Roman Lathe

An exploration of Roman Machining Techniques

The Romans were pioneers and amongst the first to document what they created. They wrote down their music and their songs. However, despite being innovators in engineering they did not write down their methods as this was the work done by slaves and was not considered important enough. 

This project attempted to recreate a Roman Lathe based on archeological remains. The purpose was to solve the question of how they created thousands of shields for the Roman armies. Thei project was a collaboration between archeologists, product designers, makers and engineers. 

Based on the Archeologists hand drawn designs we began to replicate our interpretation of a Roman Lathe. I created a small scale model, the design required a small handle to turn a drive wheel. Attached to the drive wheel was smaller wheel, the two were attached with a loop of leather. Turning the larger wheel would in turn spin the smaller wheel at a far greater speed. This could then have metal objects attached to it to be spun. It was believed that this technique was used to create the shield emboss on a standard Roman shield. 

The larger design was held together by metal panels which I cut out on the water jet machine. The pieces of wood were cut to size by the table saw and the circles were created by a CNC Router. The purpose of this experiment was to recreate the Lathe itself to prove the archeologists concept, not replicate the machining techniques used to create the lathe itself. 

This is currently being used for research before being submitted to the Museum of London for display.