MACHINE FOR FORMING A CURVED SURFACE ON A WORKPIECE

摘要

A machine for cutting material from a lens blank to form a curved surface has a rotatable cutting wheel and a chuck for supporting the blank. The chuck is mounted for movement in three mutually-orthogonal directions relative to the cutting wheel and respective motors are provided for displacing the chuck in two of these directions to cause the cutting wheel to traverse the surface to be formed on the blank. Two templates and respective followers are provided for controlling movement of the chuck in the third direction in accordance with movement in the first and second directions. The position of the chuck relative to the follower elements can be adjusted to enable a lens with a selected thickness to be formed and one of the follower elements can be adjusted to enable different curvatures to be obtained from a single template.