ARCHIVE 01The Lineage of Japanese Lathes

⚓The Age of Imports and Imitation (late Edo to early Meiji)

The first places in Japan to use machine tools in quantity were the shipyards set up by the shogunate. The Nagasaki Ironworks brought in engineers and craftsmen from the Netherlands and equipped itself with machines. A machine tool that remained there carried a nameplate dated 1856 (Ansei 3), was probably Dutch-made, and was recorded as still in use in 1930^[1]. The machine tools at the Yokosuka shipyard (built in 1864) were French, purchased in 1867 (Keio 3), with nameplates reading "Mulhouse 1866"^[1].

In the Meiji era, the Army's Tokyo Artillery Arsenal not only imported and used machine tools but began building them in its own shops. It made more than 1,500 machine tools itself before its works burned in the Great Kanto Earthquake, and it was the center of domestic machine tool production until private specialist makers grew up around 1905^[3]. One of the oldest lathes built by a private individual is a treadle lathe made of forged iron by Ito Kaheiji of Yamagata. He is said to have learned by studying a lathe brought from the Netherlands at Tanaka Hisashige's works, and the lathe can be seen as Mechanical Engineering Heritage No. 3 at Museum Meiji-mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture. The heritage description dates it to "around 1875 (Meiji 8)", while the 1989 Nihon no gijutsu 100-nen (100 years of Japanese technology) gives 1876^[2][3]. Meiji-mura also has a double-column planer built in 1879 by the Ministry of Public Works' Akabane Engineering Works (Mechanical Engineering Heritage No. 67)^[4]. A lathe said to have been made at the Shuseikan in Satsuma also survives in Kyushu, but its maker and date rest on tradition and have not been confirmed^[61].

In this period, "making" meant "copying". The models were imported machines, and drawings were taken from them too. Parts that set the accuracy, such as tools and lead screws (the reference screws used for thread cutting), were imported for some time. Even Okuma's lathes of the Taisho era used lead screws bought from the United States^[9].

①The Start of Domestic Production: Ikegai's English-Type Lathe (1889–)

In May 1889 (Meiji 22), Ikegai Shotaro, who had worked as a lathe operator at Tanaka Hisashige's works (later Shibaura Engineering Works), set up on his own in a rented shop in Shiba, Tokyo. The shop had just two English-type lathes, and at first he machined parts for lace-making machines and rolls (for glazing cloth)^[3][1]. At the end of that year he built two English-type 9-foot lathes for use in his own shop. These were among the earliest powered lathes built in the private sector, and a study based on company histories names "the in-house manufacture of English-type lathes at Ikegai in 1889 (Meiji 22)" as the starting point of Japanese machine tool making^[3][6].

Ikegai Works' No. 1 Lathe (Mechanical Engineering Heritage No. 53)

One of the lathes built by the Ikegai brothers (Shotaro and his younger brother Kishiro) survives and can be seen at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno, Tokyo. In 2012 the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) recognized it as the oldest surviving Japanese-made powered lathe and designated it Mechanical Engineering Heritage No. 53. When it was built, the shop is said to have had only two English-type lathes, a 12-foot and a 6-foot, and building a lathe with such meager equipment is credited with opening the way to domestic production of mother machines (machines that make machines)^[5].

Specifications are from the Mechanical Engineering Heritage description^[5]. How the sliding surfaces of the bed and carriage, the gears and the bearings were made is not known.

Building Lathes to Sell: The Navy and the Russo-Japanese War

In 1898 Ikegai delivered two of its own lathes to the Naval Engineering College, and from then on received orders from various navy departments for lathes, planers and drilling machines^[1]. Still, Ikegai's main product in the Meiji 30s (1897–1906) was oil engines; machine tools were one pillar of the business^[6].

