Q. What was the first domestically built lathe in Japan?

Among private manufacturers, the landmark machine is the 9-foot English-pattern lathe built in 1889 (Meiji 22) by Ikegai Factory for its own shop, following earlier trial builds at government arsenals and shipyards in the late Edo and early Meiji eras.

Q. When were the first NC machine tools and machining centers developed in Japan?

Tokyo Institute of Technology demonstrated an experimental NC lathe in 1956, followed in 1958 by Japan’s first commercial NC milling machine developed by Fujitsu (now FANUC) and Makino. Domestic machining centers followed from 1960 onward.

Q. Can I see historic Japanese machine tools in person at museums?

Yes. Preserved machines Certified as Mechanical Engineering Heritage or Future Technology Heritage are on public display at the Nippon Institute of Technology Museum, Toyota Commemorative Museum, National Museum of Nature and Science, and maker museums. See our Historic Machines page for locations.

History of Japanese Machine Tools: A Primary-Source Archive

Chapters

We are adding the lineage of one type of machine per chapter. Chapters 1–7 are available now, which completes the lineages by machine type.

Chapter 1The Lineage of Japanese LathesFrom imported machines of the late Edo period to Ikegai's English-type lathe of 1889, the Taisho-era exhibition, wartime controls, postwar high-speed lathes, Japan's first NC lathe in 1957, NC adoption and world leadership, and multitasking machines. With a family tree of makers and famous machines you can go and see.Read →Chapter 2The Lineage of Milling Machines and Machining CentersFrom Japanese milling machines modeled on Cincinnati designs, production milling machines, the 1958 NC milling machine and Japan's first MC in 1960, to the spread and export of vertical MCs and 5-axis machines.Read →Chapter 3The Lineage of Grinding MachinesFrom Norton-type tool grinders, Japan's first domestic spur gear grinder in 1930, the wartime Type GHU, the Type GPB and Toyoda-Gendron, and the NC grinder of 1964, to CBN wheels and ultra-precision.Read →Chapter 4The Lineage of Gear Cutting MachinesFrom imported hobbing machines around 1906 and domestic 40-inch hobbing machines in the Taisho era, through the gear shaper of 1940, postwar technical tie-ups and mass-produced automotive gears and the NC hobbing machine of 1980, to dry cutting and skiving.Read →Chapter 5The Lineage of Drilling and Boring MachinesFrom Japan's first branch-type drilling machine in 1912 and the first Japanese jig borers and gun barrel boring machines of 1938, through high-speed radial drilling machines and large horizontal boring and milling machines, to the NC drilling machine of 1965 and on to horizontal MCs.Read →Chapter 6The Lineage of EDM MachinesFrom the discovery of EDM in 1943 and the University of Tokyo's research in 1948 to Japan's first EDM, the Japaxtron D3 of 1954, die-sinking EDMs and die making, the wire EDM and NC in 1972, automatic threading and half of world output, and linear motors.Read →Chapter 7The Lineage of Multitasking and 5-Axis MachinesFrom the turning center of 1966, Ikegai's FT500NA of 1972 and Hitachi Seiki's 5LC of 1979, through Mazak's Mill Center and the Y- and B-axis INTEGREX, to the spread of 5-axis MCs, automation and combination with metal additive manufacturing.Read →

Overseas Machine Tool Archives

We have also compiled the history of the countries that Japanese machine tools took as models and competed with, in the same format (chapters by era; chapters on lathes, milling machines/MCs, grinders, gear machines and other machines; and timelines with sources).

American Machine Tool ArchiveFrom the Springfield armory to Brown & Sharpe, Ford, MIT's NC, the VRA and revival, and the gear machines of Gleason and FellowsView →German Machine Tool ArchiveFrom the beginnings in Chemnitz and Berlin through Schlesinger and the WZL, the East-West division, SINUMERIK and Industrie 4.0, to the gear machines of Pfauter and KlingelnbergView →British Machine Tool ArchiveFrom Maudslay's screw-cutting lathe and Whitworth's flat surfaces and screw threads, through the workshop of the world and two world wars, to Ferranti's NC and Renishaw's probesView →Italian Machine Tool ArchiveFrom the years of dependence on imports, through the economic miracle, Olivetti's NC and DEA's measuring machines and the FMS of Comau and Mandelli, to Fidia, Prima and SalvagniniView →

Cross-cutting views

Combined TimelineAll events from Chapters 1–7 in a single timeline. Filter by chapter or show ★ events only, with sources.View →Maker historiesEvery company in the family trees, one row each: name changes, mergers and key events.View →Famous machinesMachines designated as Mechanical Engineering Heritage or Essential Historical Materials for Science and Technology (Future Technology Heritage), and where to see them.View →PeopleThe engineers, business leaders and researchers who built up Japan's machine tools and NC.View →History in numbersLong-run trends in output, NC ratio, export ratio and orders, and Japan's world ranking (1930–2025, with a source for every year).View →

List of primary sourcesWhere to find the company histories, trade magazines, yearbooks, technical reports and statistics (with National Diet Library IDs).Coming soon

⌛Key events (mini timeline)

Key events from Chapters 1–6 that help you follow the story. Numbers refer to the sources below; a "frame" is a page in the National Diet Library Digital Collections.

