Author Topic: Another, another ball turner  (Read 18420 times)

Offline Stot

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Another, another ball turner
« on: May 18, 2010, 08:09:55 AM »
Hi,

Well the waiting for most of my materials is over so I set about the first part of making my ball turner.

Its based on the Steve Bedair site design and resized to work on my Warco BH600 with an overall center height from the cross slide of 86.6mm.



First up was the turret, then ill make the base to fit.



Started off with a 2" piece of ~80mm steel round bar.



I chucked it up with the squarest face to the chuck and faced off the other face, which was about 1-2 degrees out of square.



Took a while at at 420fps...  :lol: 

I decided to maching the entire base first, and then flip it over and clean up the top and sides.  I drilled and tapped the base before flipping it over too to keep it all central to the base.




Its basic turning really but I ended up with a base I was happy with.



I flipped it round in the chuck holding it by the turned outer part and faced then center drilled the other end.  Then re-chucked it on the larger base step with a live center in the tailstock and turned the full sides and face to dimention.




So the turret Is ready for some milling.  I still need to get a nice rigid milling slide set up on my lathe before I do that part, but hopefully I will be able to machine the base in the next few days.  :thumbup:

Cheers
Stot


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Offline madjackghengis

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2010, 11:15:26 AM »
Hi Stot, looks like you've got a good start, looking forward to seeing you mill on your lathe, haven't seen that much lately, but having done lots of it when I didn't have a mill, I really appreciate being able to. :thumbup: :clap:  mad jack

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2010, 06:20:58 PM »
Looking good Stot  :thumbup:


I like the way the curls of swarf spring off in the vid' .


I see you also like arrows and air hockey  :)


Reflective surface with evenly spaced holes and a centre dot  :borg:   :lol: 


Looking forward to the vertical slide bit, I couldn't do it on the one I had at all  :bang:






Ralph.
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Offline Brass_Machine

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2010, 07:22:38 PM »
Nice start Stot!  :thumbup:

I gotta finish mine mine someday.

I see what Ralph is on about... took me a minute with the arrows comment.  :scratch:

Eric
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Offline Stot

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #4 on: May 19, 2010, 03:09:35 AM »
Cheers guys,

Sharp eyes spotting the dart board.  :lol:  I also shoot my rifles and pistols from there too.  Never really thought about my fetish about putting holes in things.  :bugeye:

I have a couple of angle plates for the cross slide on my lathe, but one problem is my T slots run along the Z axis of the lathe, so getting it tight enough not to move during a milling operation is tricky.  :scratch:  Im 1/2 contemplating drilling through the angle plate base into the cross slide and taping it accept it.  Would be the best fitting option if I can get it square...  :zap:

Cheers
Stot

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Offline madjackghengis

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #5 on: May 19, 2010, 10:54:41 AM »
Hi Stot, for a few years, I used my lathe exclusively in milling, not having a milling machine, so the problem of things moving after clamping down was a problem I had to solve.  Putting a piece of paper between your angle plate and the cross slide will greatly solidify your setup, and by a factor of about ten, with regard to friction between the table and the angle plate.  Regular notebook paper, typing paper or even just brown paper, such as from bags are best, no paper that is shiny and has pictures, and preferably no printing unless the paper is obviously very porous.  I think you will find it makes all the difference in the world.  It did for me. :headbang: mad jack

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #6 on: May 19, 2010, 07:55:23 PM »
 :lol:   Arrows or "aarus" as it's mostly pronounced are darts as was worked out  :beer:   Just what we (the lads) have called 'em for years  :)


Fetish for putting holes in things.... Like your lathe!!  Sounds kinda drastic  :bugeye:  But then again we all modify things to suit our needs I suppose.... Just remember   :worthless:     :thumbup:


Nice tip from Mad Jack  :thumbup:  I'll remember that  :)



Eric,

Quote
I gotta finish mine mine someday.
Yup  :poke:     (Sounds like the guls out of finding Nemo!!  :lol: )





Looking forward to the rest.






Ralph.
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Offline Stot

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2010, 04:40:18 AM »
Good tip on the paper, ill give it a shot before i deface my lathe (further).  :thumbup:

Yesterday I recieved a 6" x 1" piece of steel from College Engineering that is to become my base.




I had to get a 6" piece as it was the smallest they had over 4.5"  :bugeye:  Lots of metal to be removed here.  Anyway I started off chucking it up and facing it off.  Then center drilled it and drilled a 12mm hole straight through to get me started.



Then to remove over 1" of diameter.  :(  Thank god for Carbide tooling!




