Author Topic: Ball Turner  (Read 13132 times)

Offline SPiN Racing

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Ball Turner
« on: December 24, 2008, 06:47:47 AM »
Hey all,

I made this ball Turner for a variety of things I need to make, as we all do.
In reality for delicate work I think its simply too big. It can turn a 3" ball, but doing something like a delicate curve in a 7/16 piece of stainless is hard because it cant get very close to the chuck.  :scratch:
I will likely make another turner, but smaller, and thinner for more delicate work, so I am able to get right up close to the chuck.

The steel I started with was 2.5" thick, and I cut a 5.5" square of it out.
Milled it so it was 4.75" square, and then put it in the lathe.
I then spun it up and bored a hole in the center that was 2.8 Across, and .75 deep, with a needle thrust bearing race bored? into the face of the bottom of the hole.
THen I started to taper the face of it so that it had a nice angled face that would run right up under the rotating center portion.
Nice chunk of stainless 3" around with a shoulder etc, and it nexts nicely into the hole with the bearing inside.

Slot cut into the top, and made a tool holder from steel, milled to the exact height that the tool tip sits at. (3.625")

The orange ring thing is actually a semi soft plastic cone for rollerbladers from walmart. It was a flat cone of sorts that was designed to be rolled over. I trimmed it to fit snugly over the rotating part, and trimmed it to fit snug around the bottom. It keeps the chips from having any chance of getting up under the edge, and or into the bearing areas.

A bolt up the center through the base with a 45 degree head and fine thread keeps the tool rotating freely, without binding.

I have the cad drawings I made for it, as well as a lot more pics.

The ball on the end of the arm is the first one I made from it. It was turned from some scary piece of stainless from a boat salvage yard. It was some sort of yellowish Stainless steel offroad racing boat inboard driveshaft. 2.5" across. That stuff is the hardest stuff I have ever tried to do anything with. ANd when the curls came off it, they were smoking hot at a low turning speed. I have a WD40 flood coolant setup (I made) and it was pouring onto the ball as I turned it, and it was smoking thick white smoke from the heat. The ball is very very smooth.
Oh and I dropped it onto the concrete floor, and there wasnt a single mark on the ball.

Oh yeah.. in the pics of the turner on the Lathe.. you can see I had to mill the angled face to a 90 degree angle. I discovered almost immediately when turning somethig that wasnt down to your size, it doesnt clear the bit until AFTER its the correct shape. (DUH)

Forgive the dirtiness of the thing. I DO clean between bouts working. I had been at it for quite a few hours at that point. I work Nights Mon-Wed, for 14 Hours each. SO when I get on a project I often will end up working for 8 or 10 hours without stopping. And quite a few times I have gone in at 5 or 6PM, and my wife has to tell me to go to bed the next morning at 7. (The garage is seperate from the house)







SPiN Racing

Offline sbwhart

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Re: Ball Turner
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2008, 07:56:54 AM »
Hi Spin Great Job  :thumbup:

As for the dirty machine be proud of the dirt a clean machine's never done a job work.

Have
 :wave:
Fun

Stew
A little bit of clearance never got in the road
 :wave:

Location:- Crewe Cheshire

Offline Bernd

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Re: Ball Turner
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2008, 09:32:04 AM »
Nice. I see Ralphs go a bit of competion on ball turners.

Bernd
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Offline Brass_Machine

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Re: Ball Turner
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2008, 12:08:32 PM »
Nice! I gotta finish mine one of these days.

Eric
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We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.

Offline Bernd

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Re: Ball Turner
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2008, 12:32:39 PM »
I got mine done :poke: Eric.  :)

Bernd
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bogstandard

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Re: Ball Turner
« Reply #5 on: December 24, 2008, 02:15:16 PM »
Hi Spin,

I am just half way thru making one, about the same size as yours, but I can't really finish it off yet, until I sort out my cross slide. I don't have t-slots like you lucky gents have, so I am contemplating whether I should hack into my closs slide or not. At the moment it is designed to fit onto where the toolpost sits, but it is a PITA to remove the toolpost to fit the BT on.