It was the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) that suddenly boosted demand for lathes. In November 1904, Niigata Iron Works received an order from the Tokyo Army Artillery Arsenal for 50 lathes for turning shells (center height 300 mm, bed length 2,120 mm, 850 yen each). The company had never built a machine tool before, and this was the start of its machine tool business^[8][6]. In the same year, Okuma Noodle Machine Co. (Okuma Menki Shokai) of Nagoya, a noodle-making machine maker founded in 1898, received drawings from the artillery arsenal and began building lathes for weapons production^[9]. At the time of the Russo-Japanese War, Ikegai and Wakayama Iron Works are said to have been about the only private firms with experience building machine tools^[3].

From English to American Type: Francis's Guidance

In August 1903, the Tokyo Higher Technical School invited the American Charles A. Francis as a practical-training instructor. Francis stressed the importance of studying precision workmanship, taught at the school, and also advised factories such as Ikegai^[1]. In 1905 Ikegai built an American-type lathe to Francis's specifications. Until then, Ikegai's lathes had mostly been English-type^[1].

Studies regard this as the turning point when "genuine manufacturing technique" took root in Japan: the American way of building with a full set of tooling and standardized parts. Ikegai tried to mass-produce this American-type lathe at about 30 a month, but records also say it did not go well because the quality of castings and forgings could not keep up^[6].

Taisho to early Showa: makers grow

When imports from Europe dried up during World War I (1914–18), the number of domestic machine tool makers rose sharply. At this time Ikegai exported many lathes to Britain, Russia, Mexico and elsewhere^[1]. In 1920 the three companies Ikegai, Niigata and Karatsu accounted for about a third of Japan's machine tool output, and Ikegai built more than 200 machines in most years of the 1920s^[6].

American lathes as models

Okuma's product records clearly state which lathes served as models^[9].

• Type KE engine lathe (1916): an English-type lathe. For the lead screws that set its accuracy, Okuma bought two from Brown & Sharpe in the US
• Type OS engine lathe (1918): an improved version of a lathe by Sebastian of the US, known as "a cheap, good machine", sold on the open market. A turret and a taper-turning attachment could be fitted
• Type OP engine lathe (1919): built from drawings of a Pratt & Whitney (US) lathe provided by the Nagoya Army Arsenal, and made until around 1943 (Showa 18). Feed changes used a quick-change gearbox

The 1921 Machine Tool Exhibition

When the war ended, orders fell sharply and the industry slid into recession. In October–November 1921, the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce held Japan's first machine tool exhibition in Osaka, with as many as 126 exhibitors^[3]. Among lathes, first prizes went to Ikegai's Type GC, Niigata Iron Works' geared American-type lathe and universal turret lathe, Karatsu Iron Works' lathes and others. Domestic machines cost about half to 80% of the price of imported ones: Ikegai's Type GC, for example, was 4,800 yen, Karatsu's 14-inch toolroom lathe 4,000 yen, and Niigata's geared American-type lathe 3,600 yen^[6]. On the other hand, most of the makers that exhibited lathes were young companies with less than ten years of manufacturing experience^[6].

Prompted by the exhibition, the Society of Mechanical Engineers (now JSME) set a standard for lathes in 1926 (drilling machines followed in 1929 and milling machines in 1931)^[3]. In the early Showa era, the Ministry of Railways planned to equip itself with domestic machine tools only, and standardized the models and sizes of its standard lathes^[6].

From Nagoya and Okayama: Yamazaki Iron Works and Takisawa Iron Works

Makers that lead to today's major companies were also born at this time. Yamazaki Iron Works (today's Yamazaki Mazak) was founded in Nagoya in 1919 as a maker of sawmill and woodworking machinery, began making lathes and milling machines in September 1927, and completed its first commercial product, a 4-shaku (about 1.2 m) lathe, in 1928^[14][15]. In Okayama, Takisawa Iron Works (today's TAKISAWA) was founded in August 1922 and later became a lathe specialist^[16][15]. Kokusan Seiki was established in 1936, and in December 1941 it merged with two other companies to become Hitachi Seiki^[15].

