Ball Turning on a Lathe using a Boring Head
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- Turning balls and knobs on a hobby metal lathe using a modified boring head
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#lathemachines #modelengineering #lathemachines #metallathe
The round 6mm carbide tip is a RCMT0602
I'm a professional jobbing shop machinist with over 30 years experience and I've never seen that one. Not that I ever needed to make many balls, but I do have a second, unused boring head that will soon be built into a tool like yours. Someone else said the learning never stops. It's really true. I do most of my learning on my own by just figuring my way through new job, so it's really cool to spot this trick. I especially like your use of the small round insert
Do you believe 50 people gave this a thumbs down? People like Ade are thoroughly inspirational, and then there's these fifty, numbnuts!
no matter how brilliant you are, there is always, always someone that is critical. to have 113 thumbs down just shows that we all have a differing quality of grey matter. 2 thumbs up
Thanks Wayne, that's just the internet for you I guess, thanks for the two thumbs up ;) Regards Ade
Great video, thanks for the explanation and detail throughout. Voice over is the only way to present these videos. Thanks for not annoying ppl with music.
Glad it was helpful!
Just finished my version of your ball turner this weekend. Only big change was a totally scratch-built holder with an integral a AXA dovetail. Works great! The round carbide tool really cuts well.
Thanks for posting the build!
I made one of these for my home shop, works like a dream! Of course the tips and tricks you present at the end of the video had to be reviewed a few times to get the technique down for turning the ball properly...
I am super pleased with the outcome! Great video! Thanks a million for the idea and the tutorial.
I', glad it was of some help for you Phil. Regards. Ade
What a splendid, solid, functional solution to ball turning. You've given me food for thought. I especially like the use of the round carbide form cutter. Thank you, Al.
Today at work I found a boring head in the bin. The tapered shaft was all chewed up so I just threw it back in. Now I'm excited to go to work in the morning.
Hello from NZ and thank you for putting up this video. I have studied your device and then adapted it for my 9” Southbend lathe that has a simple Banggood quick change tool post fitted. My alterations were necessary as there were space constraints to get the tool mounted and be far enough away from the centre line. I used a 2” long by 1 1/4 mild steel block and after machining the dovetail in the side to mount on the tool post set it up in 4 jaw and drilled and reamed the centre out to 2 MT so that the boring head fitted but turned freely. A nut washer and spring added to the rear in the draw bar thread keeps everything in the right place and well supported. The face of the boring head was drilled and reamed to take a 1/4 shank with some tool steel brazed to the front and ground to the same size with relief ground in so it would cut. This means that a long Allen key can be inserted in the adjusting screw and used to both rotate the head and to advance the cutter as that screw is now facing up, . A threaded stop screw was put through the block so as to provide height adjustment to the block to put it on centre. This works well and turned up a very round gear shift knob for a vintage car beautifully. Less parts,more robust bearing surface and no modifications to the boring head making it more versatile. Any enquires please contact and thanks again for putting up the video.
Nice one Graham, glad my vid was inspirational and that you found a solution that works for you :)
Very nice adaptation of a boring head, better than my older model. I shall be making one of these, nice and solid and graduated adjustments too. Brilliant!
The nice thing as well is you can put your tool in the lower hole on the boring head. Go below the diameter of the stock and then you can cut a concave radius. Makes for a lovely handle ball. Radius into the ball 🤙🏻. Nice video there are several out there using a boring head and yours is one of the best.
Clever idea! When the time came to make all those ball handles, plus some custom sizes, for my QUORN Tool & Cutter Grinder, I decided that making another specialized, ball turning tool, was not going to happen!
Instead I assembled the at-hand tooling I had. One of which was a small dividing head I had built many years ago, with the foresight to make its centre height the distance from the cross slide to the centre line of my 10" lathe. I also had a small shop-made boring head with a 1/2" dia shank that I could hold in the dividing head spindle with a #2 Morse Taper collet.
This made for a compact and rigid assembly. All I had to do was to make the turning tool for this job. For this I used a piece of 1/8" dia. HSS endmill shank, held at an angle to give it front clearance, and the end of the shank ground at an angle to give a little rake, which was necessary to machine the 303 stainless rod from which I turned all those handles.
The rest was much as the author here showed in his video.
The dividing head gave complete control over the turning operation, making it easy to stop at the right location for the handle's shank dia.
The roughed out ball was made .010" larger in dia. and .010" longer, than the ball finished dia. It took very little polishing to produce a chrome-like finish on this mess of ball handles.
