Just finished my lathe radius and ball turner

[Technical Ted]

Drew it up in Fusion 360 first. I love this program especially for designing assemblies like this! I over built it, but it's as rugged as a tank and very solid. No vibration or chatter at all. Nothing special internal wise; no bronze bushings or bearings. Just a steel reamed bore with a steel spindle. I added an oil hole in the main body and I'm sure for the limited speed/rotation it will last forever. I split the main body and added clamping screws so I could tighten the bore up if needed to prevent chatter, but it worked fine just having them slightly snug with no drag on the spindle.

The round HSS tool bit gave an utterly fantastic finish! The pictures of the ball in the lathe are just as finish turning with no polishing at all at that point. I did polish it some before installing it on the handle. There is a picture of this, but it doesn't show up well.

It was a fun little project using only material I had on hand. Now, I going to have to look around and see what else I can make some balls for!

Ted

 

[stevenreich]

It does an amazing job! That's smoother than any ball turning tool I've ever seen. Great job.


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[Silverbullet]

Looks stout for sure I like the split bearing adjustment , great idea. Thanks is it the head from eBay sale for $24.00 looks like it is.

 

[Technical Ted]

Looks stout for sure I like the split bearing adjustment , great idea. Thanks is it the head from eBay sale for $24.00 looks like it is.

It's actually a head I already had when I bought two of those $24 ones from eBay. My original plan was to use one of the eBay ones for this project but the eBay ones are much better quality than the one I had (Chinese). I decided to keep those for mounting on holders for my mill since they are so much smoother operating.

Ted

 

[burtonbr]

That's awesome, didn't know a boring head could be used like that. I've got one I thought about trading away but might have to keep it.. not sur I understand how it works totally could you post a video of it cutting possibly

 

[Technical Ted]

There are a bunch of videos on YouTube of these in action. Do a search in YouTube for "lathe ball turning tool" and they will pop up on top. I keep the tool tip up on center the whole time, feeding the boring head in 1/4-1/2 turn for each pass. Some guys seem to set the head for the proper size and then feed the boring head in using the cross feed, but this is putting the cutting edge way, way below center and I'm personally not too comfortable cutting way below center like that; too many bad things can happen, like the work piece climbing right over the top of your tool! YMMV.

Ted

 

[cascao]

Clever use of a tangential cutter!

 

[brino]

Excellent design and results.
Thanks for sharing it!

....the only problem is that now I want one......but my week of vacation was already full of projects.

-brino

 

[Technical Ted]

Playing with Fusion 360 and decided to share this exploded view.

Ted

 

[JimDawson]

Very nice job! It just happens that I have a need to build one also, I hope you don't mind if I copy your design.