Learning from Germany's VDF

In the Showa era the models came not only from the US but also from Germany. From 1935 to 1956 Ikegai built engine lathes with parts grouped into units, modeled on the lathes of VDF, an association of German lathe makers. One built in 1937 survives at the Nippon Institute of Technology's Museum of Industrial Technology^[18]. Ikegai's standard lathe D20 (1933) had a 5.5 kW motor and weighed 2,350 kg^[17].

Wartime Expansion and Controls (1937–1945)

The machine tool industry began to grow again around 1933^[6]. As military demand rose, machine tool imports also increased: in 1938 machine tools accounted for 3.4% of Japan's total merchandise imports, and more than 80% of them came from the US^[6].

The Machine Tool Manufacturing Industry Act was promulgated in March 1938. The state designated makers of a certain size (such as 200 or more machine tools in one plant) as "licensed companies" and gave them priority for materials and funds^[20][6]. Among the long-established leading makers, Ikegai, Niigata, Tokyo Gas & Electric Industry and Okuma were licensed (Okuma in July 1938), and some companies hurriedly expanded their equipment to qualify^[6]. In 1941 the machinery plant of Toyota Motor Co. was spun off as Toyoda Machine Works, which under the Act built machines for mass-producing automobile parts, such as the Type HD200 semi-automatic multi-tool lathe and the Type FB12 automatic multi-tool lathe^[20]. Domestic production at the time centered on small and medium general-purpose machines, and high-performance machines for mass production, such as automatic lathes and precision thread-cutting lathes, depended on imports^[20]. The state also paid subsidies for prototypes, and the eligible items included turret lathes, automatic lathes, precision thread-cutting lathes and relieving lathes^[6].

When the US halted machine tool exports to Japan in 1940, Japan had no choice but to build them at home^[6]. On an order from the Naval Air Technical Arsenal, Okuma began designing the Type LT ultra-high-speed lathe in January 1939, referring to German and American lathes (Kärger, Monarch, VDF and others), and completed the acceptance review in November 1943^[9]. When materials ran short, simplified "wartime-type" lathes and milling machines with fewer parts were built^[3]. Machine tool output kept rising until 1944^[6].

Wartime magazines and company histories contain much propaganda, so the figures in this section come from a study compiled after the war (Chokki Toshiaki, 1963) and from company histories, and we do not use the wording of articles from the time.

Postwar Recovery and High-Speed Lathes (1945–1960s)

Right after the war, many machine tool plants were designated for reparations^[9], most orders came from Japanese National Railways, and the lathes that could be built were old designs, including wartime types. The trigger for recovery was the special procurement demand of the Korean War (1950–53)^[3].

The first new postwar lathe is considered to be Niigata Engineering's Type 45SD heavy-duty high-speed lathe, built with a MITI subsidy in FY1952. In the same year Ikegai released the Type H14 high-speed precision lathe, and in 1953 it completed the Type A18 high-speed copying lathe with a spindle speed of 3,200 rpm^[3]. As carbide tools made faster cutting possible, the motor power of Ikegai's standard lathe doubled, from the prewar D20 (1933, 5.5 kW) to the postwar DA20 (1955, 11 kW)^[17].

In 1956 the Temporary Measures Act for the Promotion of the Machinery Industry was passed, and machine tool makers renewed their equipment under the government's rationalization plan^[6]. Machine tool output quadrupled in two years, from 3.7 billion yen in 1955 to 7.2 billion yen in 1956 and 15 billion yen in 1957^[29].

Okuma's Type LS: A Lathe Assembled on a Conveyor

Okuma began designing the Type LS practical high-speed lathe in 1956, and it was born in July 1958. It was exhibited at the 3rd Osaka International Trade Fair, and in 1962 Okuma built a conveyor assembly line to assemble the Type LS as a flow process^[9]. According to another source (the company photo history), it was first shown at the Osaka International Trade Fair in April and went into production at 30 a month. The spindle was supported by rolling bearings at three points, and inch and metric threading could be switched with a single lever. It became a long seller, with more than 30,000 built in total^[34] (the company history says it was "born in July 1958 (Showa 33)"^[9]).