So now I had to bore out a seat for the turret to sit in.  I took a couple of measurements, got it close then used the turret as a go/no go after each pass with my make shift boring tool.  :borg:




Ive got to say an old slot mill makes and excellent boring tool if you have some spare or damaged.  You can grind down the shorter flute tip and sharpen up the other one and use it for internal facing too.  :borg: :dremel:

So anyway then I have my finished top surface.  Tested with the turret and when seated it turns smoothly with no play.  :clap:




I did turn it over to make a start on the base of the base.  But its still not done... a LOT of metal to remove..  :lol:

Cheers
Stot
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Offline madjackghengis

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2010, 10:02:40 AM »
Hi Stot, kind of makes you wish for the laser cut off tool, that only uses twenty or thirty thousandths of metal for the cut, doesn't it?  It looks like you're coming along fine, looking to see the finished project, and what it can do. :thumbup: mad jack

Offline Stot

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #9 on: May 20, 2010, 05:39:18 PM »
Hi Stot, kind of makes you wish for the laser cut off tool, that only uses twenty or thirty thousandths of metal for the cut, doesn't it?

Ill keep an eye on ebay.  :lol:

I did finish turning the base tonight.



Turned the base with a locating stub around the bolt hole so that it will fit right on my cross slide in place of the compound.  I also used the tool tip to mark out the center points of my bolt holes while it was still chucked up.  :dremel:




Worked a treat.   :thumbup:

Now all thats left is millin' and drillin'  :scratch: :bang:

Cheers
Stot
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Offline johnny123

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #10 on: May 21, 2010, 08:23:41 PM »
Nice looking piece, building one of my own out of brass for a taig lathe. Swing has me limited to very low profile. :whip:

Offline Stot

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #11 on: May 22, 2010, 08:43:40 AM »
Cheers Johnny.  This is actually my first bit of planned turning, and im pleased with how its going. :)  Good luck with yours!

I got to milling this morning.  I set up an angle plate on my cross slide and decided to machine it to take my compound clide.  :thumbup:




This should help with overall milling on the machine, but by milling the plate to take the compound, it meant I was milling it to take my ball turner too.  Bonus!
I drilled pilot holes on the drill press and then mounted the base on the angle and counter sunk the allen head bolts into the base.  Easy one this.  :headbang:





So then i mounted the turret nice and tight onto the center of the plate, and started milling.  Little bit at a time but i found i could get away 1mm cuts at a time.   :clap:





I cut a 13mm slot then opened it up to 16mm with a few passes as I had got some 5/8" square bar for my sliding tool.  I also put a radius cuter in to take the edges off the slot.




Really pleased so far.  Im going to sink the tool tip into the tool column, and possibly make it height adjustible too.  I need to get a vice onto my compound now so that I can do the rest of the milling, but its coming along nicely.

Cheers
Stot
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Offline Bernd

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #12 on: May 22, 2010, 08:46:19 AM »
Very nice work Stot.  :thumbup:

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #13 on: May 22, 2010, 06:53:43 PM »
Yup, very nice indeed  :thumbup:


That is looking like a very solid piece of kit  :)


A little info that might help?
The tip is IMHO by far the most awkward bit. I know I've said this somewhere (brian is malfunctioning and I can't remember where?) but to make the cut out the right size I drilled and tapped the screw hole first and then fastened the tip upside down to the post squarely (used a counter sunk screw) then scribed around it. Thus giving me the lines to work to when I sunk a slot drill into the centre and finished off the sides with the 3mm end mill! (some of the most nerve racking milling I've done!)


How your going to do it on your lathe will be a very interesting read/watch   :nrocks:  Looking forward to it  :dremel:




Ralph.
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Offline Stot

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #14 on: May 23, 2010, 04:19:44 PM »
Welllll..  I Played this part very much by ear, but had an idea of how i wanted to do it.  Similar to what you were saying Ralph, but I did the lot on the lathe bypassing the dremmel.

I started off chucking the square bar in the 4 jaw chuck and drilling/tapping a center hole for the hold down screw.  Then I mounted a 10mm mill end in the tailstock and milleda 4mm deep hole dead center.



Then I offset the bar .171 @ 45degrees and milled an 8.5 mm hole.  flipped the bar over in the chuck and did the same on the opposite corner.



Then offset the bar to .313 from center and milled 4.5mm holes in the same way on the opposing corners.



That was pretty much job done to be honest.  The smallest amount of filing to get rid of the burrs and it sat square and tight.  :thumbup:





The post was 0.5mm too high so a quick face of the bottom and it is sitting bang on.   :)  I may make another one later down the line but for now this should work.



Cheers
Stot
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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #15 on: May 23, 2010, 07:33:44 PM »
Nice! that way works a treat  :thumbup:

Is the column going to be mounted on the diagonal as opposed to the picture of the mock up posted at the end of the last post?



