automatic chucking lathes, automatic lathes, automatic chuckers, automatics, or chuckers. The 'chucker' part of the name comes from the workpieces being discrete blanks, held in a bin called a "magazine", and each one takes a turn at being chucked and machined. (This is analogous to the way that each round of ammunition in the magazine of a semi-automatic pistol gets its turn at being chambered.) The blanks are either individual forgings or castings, or they are pre-sawn pieces of billet. However, some members of this family of machine tools turn bar work or work on centers (e.g., the Fay automatic lathe). Regarding bar work of large diameter (for example, or more), it is merely an academic point whether it is called "screw machine work" or just "automatic work". Screw machine Screw machines, being the class of automatic lathes for small- to medium-sized parts, are used in the high-volume manufacture of a vast variety of turned components. During the Swiss screw machining process, the workpiece is supported with a guide bushing, near the cutting tool. Screw machine nomenclature Speaking with reference to the normal definition of the term screw machine, all screw machines are fully automated, whether mechanically (via cams) or by CNC, which means that once they are set up and started, they continue running and producing parts with little human intervention. Mechanical automation came first, beginning in the 1870s; computerized control (via first NC and then CNC) came later, beginning in the 1950s. The name screw machine is somewhat of a metonym, as screw machines can make parts other than screws or that are not threaded. However, the archetypal use for which screw machines were named was screw-making. The definition of the term screw machine has changed with changing technology. Any use of the term prior to the 1840s, if it occurred, would have referred ad hoc to any machine tool used to produce screws. That is, there would have been no established differentiation from the term screw-cutting lathe. When turret lathes were developed in the 1840s, the term screw machine was applied to them in overlapping usage with the term turret lathe. In 1860, when some of the movements, such as turret indexing, were mechanically automated, the term automatic screw machine was applied, and the term hand screw machine or manual screw machine was retronymously applied to the earlier machines. Within 15 years, the entire part-cutting cycle had