Automatic Lathes and Technical Tie-ups

Japan's automatic lathes grew out of military demand and the mass production of watches. Before and during the war, types such as the American Acme-Gridley (Ikegai) and Bullard Mult-Au-Matic (Toyoda, Ebara) were built for military needs^[25]. Postwar automatic lathe production began around 1948, when MITI's Measurement Division encouraged it to rationalize the watch industry: Ikegai took on the German Index type, Tsugami the American Brown & Sharpe type, and Mitsui Seiki and Shimamoto Tekko the Swiss Petermann type. Under a government plan, Mitsubishi Shipbuilding built a six-spindle automatic in FY1953 and Shimamoto Tekko a small precision automatic in FY1954^[25]. The sliding-headstock (Swiss-type) automatic lathe, devised in Switzerland in 1872 for turning watch parts, was being built in Japan by 1968 by Shimamoto, Nomura, Citizen, Tsugami, Star and others^[25]. After the war, technical tie-ups with foreign makers also advanced: Niigata Engineering partnered with Sundstrand of the US on production milling machines in 1954 and on single-spindle automatic lathes in May 1959^[8].

The Lathe Boom and the Start of Exports

Around 1960 there was a "lathe boom": 26 of the 66 JMTBA member companies made lathes^[28]. More companies built new lathes through technical tie-ups with foreign makers, such as Tsugami Seisakusho in July 1952 (Cri-Dan of France, thread-cutting lathes) and Shoun Kosakusho in 1953 (Cazeneuve of France, copying lathes)^[28]. Mori Seiki, which had switched from textile machinery, began making high-speed precision lathes in May 1958, grew with the MS-850 engine lathe, and started exporting in 1960^[26][35]. In June 1962 Yamazaki Iron Works closed a deal to export 200 Type LE lathes to the US, and the following year it launched the "MAZAK" brand^[14]. Ikegai Tekko's Type A20 lathe, released in 1964, received the JSME Award in 1965, and the Type A25 with a larger swing later became the basis of the Type A25 NC lathe^[7][28].

Birth and Spread of the NC Lathe (1957–1970s)

NC (numerical control) is a system that moves the tool by numerical commands. When reports of US research reached Japan, universities and national research institutes were the first to build prototypes.

1957: Japan's First NC Lathe (Tokyo Institute of Technology)

In February 1957, the Tokyo Institute of Technology's Precision Engineering Laboratory, which had been researching NC lathes since 1955, succeeded in building a prototype. It was the first NC lathe in Japan^[3][33]. It was a converted hydraulic copying lathe for continuous cutting with simultaneous two-axis control: for the cross feed, an electromagnetic ratchet moved the copying stylus, and for the longitudinal feed, the small force of a telephone-exchange stepping motor was amplified hydraulically^[3]. The Mechanical Engineering Laboratory of the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology also began NC research in 1956–57^[3][33].

There is more than one "first NC lathe". A 1960 technical book describes the 1957 Tokyo Institute of Technology machine as "the first completed in Japan"^[33]. A 2020 paper, however, reports that earlier, in 1954, the Tokyo Institute of Technology built a prototype NC lathe with Ikegai Tekko that did not reach practical use^[28]. A maker's first product, the first in volume production and the first export are separate events, so this page states which "first" is meant.

Fujitsu, the NC Unit Maker

Behind the makers' NC was Fuji Tsushinki (its NC division became independent as Fujitsu FANUC in 1972, today's FANUC). In 1956 it became the first private company to develop an NC unit and servo (first used on a turret punch press); in 1958 it delivered its first commercial unit, for an NC milling machine by Makino Milling Machine; and in 1959 it built an electro-hydraulic pulse motor^[30][31]. After it launched the low-cost FANUC 260 in 1965, Fujitsu NC units were used on 105 of the 129 NC machine tools built by JMTBA members in 1965–66^[28].

