User:Three-quarter-ten/To-do—main


 * Create "turning center (CNC lathe)".
 * Create "turn-mill" and "mill-turn" and redirect both to "multitasking machining" (MTM). One of the refs can be http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=it_fac
 * Create "rotary transfer machine".
 * Break "form tool" out into a article, and flesh it out. Many types of cutting tool have form tool variants. Besides (nonrotary) tool bits, these include rotary tools such as milling cutters and specialty drills that are actually drill-counterbore form tools.

Orphan content awaiting the homes sketched above
CNC lathes began as conventional designs (on the form factors of engine lathes, turret lathes, and traditional screw machines) retrofitted with CNC control. The term "turning center" was sometimes applied to them, in direct parallel to the "machining center" name for milling machines equipped with CNC and automatic tool changers (ATCs). However, it was the advent of live tooling (lathe tools with rotary axes) that gave the term "turning center" a truly distinct meaning from a "mere" CNC lathe (if one chose to enforce the nomenclature distinction).

In recent decades CNC lathes and mills have evolved and converged into new classes of machine tools that are often called by names other than "lathe", such as "turn-mills", "mill-turns", "multitasking machines", and "multifunction machines". These machine tools are neither lathe nor mill (as classically defined) but a hybrid of both. Decades of analyzing and synthesizing machining processes have made clear that no particular form factor need be taken for granted in machine design.