process the diameter of the drilled
hole is given a final required dimensions with in the given value of tolerance.
Basically, this is the process of increasing diameter of drilled hole to some extent.
The process of boring becomes necessary in certain cases to produce accurate holes.
During the process of drilling the drilled holes are usually not made perfectly straight
because of the imperfections in material which causes the drills to move out of the
proper alignment. Therefore, when there is requirement of high accuracy, the drilled
holes are intentionally made smaller in size and then they are bored and reamed to
required final dimensions. Boring is done in flat materials for truing large holes. In
that situation the hole is cut smaller in size with the help of bandsaw or trepanning
tool and is finally trued to final dimensions by boring.

2.2.1 Mounting Workpiece for Boring on Lathe

The workpiece can be supported in chuck or attached to a faceplate for the performing
the boring operations, depending upon which material has to be machined. If we are
to perform boring on the ends of a long workpiece, the workpiece should be mounted
in a chuck and steady rest is used to give the support to the right end nearby the cutter
bit. Special chuck-mounted madrels are required in certain cases in boring operations
to hold the workpieces that cannot be mounted otherwise.

2.2.2 Mounting Boring Tool on Lathe

Considering the depth to which the boring is to be performed the boring tool bar is to
be clamped as close to the holder and tool post as possible. The bar has the ability to
spring away from the workpiece if the bar is overhanging the tool post too far. If we
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want to perform deep boring it will be then necessary that the bar should be as thick
as possible to counter the effect of springing away.

2.2.3 Straight Boring Operation

For the straight boring operations the cutter bit is positioned with its cutting edge a
little above center. Taking into account the rigidness of the set up the boring tool
possesses the ability to spring downward as the force or pressure acts to the cutting
edge. The purpose of setting the cutter a little above the center is to compensate for
the downward spring action and then the cutter in reality will be positioned on the
exact center of the workpiece as shown in Figure 9. The cutting edge faces forward
for the most of the operations so that lathe can turn in its normal counterclockwise
direction. If it is necessary to position the cutter bit against the rear wall of the hole
for any kind of special operation, a right-hand turning cutter bit can be used and the
spindle rotation will be reversed.

Figure 9: Boring Cutter Bit above the center

2.2.4 Boring Cutter Bit Setup

The cutter bit tool which is used for boring is similar to some extent to that used for
the external turning on lathe. The cutter bit is generally held in a bar which is called as
boring tool bar. The boring tool bar is supported by cutting tool holder which can be
fit to the lathe tool post as shown in Figure 10.
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Figure 10: Boring tool bits and holders

For the purpose of holding different cutter bits the boring tool bars are supplied with
different types and sizes. The bit is usually supported in the tool bar at angles of 90,
30 or 45 degrees depending upon which workpiece is going to be bored. Generally,
the boring is done with a 90 degree cutter bit. The bit is mounted at angles of 30
degrees or 45 degrees to the axis of the boring tool bar when it is desired to cut upto
the bottom of a hole or to finish a side of any internal shoulder. The boring tool
should be as large as possible provided it should not interfere eith the walls of the
hole. The cutter bits that are used for boring can be shaped left-hand turning and
facing cutter bits. Attention is to be given to the end clearance angle and the back rake
angle because of the curvatue of the hole as shown in the Figure 11.

Figure 11: Proper position of boring cutter bit

The cutter bit should be positioned such that the cutting edge arrives immediately to
the right of the workpiece and it clears off the wall of the hole by about 1/16 inches.
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The carriage should be traversed by hand before starting the lathe machine so to move
the cutter bit and the boring bar into hole to the required depth of the intended boring
and again take it out to determine whether a sufficient amount of clearance is present
to prevent the back of the cutter bit and the tool bar from rubbing effect inside of the
hole. If the required clearance is present then the cutter bit is to be positioned to the
right of the workpiece ready for the first cut. The depth of the tool travel can be
managed by the use of the micrometer carriage stop.

2.2.5 Guidelines for Boring Relative to Turning

Following are some guidelines for boring operation

 Speed

Speed recommendations are same for straight turning and straight boring.

 Feed

For boring feeds must be significantly smaller than feeds used for turning because of
less rigidness in the setup.

 Depth of Cut

The depth of cut should be decreased for each pass of the tool bit again for the less
rigidness of the setup.

 It is generally recommended to feed the cutter bit into desired depth in the hole
and then reversing the feed to let the cutter bit come out of the hole without
causing change in the depth of feed.
 To eliminate the effect of bell mouthing of the workpiece it is good to free cut
every several passes.

2.3 Knurling on Lathe

Knuriling is a manufacturing process in which a cetain pattern is imprinted on the
material without removing the material, so first thing that should be clear about
knurling is that it is not a material removal technique but rather a process involving
cold working.

The operation of knurling is performed to produce indentations on a part of a

workpiece. The advantagae of knurling is that it allows hands or fingers to get a good
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grip on a knurled object than that could be provided by an originally smooth metal
object’s surface. At times, the knurled pattern is made of a series of ridges or
a helix of straight ridges despite of the usually used criss-cross pattern.