1963–68: Makers' NC Lathes Arrive

Among makers' NC lathes, vertical lathes came first. At the 1st Japan International Machine Tool Fair in 1962, OM Ltd. exhibited a vertical turret lathe carrying the first unit of Fuji Tsushinki's NC unit 207A, which is described as "Japan's first NC vertical lathe"^[37][27]. According to Fujitsu's technical journal of April 1963, it was an open-loop system in which electro-hydraulic pulse motors turned ball screws, and turret indexing and table speed were also switched by tape commands^[38] (the model is VT5-14 in the National Museum of Nature and Science records and VT2-14 in the technical journal).

Okuma chose to build its own NC units. It built a prototype OSP Type I in 1961, and in 1963 adopted the absolute position-reading method, essentially the same as today's. At the 3rd Japan International Machine Tool Fair in 1966 it exhibited the Type LA-N numerically controlled fully automatic lathe with an autoloader, and in July 1967 it completed the Type LA-N with the OSP1022 for lathes. The Type LA-N was intended for small batches of 20–30 parts or fewer^[9].

JMTBA's 1968 catalog of NC machine tools shows NC lathes (including vertical and turret types) from Ikegai, Okuma, Yamazaki Iron Works, Hitachi Seiki, Shoun Kosakusho, Takisawa Iron Works, Toshiba Machine, OM Ltd., Dainichi Kinzoku and others, with Fujitsu's FANUC and Okuma's OSP as the main NC units^[40]. Yamazaki Iron Works' model name was already "MAZAK TURNING CENTER"^[40].

1968: The Year of the NC Lathe

1968 was the year makers moved into volume production of NC lathes. In January Ikegai Tekko announced that it would make the Type A25 NC lathe its main product, aiming for 10 a month, and set up a dedicated assembly line at its Mizonokuchi plant^[28]. Mori Seiki began making and selling NC lathes in April^[26], and Takisawa Iron Works began production in August^[16]. In September Yamazaki Iron Works completed its first NC lathe, the "Mazak Turning Center (MTC)", and put it on sale at 7.3 million yen^[14][28]. Eguro Iron Works released the gang-tool NC lathe ENC101^[41]. NC lathe production grew 180-fold in six years, from 8 units in 1967 to 66 in 1968, 282 in 1969, 589 in 1970 and 1,459 in 1973^[28].

MTC-2500R: The NC Lathe That Went to America (Mechanical Engineering Heritage No. 126)

Yamazaki Iron Works' MTC-2500R (serial no. 200), built in 1970, was the first Japanese NC lathe exported to the United States. Its X and Z axes are driven by electro-hydraulic pulse motors, the NC unit is a FANUC 240, and programs are read from paper tape. It was brought back from the US in 2008, restored to working order and placed at the Yamazaki Mazak Museum of Machine Tools in Minokamo, Gifu Prefecture, and in 2024 it was designated Mechanical Engineering Heritage No. 126^[42]. In September 1971 the company also completed the MTC-1500R-AC, Japan's first adaptive-control lathe, which changes conditions to suit the cutting state^[14].

Automatic Lathes Go NC Too

NC also came to automatic lathes, which had grown out of watch parts. Citizen Watch developed the NC automatic lathe "Cincom D16" in March 1970^[43][44], Star Micronics released a CNC automatic lathe in October 1976^[52], and Tsugami launched the CNC multi-function automatic lathe "Mercury" in June 1978^[55].

1972: Toward CNC

In 1972 CNC with a built-in computer appeared. Fujitsu's NC division became independent as Fujitsu FANUC and announced a CNC, and Okuma also released its own CNC (OSP2000)^{[30][31][12][45]}. From this year on, Japan's machine tool exports have consistently exceeded imports^[46].