May 1889Meiji 22Ikegai Shotaro founds the Ikegai Works in Shiba Kanasugi, Tokyo (May), starting in a rented shop with two English-type lathes. At the end of the year he and his younger brother Kishiro build English-type 9-foot lathes for their own use. The oldest surviving Japanese-made powered lathe (Mechanical Engineering Heritage No. 53, National Museum of Nature and Science)[1][2, frame 45][2, frame 25][3, frame 26][4]
1905Meiji 38Ikegai builds an American-type lathe to Francis's specifications and begins volume production of the "Ikegai standard lathe" (until then mostly English-type). It also tried producing about 30 a month[5, frame 65][4][3, frame 43][3, frame 44]
1912Taisho 1Rokuroku Sangyo builds a branch-type drilling machine in Japan with technology acquired in the US. The National Museum of Nature and Science database considers it the first introduction of foreign technology for Japanese machine tools, and says this design became the standard for drilling machines and was built until recent years[6]
1920Taisho 9Kashifuji Iron Works completes a 40-inch hobbing machine, modeled on a Pfauter (Germany) machine[7, frame 105]
October 1921Taisho 10The Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce holds Japan's first machine tool exhibition in Osaka (126 exhibitors). First prizes for lathes include Ikegai's Type GC and Niigata's geared American-type lathe. Domestic machines cost about half to 80% of the price of imported ones[2, frame 46][3, frame 49][3, frame 57]
1930Showa 5On an order from the Kure Naval Arsenal, Okamoto completes the Type ASG-2, the first spur gear grinder made in Japan. Max. pitch diameter 500 mm, module 8. Thirteen are built by the end of the war, and Okamoto goes on to become a full-line grinder maker[8][9]
1938Showa 13Machine Tool Manufacturing Industry Act (Act No. 40, promulgated in March). Companies meeting conditions such as 200 or more machine tools in one plant were designated licensed companies, including Ikegai, Niigata, Tokyo Gas & Electric Industry and Okuma (Okuma in July)[10][11, frame 22][3, frame 71][3, frame 72][3, frame 75]
July 1938Showa 13Toyo Seiki becomes a licensed company under the Act and begins producing the jig borer (Type 4) (the company calls it "Japan's first jig borer"). Modeled on an SIP machine from Switzerland, about 220 are built by the end of the war[12][13]
1940Showa 15Karatsu Iron Works develops a gear shaper on special government order (the company calls it the first made in Japan)[14]
1943Showa 18Soviet physicists Boris and Natalya Lazarenko propose in a paper using the erosion of electrical contacts by discharges to remove metal, and file a patent (the accepted view is that this was the origin of today's EDM principle). They receive the Stalin Prize for this work in 1946[15][16, frame 55]
March 1954Showa 29Nihon Hoden Kako Kenkyusho completes Japan's first practical EDM, the "Japaxtron D3", and delivers it to the Tokyo Institute of Technology. It was an original design, unlike Western machines, and was also called a spark-discharge hole-piercing machine. Registered as Essential Historical Materials for Science and Technology (No. 373) in 2024[17][15][18]
1956Showa 31Temporary Measures Act for the Promotion of the Machinery Industry. Under the basic rationalization plan, machine tool makers renewed their equipment. Output rose from 3.7 billion yen in 1955 to 15 billion yen in 1957[3, frame 110][19, frame 18]
March 1956Showa 31Okuma's Type GPB cyclic cylindrical grinder is completed. It performs roughing, finishing and sizing in one continuous cycle and draws attention at the 2nd Osaka International Trade Fair. With the non-circular plain bearing, about 700 are built by 1969 (Mechanical Engineering Heritage No. 59)[20, frame 72][20, frame 66][21]
February 1957Showa 32The Tokyo Institute of Technology's Precision Engineering Laboratory succeeds in building a prototype NC lathe, the first NC lathe in Japan: a converted hydraulic copying lathe with simultaneous two-axis control[2, frame 75][22, frame 34]
March 1958Showa 33Makino develops the K series of vertical milling machines and Japan's first NC milling machine. The NC unit is Fuji Tsushinki's first commercial unit[23][24][25]
April 1958Showa 33Okuma's Type LS practical high-speed lathe (design begun in 1956). Unveiled at the Osaka International Trade Fair in April and put into production at 30 a month; an assembly conveyor was completed in 1962. Over 30,000 built in total[26][20, frame 65][20, frame 74][20, frame 77]
1960Showa 35A Hitachi group develops an NC universal machine tool with a two-arm ATC (8 tools): Japan's first machining center. In-house NC unit HIDAM-43, probably the first ball screws on a Japanese NC machine, and magnetic-tape NC. Exhibited at the Tokyo International Trade Fair the following year, 1961[2, frame 92]
1962Showa 37At the 1st Japan International Machine Tool Fair, OM Ltd. exhibits an NC vertical lathe: a vertical turret lathe carrying the first unit of Fuji Tsushinki's (now Fujitsu) NC unit 207A, with electro-hydraulic pulse motors turning ball screws. It is described as "Japan's first NC vertical lathe"[27][28][29, frame 4][29, frame 16]