I consider this to be premium entertainment. You did a good job on this Ade, earned yourself a new sub!
Fun to watch👍👍👍👍👍 One of the most wonderful diy tool videos I've ever seen. Great job and video.
Thank you Grumpy G :)
That has to be the best ball turner I have ever seen - nice project for me to get started on.
Iv'e been doing this 40+ years and that just blew me away Sir..Very nice.
Very satisfying watching that beautiful clean lathe with that ticking sound.
Can almost smell the oil and pipe smoke. Excellent.
I love this solution. I've got a real Criterion. But I also have a few older well used boring heads. Perfect use for one of them. Very nice!
I worked at Criterion for 30 years first as a machinist then foreman of all departments.Twelve years as Production Manager/chief of manufacturing Operations.On our 50th year anniversary we 24 K Gold plated all of the 202 and 203 bar holders. The vice president gave me a gold plated 203 .He also gave me a Criterion Toolmakers vise. Before laser marking the body was rolestamped , so naturally I had my name roll stamped on the body. I also have the 1/10th adapter on each. Boy do I have stories.
Soon as I get my camera working I will make a video.
@@rpmblues7018 I'd love to hear the stories and see what you have to show us!
@@rpmblues7018 Same here. If you’re willing, I would love to learn about all those Criteria 😁!
You’re so impressed with how clever you are. So am I. Nice presentation and demonstration.
Cheers Adam, though I am not really the clever one, as this design is just my version of what others have done before. Regards Ade
Wonderful idea and your narration/story telling is very clear. I especially like your explanation of design choices. Top notch.
Thank you Dudley. Regards, Ade
Great video Ade. Now I have added yet another tool I need to make instead of working on other projects on my list.
Your narrations are superb in describing what you are doing and why. I also appreciate that you don' t drown out what you are doing with music.
Thanks Rob, glad you enjoy the videos :) Regards. Ade
I have made a set of Croquet balls which are 3 1/2" diameter by extending the tool holder. Three in line holes in a piece of aluminium which fits across the face of the boring bar, two in line with the existing holes and held in with pieces of round bar the third holds the tool and any length you like. A number of extensions
can be made depending upon the ball size required. I like your idea of drilling and tapping the opposite end of the existing adjuster, makes like easier.
You mentioned breaking centre drills... A little tip I used as a professional manual machinist is when you lift (vertical spindle) the centre drill to breal the swarf and allow some coolant/oil to lube the tip AVOID lifting it TOO far, one thing that can happen if you do is that swarf will fall into your hole and happily snap off the tip of your centre drill. I had lots of sucess just 'micro lifting' it will break your swarf and allow a wee bit of lube that ive always found enough, i have to admit that it was often flood coolant but give it a try it worked very sweetly for me!
Thanks for the tip Patkirk
Hello Ade, excellent video. I really like the way you showed how to reference the tool to the lathe chuck to start with. The use of a carbide insert is great, all the relief angles pre-ground. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Bruce :)
Hello Ade, thank you for such an interesting and useful tool. However I respectfully suggest that your demonstration of it at the end was woefully slow and prone to multiple unnecessary adjustments. If you needed to make multiple balls of identical size it would be Nye on impossible to achieve. Here is a faster and foolproof set up and operation.
As another viewer has suggested you need to swing your tool fully 190 degrees vertically to ensure that you are on center height. I would personally set the tool on the top with it just scratching the part, but paper is ok but you would need to compensate for it. Ideally too if you want a specific size ball, have oversize stock make a trial cut to finish ball, mic it up then adjust it to final size with the adjustment screw. Bear in mind that the boring head is working on radius. So say ball is 0.020" oversize, ONLY add a 0.010" cut. Now onto the actual machining process. With the tool fully vertical, and to the best of your ability on the centerline, get a scratch on the work. LOCK the boring head slide to prevent any movement due to backlash in the feed screw and nut, will also make it cutting more rigid. Back away your cross slide, rotate the tool 90 degrees to pick up the end as you did before, withdraw your cross slide to clear the part. Now all you need to do is start the machine, swing your handle whilst slowly advancing the cross slide. You can do this in a continuous motion until it stops cutting, when it reaches the set diameter. So simple and easier to do rather that your method of keep adding a cut each time. Do any final tweaking of the finished diameter. You now have the ability to make as many ball as you want and they will all be the same size. Hope this will help you. Just friendly advice, I am in no way trying to tell you how you want to make things. If you are happy to waste time on slow methods, that is ok by me. Thank you. Regards from Australia.
