The following sub-sections elaborate on related equipment and technology.
The lathe is a machine tool used principally for shaping pieces of metal (and
sometimes wood or other material) by causing the work piece to be held and rotated on its axis to
perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, or deformation, facing, turning
with tools that are applied to the work piece to create an object which has symmetry about an axis of
rotation. The basic lathe that was designed to cut cylindrical metal stock has been developed further to
produce screw threads, tapered work, drilled holes, knurled surfaces, and crankshafts. Modern lathes
offer a variety of rotating speeds and a means to manually and automatically move the cutting tool into
the work piece.
A shaper is a type of machine tool that uses linear relative motion between the work piece and
a single-point cutting tool to machine a linear tool path. Its cut is analogous to that of a lathe, except
that it is (archetypally) linear instead of helical. (Adding axes of motion can yield helical tool paths( as
also done in helical planing.)
A Radial Drill is a machine in which the drilling head is mounted to slide along a radial arm which can be rotated, raised, or lowered on a vertical mast to adjust the position of the drill above the work piece, used for drilling medium or large diameter holes up to 50 mm in heavy work pieces.
Presently, virtually no cluster firm has access to such equipment. A hacksaw is a
fine-toothed saw, originally and principally for cutting metal. Power hacksaws are used to cut large
sizes (sections) of metal such as steel. Cutting diameters of more than 10/15mm is very hard work
with a normal hand held hacksaw. Therefore power hacksaws have been developed to carry out the
difficult and time consuming work.
Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welding, also sometimes called Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) is a
process that was developed in the 1940s for welding aluminum and other non-ferrous metals. MIG
welding is an automatic or semi-automatic process in which a wire connected to a source of direct
current acts as an electrode to join two pieces of metal as it is continuously passed through a welding
gun. A flow of an inert gas, originally argon, is also passed through the welding gun at the same time as
the wire electrode. This inert gas acts as a shield, keeping airborne contaminants away from the weld
zone. This is an option that may also be considered.
A bench grinder is a type of bench top grinding machine used to drive abrasive
wheels, commonly used to hand grind cutting tools and perform other rough grinding. Depending on
the grade of the grinding wheel it may be used for sharpening cutting tools such as lathe tools or drill
bits. Alternatively it may be used to roughly shape metal prior to welding or fitting. A wire brush wheel
or buffing wheels can be interchanged with the grinding wheels in order to clean or polish work-pieces.
Grinding wheels designed for steel should not be used for grinding softer metals, like Aluminum. The
soft metal gets lodged in the pores of the wheel and expands with the heat of grinding. This can
dislodge pieces of the grinding wheel.
A bending machine is a forming machine tool. Its purpose is to assemble a bend
on a work piece. A bends is manufactured by using a bending tool during a linear or rotating move.
An emerging new economic order coupled with unbounded trade limits, imbalances in the technological advancement among the nations and aggressive market strategy all contribute to the serious challenges experienced by small and medium entrepreneurs particularly the small-scale sector. On this background, cluster development attracts much importance.