To Small Shops: Turning Centers and the SL-2

From around 1974, makers began offering "turning centers" with many tools on the turret. Ikegai Tekko's FT500NA won an Automation Machine Development Award, and Nakamura-Tome Precision Industry unveiled its first NC lathe, the ATM-4N, at a trade fair in October^[7][48]. In 1975 Okuma released the LS-N, an NC lathe based on the Type LS for small and medium-sized companies, priced at a little over 9 million yen^[28], and in October 1976 Takamatsu Machinery announced the TCC-8, a CNC lathe with a CRT screen for conversational programming^[53]. Mori Seiki's SL-2 of 1978 was an integrated design that built in the NC unit, which until then had stood separately beside the machine. It sold about 2,500 units in nine years and became the basis of today's SL series^[54]. Its predecessor, the NCPL-300 (1974), had a separate NC unit^[49]. In 1977 Ikegai Tekko built a small NC lathe with an autoloader for "limited unmanned operation", and in 1979 FANUC made an electric robot to load and unload workpieces on NC lathes. The lathe was starting to run without human hands^[7][56].

Until NC Became the Norm

A 1973 NC handbook wrote that "this year more than 15% of all machine tool output by value is set to be NC machines", and gave typical prices at the time of 2 million yen for an engine lathe and 15 million yen for an NC lathe^[47]. Even at more than seven times the price of an engine lathe, the NC lathe was calculated to pay for itself by cutting setup work and the need for skilled labor. In December 1971 Niigata Engineering completed "AUTOLAT", which used a computer to create programs for its NC lathe 40CDN^[8].

★Toward CNC, World Leadership and Multitasking Machines (1980s–)

In 1981 NC machines exceeded 50% of Japan's machine tool output by value (the NC ratio). For lathes alone, the NC ratio passed 70% that year, and NC lathe output reached a peak of 161.3 billion yen^[29]. Then in 1982 Japan's machine tool output overtook that of the United States to rank first in the world^[29]. In 1985 output and orders exceeded 1 trillion yen for the first time, and by 1990 output had reached 1.3 trillion yen and the NC ratio 75.7%^[29].

Conversational CNC and Multitasking Machines

In June 1981 Yamazaki Iron Works completed the conversational CNC "MAZATROL T1", which let users create programs simply by answering on-screen questions while looking at the drawing, together with the CNC lathe QUICK TURN 10 (the company calls it a world first)^[14]. In 1982 Okuma began producing the CNC lathe LB15, and Nakamura-Tome Precision Industry announced the large CNC multitasking machine TMC-5LAM^[12][48].

Multitasking machines (turn-mill) that add rotating tools to a lathe, so that one machine can also drill and mill, also took shape around this time. OM Ltd. began developing multitasking machines that add rotating tools to a vertical lathe in 1974 (followed by the popular TDC-12N in 1984)^[50][51], and Yamazaki Iron Works completed the multitasking machine "SLANT TURN 40N ATC Mill Center" in April 1983^[14]. Ikegai released the Machining Turn TM25YS in 1990^[7], Yamazaki Mazak the INTEGREX 200Y multitasking machine with a Y axis in September 1997^[14], and Mori Seiki the NT series of multitasking machines in 2005 (NTX in 2010)^[26].

World Leadership, and After

The record for output is still the 1.3034 trillion yen of 1990. After recovering to 1.3032 trillion yen in 2007, output fell to 486.3 billion yen in 2009, the year China became the world's top producer. Japan held first place for 27 years, from 1982 to 2008^[46]. The lineup of makers changed too. In 2002 Mori Seiki took over part of Hitachi Seiki's business, in 2006 Toyoda Machine Works merged with Koyo Seiko to form JTEKT, and in 2013 Mori Seiki became DMG MORI^[26][60].

What it means on the shop floor. What we take for granted on today's NC lathes (turrets, NC that reads tool position in absolute values, chuck automation, conversational programming, rotating tools and the Y axis) was added one feature at a time on the 1960s–90s machines described here. When you repair a machine that has been in the shop for years or read an old instruction manual, knowing when a function first appeared changes how you read the specifications.