Knurling could be used as repair method because rolled in knurled surface has raised
areas surrounding the depressed areas, the raised areas can compensate for wear of the
part. This repair method had been used on pistons of internal combustion engines,
where the skirt of a worn out piston was expanded back to the nominal size using a
knurling process. As of now the auto parts have become cheap, knurling has become
less prevalent than it once was, and it is also specifically discouraged by performance
engine builders.

Knurling can also be used when a component has to be assembled into a low precision
component, for intance a pin of metal into a plastic molding. Surface of pin of the
metal is knurled so the raised detail can bite into the plastic irrespective of the size of
the hole exactly matches the diameter of the pin.

Frequently knurled objects are handles of the tools, mechanical pencils, barbell bars,

and the control knobs present on electronic equipment. The other example can be
the knurled nut, having a knurled finish instead of the hexagonal or square edges to
aid in tightening or loosening the nut without using of a tool. The knurled surfaces can
give enough grip for holding the nut between the thumb and forefinger. Hence it can
also be called as a thumb nut. It usually finds application on small-diameter bolts.
Knurled nuts are generally used in the electrical components, instruments of music
and in automobiles.

2.3.1 Types of knurls

 Annular Rings
When the mating part happens to be plastic annular rings can be knurled.
Athough the rings make the mating easy, the ridges make it difficult to move
the components apart.
 Linear Knurl
The linear knurls can withstand greater torsion happening between the
components.
 Diamond Knurl
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It can be regarded as a combination or hybrid of annular rings and linear

knurls. It is relatively more frequently used than other knurling types because
it provides better grip than the other.

2.3.2 The Process of Knurling

Knurling is generally done by using one or more hard rollers that have the pattern on
them which is reverse to what we get imposed on object. A single roller can be used
for straight knurling, the material onto which the pattern is to be imposed should be
supported accurately to avoid deformation.

A criss cross patten of knurling can be obtained by using a single roller that has the
reverse of the desired pattern, these tools are available as male or female patterns or it
can be obtained by using a left handed roller (straight) which is followed by a right
handed one or vice versa, or it can also be obtained when one or more than one left
handed rollers are used simultaneously with one or more than one right handed
rollers.

Basically, the topic of our interest is knurling on lathe the Figure illustrates the
process of knurling on lathe.

Figure 12: The Process of Knurling on Lathe

2.3.3 Mounting of Work and Knurling Tool on Lathe

Generally the knurling tool is mounted with the tool post and the feed is given along
the lathe axis. The knurling tool contains the tool wheel which can more than one
attachced to a single knurling tool. The work is attached with the chuck and supported
by the dead center of the tailstock. The work piece is rotated in the lathe and the speed
is adjusted to the calculated value. The Figure 12 shows how the workpiece and tool
are mounted on Lathe.
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Figure 13: Work and Tool mounting in knurling on lathe

Multiple knurling wheels tool can be mounted on tool post, Figure 14 shows the
multiple wheel tool attached to the tool post.

Figure 14: Multiple Tool Knurling

In the Figure 14 it can also be noticed that at the end of the work dead center is not
supporting the work rather it is a tool that is providing the support to the workpiece.
So, this type of mounting can also be done where required.
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3 Combined Case Study of Drilling,

Boring and Knurling on Lathe
In this case study a case will be discussed which combines the drilling, boring and
knurling on Lathe. A knurled nut is a good case to study here.

In the first a step a cylinderical piece of the material is taken and then turning is
performed on it to get the required diameter. As a first step of our interest, knuriling is
performed on it as shown in Figure 15. Two wheel are simultaneoulsy used, one of
which is right handed and other is left handed. This is usually done to get the diamond
pattern which we usually use to get better grip. The knurling tool which is attached
with the tool post of the lathe machine is adustable, the center to center distance
between the the two wheels can be changed with the help of screw, forming a scissors
type arrangement. In this way various diameters can be accomodated to be knurnled.

Figure 15: Knurling on Knurled Nut

Now, as the knurling has been performed on knurling nut, drilling is to be performed
on the knurled nut. The drilling is done with the help of twist drill. Definitely, before
drilling the center drilling must be done, the center drill is not shown because it is
understood that it has been performed. Figure 16 shows that how drilling takes place
after the knurling on the nut.
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Figure 16: Drilling on the knurled nut

Now, after the drilling has been done ultimately boring is done to get the desired nut
after series of manufacturing processes happening to it. Figure 17 shows the process
of boring on the nut.

Figure 17: Boring on the nut

The final shape of nut thus obtained after one or two more simple processes being
done it is shown in Figure 18.
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Figure 18: Final Shape of the nut

4 References
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1
[1] Zendesk, [Online]. Available: https://smithy.com/machining-handbook/chapter-
3/page/29.
[2] "Drilling with the center lathe," TechnologyStudent, 2003-2009. [Online].
Available: http://www.technologystudent.com.