Best ball cutter Ive seen so far thank you
Thanks for the tip about the carbide insert and the other end adjuster. I didn’t have a small enough circular carbide so I hollow ground the end of a 1/2” high speed steel rod and then hollow ground the rod just behind the edge for some relief and it worked very well. I’m trying for a 50mm ball but had to dome the end first and am now turning the underside of the ball.
Sounds good Stuart, keep on turning :)
Excellent video and addition to the workshop Ade. I thoroughly enjoyed the video and can't wait to get out in the shed.
Have fun!
Nice job Ade, like the round carbide! It seems like the right solution for the boring head radius cutter.
Thanks Burtons Attic :)
All is good indeed. The Carbide button is a hell of a good idea.
Thanks, Ade
Greetings from Louisiana! You taught this old "Coonass" an new trick. Good video.
really like this idea, one thing you can do is the setting with the piece of paper that you did at 21:00, is bring the cutter similarly to the BOTTOM of the piece and check the same way, they should be the same if you are exactly on center (vertically)
this is really the best ball turning solution I've seen so far
and I love it when the engineers who have just made a spaceship component call it a simple little tool.
I'm glad I watched it through ( Covid watching this now) I'd never thoughtof doing it like that - the idea opens up other possibilities -It's the METHOD that does it. thanks for posting
Very Nice tool. I like the idea of using a boring head. I made one like the old one you made but found
not to be so use full and like you its sitting in box somewhere in the shop.
Great video
Cheers Fred
Cheers Fred. Regards Ade
Looks like a nice rigid setup! (and clever simple design)
Making things simple takes some skill.
Very cool! This is a great design for a ball turner using the materials you have. I have an idea for you. You could add stops on n2 locations of the aluminum body and an additional 2 sliding sides on the boring head body. This would be work stops. It appears as there would be enough room. Thanks for the video! I think I might make one like this using the same basic design with similar materials I have on hand.
Thank you from Italy, very nice idea and clear explanation!
Thank you Paolo. Regards, Ade
Very VERY nice job...i like the set up a lot.Thank you for giving me the next project in my shop....
Hi Hogan62, always another project to make, hope it works out well for you. Regards. Ade
Nice job with the ball turner
Ultra intelligent, ultra simple, ultra Pro , d'où' vous viennent toutes ces idées: Depuis la Tunisie je vous dis mille fois Bravo c'est du travail de super Pro.
Ultra smart, ultra simple, ultra Pro, where do all these ideas come from? From Tunisia I tell you a thousand times Bravo, it's super Pro work.
Thank you Ade. I've been using the same boring head setup you have for turning ball shapes, though I've been searching for the right cutting insert. Using a round carbide cutter looks like the best way to do it. I'm looking forward to trying it.
round cutter works fine !
Clear and easily understood, great video, great work :)
That was one quiet lathe! Excellent video!
Thank you very much!
Excellent presentation. Very clever design.
Thank you very much!
I’ve only done it once but I put the tool on centre, zero’d the dial, set the diameter and then wound the cross slide out, and rather than adjust the head diameter wound the cross slide into centre with each cut.
Nice work. Good to see!
Thanks!
outstanding Ade! this is definitely a project on the list now!!
Love this. Will be buying a boring head and a couple of those taps.
Good work Ade. I like the real time demonstration. One to make next winter.
Much to do for a tool that squeaks and chatters and flexes that much in mere brass. Every cut had another 5 spring passes.
That round cutting tool holder is a nice design though
Great idea and nice workmanship, thank you for sharing!
Thanks for watching!
This is a great way to do accurate balls which I haven't seen before but done a lot off brass knobs using HSS form tool which is a lot faster.Then again using this method you can machine harder materials I believe.Thanks for sharing your ideas.
Thank you Mehmet
Just came acroyour channel Ade, enjoyed the conversion and will definitely be giving that a go. Thanks very much. Regards, Gareth
Thanks and welcome
A very big thank you to you for this fantastic trick, I will make one immediately.👍
Great presentation and demonstration!
Absolutely brilliant, thank you for sharing and explaining in understandable way to us new starters. Cheers Mr Swash
You are welcome Zvonimir, happy turning :)
Great and excellent video. Thank you for your painstaking work more grease to your elbow.
" a nice, simple little device".... gotta luv it
Thanks Wayne
That was a great build!
Great stuff Ade. Another idea could be to hollow grind the end of your HSS rod using a ball shaped stone held in a Dremel tool.