1963Showa 38The hobbing machine section of the Kokusan kosaku kikai sogo katarogu (Comprehensive catalog of Japanese machine tools) lists Karatsu Iron Works, Kashifuji Iron Works, Okamoto Machine Tool Works, Shin Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Mitsubishi Lorenz), Toshiba Machine, Hamai Sangyo, Howa Sangyo, Iwasa Tekko, Seiwa Tekko and others. There are also sections for gear shapers, bevel gear cutting machines, gear grinders and gear finishing machines[30, frame 73][30, frame 74][30, frame 75][30, frame 91]
October 1964Showa 39At the 2nd Japan International Machine Tool Fair, Okuma exhibits the Type GCS-N numerically controlled cylindrical grinder with its own NC unit, the OSP200. It draws attention as an NC unit developed by the machine maker itself[20, frame 81][20, frame 84][20, frame 86]
1966Showa 41Ikegai Tekko, Hitachi Seiki, Makino Milling Machine, Yasda and others exhibit machining centers at the Japan International Machine Tool Fair. Strictly speaking, some had no ATC, but it marked the start of the MC era[2, frame 92]
1967Showa 42NC lathe production: 8 units in 1967 → 66 in 1968 → 282 in 1969 → 589 in 1970 → 1,459 in 1973 (JMTBA statistics)[31]
November 1967Showa 42Mitsubishi Heavy Industries completes the first MAF machine, the in-house "Mitsubishi combined milling and boring machine" developed as the successor to the MIB machine. Built to meet the growing size of shipbuilding and nuclear equipment, it is called by the company "Japan's first NC boring and milling machine". For turbine casings; total weight 320 tons[32, frame 383][32, frame 546][33][34]
September 1968Showa 43Yamazaki Iron Works completes its first NC lathe, the "Mazak Turning Center (MTC)". Launched at 7.3 million yen per unit, with a simple NC based on the FANUC 260[35][31]
1970Showa 45Yamazaki Iron Works' NC lathe MTC-2500R (serial no. 200; FANUC 240, paper tape, electro-hydraulic pulse motors), the first Japanese NC lathe exported to the United States. Brought back to Japan in 2008 and designated Mechanical Engineering Heritage No. 126 in 2024[36][35]
1972Showa 47The era of CNC with built-in computers begins. Fujitsu's NC division becomes independent as Fujitsu FANUC and announces a CNC, and Okuma releases its own CNC (OSP2000). From this year on, Japan's machine tool exports consistently exceed imports[24][25][37][38][39]
1972Showa 47Mitsubishi Electric releases Japan's first wire EDM, the DWC-50 (Type DWC50S-LT1). Instead of expensive NC, it followed the lines of a drawing with an optical drawing tracer developed in the US. Registered as Essential Historical Materials for Science and Technology (No. 374) in 2024[40][15][41]
October 1977Showa 52Toyoda Machine Works' CBN production cam grinder receives the 12th Japan Society for the Promotion of Machine Industry Award[11, frame 78]
1978Showa 53Mori Seiki's NC lathe SL-2. An integrated design with the NC unit built into the machine, it sold about 2,500 units in nine years and became the basis of the SL series[42]
1981Showa 56NC machines exceed 50% of machine tool output by value. For lathes the NC ratio exceeds 70%, and NC lathe output peaks at 161.3 billion yen[19, frame 21][19, frame 46]
1981Showa 56Japan's EDM output reaches 44.6 billion yen, about 50% of world output (an estimated 90 billion yen)[15]
1982Showa 57Japan's machine tool output overtakes that of the United States to rank first in the world, a position it held for 27 years until 2008[19, frame 9][19, frame 22][39][43]
April 1983Showa 58Yamazaki Iron Works completes the multitasking machine "SLANT TURN 40N ATC Mill Center"[35]
1988Showa 63Yamazaki Mazak shows the "INTEGREX 40ATC Mill Center" at IMTS (Chicago). Adding the Y axis that users had asked for made it a 4-axis machine that could also cut the sides of the workpiece. The range of work multitasking machines could cut expanded far into machining center territory[44]
March 1994Heisei 6Kitamura Machinery's horizontal machining center "H-400 Super Cell" receives the 24th Automation Machinery Development Award for Small and Medium Enterprises. With added A and B axes, it cuts the five faces other than the mounting face on 5 axes in one setup, and combines automatic pallet changing, automatic workpiece identification and a handling robot. The company says the machine's launch raised the industry's interest in 5-axis MCs and moved other makers to start development[45, frame 18][45, frame 19][45, frame 5]
1997Heisei 9Yamazaki Mazak develops the "INTEGREX 200SY", adding a B axis (swiveling tool spindle) to the X, Y, Z and C axes. With 5-axis control it can cut complex 3D shapes such as turbine blades, and by handing the workpiece over to the second spindle it can keep cutting through to the back side[44]
2002Heisei 14Matsuura Machinery develops a metal laser sintering hybrid milling machine that combines metal laser sintering, which solidifies metal powder with a laser, with machining center cutting in one machine. It began production and sales in 2003, and in 2004 the M-PHOTON25C won the Japan Industrial Technology Grand Prize and the LUMEX 25C was announced[46]

