A LITTLE HISTORY It turns out that with good reason can be attributed to the oldest profession turner. His machine is perhaps the most ancient, mechanized equipment for materials processing. The earliest artifacts testifying to its application, found in Egypt and belong to the VII century BC. Oe. One image, dating from about III century BC. e., shows a device with a vertical piece of work, pressed top load. The role of this primitive drive of the machine played the assistant turner rotates the workpiece in one direction and then in the opposite direction, pulling the ends of the rope wrapped around her.
Subsequently, the rope pulled on a bent wood stick, and "gear" has come to resemble an onion or a hacksaw. With such a machine could no longer cope and the same person. Apparently, ancient chessmen and backgammon done that way. Around the XIII century, "bow" has replaced drive a new type, a bit like Kolodezny crane, with the difference that the horizontal pole was fastened tightly. The second end of the rope tied to the pedals – clicking on it, the operator drives the workpiece, and "Crane" served as a spring return. Machines with a drive in the shape of the bow, however, very compact size, long have been distributed among watchmakers and jewelers. Qualitative changes in the mechanism of a lathe made in second half of XVII century.
But the most significant invention of the time should be considered as something that was done nearly two centuries earlier – a sketch lathe Leonardo da Vinci. This is the first design for continuous rotation of the workpiece, "realized" by a foot pedal, a massive flywheel and crank. However, the mechanism was to ensure uniformity of the relative frequency of turnover and, hence, better control of the cutting tool. By the way, the incisors of the time almost no different from modern counterparts.