Never thought to mount the parting tool in the rear, cool idea.
Nicely done. Thanks for sharing.
Nice idea ,good video and perfect result.
Great ingenuity on this tool post setup!! Very nice sir. Thanks for the idea and share.
An unusual and very useful use of a boring head, and also of a circular carbide tool. Never thought of using a tool vertically on a non-CNC lathe, but it certainly is "on the ball" (please forgive the awful pun :) )
This is super cool, i'm going to try making one of these as I don't have to make radiuses often enough to buy a proper ball cutter.
Yeah, it's ideal for occasional use, Cheers Chris!
This is brilliant. Beautiful job mate.
Thank you! Cheers!
Ade this is an excellent video of a really nice tool, thanks. You didn't even mention one of the main advantages of this style (for those of us with a Myford ML10).....the height above the X slide is very limited so if using a typical vertical axis ball turner, the base uses up a lot of that precious height, so reduces the diameter of balls you can turn. Your horizontally pivoted style one only uses the fresh air aplenty above centre height so is definately the type to go for. And to use a carbide button cutter is a great move.
Boring heads make this job a lot easier, once set up. If you just ran the lathe backwards and had the tool underneath the job, you would be able to easily access the graduated dial on the head! 🤷♂️👍😁 This would also give you an unobstructed view of the job.
You are right! but my chuck is screw on so dont trust running it in reverse
@@AdeSwash Ah. Then I don’t blame you, having used them before. I love the cam-lock on my lathe. Happy machining mate. 👍🏼😁
Fine job mate! awesome machinist you are!!
If you slacken the 4 mm lock screw on the 1 1/2 inch thread you can wind it in or out to set the end float clearance on the main shaft to the finest clearance before locking it in place with the 4 mm lock screw.
Cheers Ade thats brilliant
What a brilliant tool, loved every minute of the vid, good for you .atb Mike
Thanks Mike :)
Excellent tool solution. Works very well.
the ball turner is a ball tearer! nice one.
Great vid, have an old Lushington BH I may convert. At 31:46 I sucked in through my teeth instinctively as I didn't think you'd retracted far enough - something I certainly have done!
Haha, it was close but calculated :)
Great work Ade. I saw a small radius turning device a semi-circular base moved on horizontal arc by its leadscrew by hand on a centre lathe 50 yrs ago ~ commerical unit. Like the round tip use
Well done, I suspect my boring head will get more use this way.
Thanks for the video.
Well done and good cam work
Cheers Shaun :)
That is a really good idea. Thanks for sharing.
Very interesting video and great presentation, thank you very much-I’ll build one soon!
I have seen videos of this gadget as well and also think it’s a great idea. Also thinking of making something in line with it.
To finish a ball to an exact size get a drill bushing of the same diameter grind the end flat so you have a sharp edge on the internal diameter grip in vice grips and hold the bushing against the ball and rotate slightly .
Useful tool and a very easy to follow video. Nice to hear the word swarf , far too many chips on RUclips.
Thats a good idea for manual turning, us lazy cnc guys do that with a few lines of code and a cutoff insert.
Awesome video..I need this to make cuts for bearings. Can you make a video on connection to the drill press. On what you need to install it. What drill press will it need. To attach it to the head. Shaft.. and what cutters do what. As a seated edge cut.
Love it! Thanks for sharing 🇬🇧
My pleasure 😊
Thank you for sharing, good job, nice video, have a nice day & be safe.
Bravo pour cette conception originale.
Nice! Thanks for posting.
Great tool. Awesome work. Thank you for sharing
nice video Ade
thanks for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it
Great demo and explanation, thanks for doing this.
I think this is great! Bravo and thanks.
Ade Hi from Australia brilliant RUclips "YOU ARE THE MAN" regards Merv
Thanks Merv :)
Very nice work I must say.
Thank you very much!
Hi Ade, excellent tool and worked a treat...Regards Kevin
Glad it helped
Nice work!
Thanks Toolmike :)
I like it! I'm always looking for ways to make the most use of the little space and money that I have so this is great as I can have a ball turner and a boring head in one. The only modification I can think of that might be needed is a brass gibb in that large aluminum cylinder, in case that fit loosens over time. I don't know if "gibb" is even the right term but you know what I mean.
nice design. I am going to make one, but I will make my boring bar to hold a triangle insert on the end so it approaches the work at a right angle. (The same way the insert meets the work in a normal tool holder.) Maybe a round insert instead to blend the ball with the shaft nicely.