To the Combined Timeline (all events from Chapters 1–7 in one) →

Full Chapter 1 timeline (all events) →

Full Chapter 2 timeline (all events) →

Full Chapter 3 timeline (all events) →

Full Chapter 4 timeline (all events) →

Full Chapter 5 timeline (all events) →

Full Chapter 6 timeline (all events) →

Full Chapter 7 timeline (all events) →

🔎How to find primary sources

Most of the sources used in this archive can be viewed by anyone. Searching by maker name, model name and year is the quickest route.

National Diet Library Digital CollectionsCompany histories, trade magazines (Machinery, Kikai Gijutsu and others), yearbooks and technical reports. Many out-of-print materials can be read from home once you register for the NDL's Digitized Material Transmission Service for individuals. Full-text search lets you look up maker and model names.JSME Mechanical Engineering HeritageEach designated machine has a description of its year, specifications and location. Read it before you visit.National Museum of Nature and Science, Center of the History of Japanese Industrial TechnologyThe Industrial Technology History Database (what survives and where), the Essential Historical Materials for Science and Technology (Future Technology Heritage), and survey reports on the systematization of technologies.Japan Machine Tool Builders' Association (JMTBA)Statistics on production, orders and exports, and publications on the industry's history.J-STAGEPapers on the history of technology in the Journal of the Japan Society for Precision Engineering, the Journal of the JSME and others.

Confirm years with two or more sources. Company histories, Mechanical Engineering Heritage records and maker histories often differ by a year for the same machine (depending on whether they give the start of design, completion, announcement or launch). In this archive the text states which year is meant.
Do not take wartime sources at face value. Much of what was written then was propaganda, so we check the figures against statistics and studies compiled after the war.
For "Japan's first", check what it was the first of. A research institute's prototype, a maker's first product and a first export are different events.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What was the first domestically built lathe in Japan?: Among private manufacturers, the landmark machine is the 9-foot English-pattern lathe built in 1889 (Meiji 22) by Ikegai Factory for its own shop, following earlier trial builds at government arsenals and shipyards in the late Edo and early Meiji eras.
Q. When were the first NC machine tools and machining centers developed in Japan?: Tokyo Institute of Technology demonstrated an experimental NC lathe in 1956, followed in 1958 by Japan’s first commercial NC milling machine developed by Fujitsu (now FANUC) and Makino. Domestic machining centers followed from 1960 onward.
Q. Can I see historic Japanese machine tools in person at museums?: Yes. Preserved machines Certified as Mechanical Engineering Heritage or Future Technology Heritage are on public display at the Nippon Institute of Technology Museum, Toyota Commemorative Museum, National Museum of Nature and Science, and maker museums. See our Historic Machines page for locations.

Sources

National Diet Library materials were checked in October 2026 using full-text search and page images via the Digitized Material Transmission Service for individuals.