Not long now till we see some ball turning swarf  :ddb:




Ralph.
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Offline Stot

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #16 on: May 24, 2010, 02:39:12 AM »
Hi Ralph,

It will be exactly as in the picture.  If i mount it on the diagonal the smallest radius I could turn is ~21mm without the side of the column interfering.

I mounted the tip on the diagonal to try and give the tool tips as much support as possible rather than have a huge overhang off the side of a square edge.  Ill probably make another couple up to try out other mounting options, but as you say this setup should get the swarf flying.  :headbang:

The threaded holes in the turret are the bit I'm not really looking forward to.  :scratch:  Ill figure something out.  :coffee:

Cheers
Stot
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Offline No1_sonuk

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #17 on: May 24, 2010, 08:12:31 AM »
I may make another one later down the line but for now this should work.
This is one of the advantages of the turret design - If you need a different tool holder, it's easy to switch.
The one I made is the double-ended style like yours, but I may make a circular holder at some point (I think it was on of Ralph's post I saw one in).

Offline madjackghengis

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #18 on: May 24, 2010, 08:48:21 AM »
Hi Stot, I like what you did with your angle plate, setting it up to take the top slide.  You can make it act like a vise in a lot of ways by using a piece of stock that fits in the bottom of the slot, with drilled and tapped holes to hold things down with a strap.  I've dug up a couple of inserts like what you've got, and may be changing my way of thinking on ball turning, seeing what is up on the forum.  What you've got looks solid and workman like, and ought to give good service.  How about a video of the ball turner in action? :poke: :thumbup: mad jack

Offline Stot

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #19 on: May 29, 2010, 05:04:27 PM »
Well its been a few days since I touched the ball turner but I got my round-tuit in the post this morning soooo..

I bought a vise specifically to go on my cross slide and happened to have a piece of bar stock the right size for the slot in my cross slide so I drilled and tapped it, mounted the vise and tried it out and...  too much flex  :(  :bang: I took some gouges out of the side on my first attempt at making a flat for the handle to be drilled into as you can see in one of the pics below.   :doh:

Anyway I have a standard milling/drilling vise so I tried that out and blow me down it fitted nicely.  :thumbup:  So I started milling a flat onto the side over the cocked up bit to take the handle.




I drilled a hole for the M12 thread I was going to be putting on the handle and tapped it.  You can see where the other vise flexed and the mill end took a chunk out of the side.  Not the end of the world.  Also from this cut you can see the vise wasnt quite square so I shimmed up the vise to straighten it out as you can see at the top of the next pics.



So then I decided to mill a flat completely along one side for the grub screws rather than trying to make 3 single flats.  Drilled centers at center line and 25mm either side, then tapped to M10 to take grub screws.





And that was pretty much it.  :D  Other than thread the handle bar to M12.




So I screwed in the handle, chucked up a piece of scrap alluminium and gave it a go.





I roughed through most of the layers and slowed down when i got close to radius.



The last pic is after the final cut and hasnt been polished yet and it came up lovely.   :) :clap: :beer:

Cheers
Stot
« Last Edit: May 29, 2010, 05:06:18 PM by Stot »
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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #20 on: May 29, 2010, 07:36:10 PM »
 :clap:  Top Job Stot  :thumbup:



Looks like it'll do very nicely  :ddb:



Now, let's see what wonders you can make with it?  :dremel:  :)


 :nrocks:




Ralph.
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Offline Stot

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #21 on: June 13, 2010, 03:04:26 PM »
Im going to make something soon I swear!

But I decided to add a bearing, or two  :headbang:

I went with a thrust bearing for the turret and a roller bearing to support the bolt and provide the pivot.  Just had to machine out the recesses for the bearings and then fir them.  :dremel:







Cheers
Stot
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Offline madjackghengis

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Re: Another, another ball turner
« Reply #22 on: August 03, 2010, 11:04:04 AM »
Well Stot, it looks like you've got a fine piece of tooling to add to your kit, those bearings are like icing on the cake.  I'm in the middle of working out the manipulation of stepper motors with the purpose of putting one on my rotary table, to get more accurate results, and allow it to be power driven for such purposes as it would be useful, and seeing your finished ball turner, I can see using one of the smaller stepper motors I've collected out of printers and the like, and can easily see this as a fine application for adapting a stepper motor.  Fine looking piece of tooling, I like the grub screws as adjustment over slots and bolts.  Did you mark it with a set of initials and a date stamp?  It'll be around a while, and you want the next owner to remember he didn't build it, half my tools have initials from dozens of different individuals, it reminds me constantly of the continuity of our work, and that we leave behind monuments to our imaginations for others to find.  Top notch, all the way :beer: :thumbup: :nrocks: mad jack