Bogs

Offline Divided he ad

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Re: Ball Turner
« Reply #6 on: December 24, 2008, 05:38:36 PM »
There is no competition here Bernd.... The best one wins!!  :lol:

Nice sturdy looking ball carver you have there Scott.... 

Do you know what it's largest dia ball is?

Mine seemed ok with the 50mm hemisphere for my punch off the aeolipile project... But I think that's about it's limit!

That also produced some of the most vivid blue and gold swirls when cutting and the finished hemisphere was far too hot to hold in bare hands.... or even gloves for too long!  :bugeye:


I don't know if you get these issues with yours... But I cut a very shallow groove into both sides of the tool holder where the clamping screws leave there mark... This was due to forever removing burrs to get the thing to slide to the next radius setting....



Like that.

I didn't make much of an effort to spruce this one up. I was just so happy that it was finished and worked  :)


I'm looking forward to seeing some of your works Scott.... I like this wording...

Quote
I know there are sites with people building all sorts of thigns for a living, using high dollar machines, and ripping out incredibly complex items from a CNC machine. But honestly.. I "play" with the tools for the artisan factor. An thats what Im teaching my boys as they actually still want to hang out with me. Its not about ripping out a part. Its about crafting something. And I see this forum seems to be tailored for people who are crafting things.. not just ripping out a load of parts for an order.


I would also like to be able to live upto such a philosophy....I like one off's.  I'm slowly getting there, just a few tollerance and presision bugs to work out of my system and I should be able to make things that look nice and work correctly!!  :dremel:


Good to see more people posting there works.... Even if after 2 days it takes me an hour to read up and get up to date!! :jaw:



See you around the forum...


Ralph.
 
I know what I know and need to know more!!!

Offline SPiN Racing

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Re: Ball Turner
« Reply #7 on: December 24, 2008, 08:47:53 PM »
Thanks guys!

I need to go see about the score marks. I have only turned a few things sofar, but it adjusts very easily sofar.
Im not sure of the type of metal my bit holder is, but its some form of rustable steel. It machined rather nicely, but I dont know about score marks. I will check after tonight's Santa Duties.
The groove is a good idea. :D

The only issue I was worried about when I made it was the torrington bearing I used. It was a thrust bearing from the front of the eccentric shaft in a Mazda 13B rotary. (I have wayy too many rotaries here) A machinist acquaintance said it would be better to simply make them fit smoothly together and loose the bearings.
I had already machined them for the bearings etc, and as it turns out I was able to stand on the thing with my 210 pounds, and spin easily on the center of it.

I used a good dose of Redline high impact grease in the bearings, and around the whole thing, and at this point it still turns very smoothly.

When under load, I was thinking.. with the rotation of the lathe, it was loading the bearing directly from above, and any angular force was going to be minimal. The load is a vertical load, not horizontal. From my eye LOL.

If I remember correctly... hmm Ok getting up my CAD drawings...
3.354" ball :D
Its 1.67 inches from the centerline of the lathe to the surface of the turner.

Actually I just popped out some Pics of the CAD drawings. I will upload em and make a post with em. :D

Thanks for the kind words everyone. My first "real" project with the lathe  :clap:
SPiN Racing

Offline SPiN Racing

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Re: Ball Turner
« Reply #8 on: December 24, 2008, 09:15:15 PM »
OK some cad drawings for you all.

Of course your own dimensions will vary.
Making mine, I basically went to Steve Bedair's Ball turner section, and browsed around looking at all the different designs, as well as did a lot of Google research on ball turners.. then sorta.. did what you do. Got a mental picture, and started. (I still have the first turner base part that I didnt use cause I bored it too big.  :scratch:

Here are the CAD pics.

This is the base


Here is the turner


Tool holder


Complete drawing....including Crossslide (its light gray.. sorry)
SPiN Racing

Offline Bernd

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Re: Ball Turner
« Reply #9 on: December 25, 2008, 10:29:40 AM »
I had already machined them for the bearings etc, and as it turns out I was able to stand on the thing with my 210 pounds, and spin easily on the center of it.


Now that I would have liked to see.  :D


Bernd
Route of the Black Diamonds