Turning a ball on a lathe

This is a video of using a home made ball turning tool on a lathe. The basic design of this tool is provided on Steve Bedair's excellent website. This video shows how the turning tool cuts a sphere into the end of a shaft. It can be used to make ball ends for handles and other decorative items. This particular project will result in a part that will be used as a GPS mount in an airplane. This part is turned out of 1" aluminum stock. One end was turned down to 7/16" with 14 TPI threads cut on the lathe. The ball end was turned down to .975 for a length of .978.

The ball turner itself was made using a Grizzly G4003 12 x 36 lathe, and a Grizzly G0484 mill. This part in the video is also being turned on the Grizzly 4003.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Grizzly G4003
• Grizzly G0484
• Lathe
• Ball Turning Tool
• Steve Bedair

[dslemons]

@maltelec

That is really interesting. I've never seen a jig like that.

[maltelec]

You will of course have to remove the spaces and add dots.

[maltelec]

@dslemons See this:

cnczone(dot)com / forums / attachment(dot)php?attachmenti­d=35329&d=1176413485

[dslemons]

@maltelec Please explain how your explanation would work.

[maltelec]

You set the milling machine so it mills a circle on the shaft you wish to have a ball, then turn the shaft on the rotary table.

[roadracenut]

@maltelec Please explain how that would work?

[Ryknfjor]

that triangle carbide bit was not acute enough to get that step out between the shaft and the ball, unless thats what you were going for.

[maltelec]

Its much easier on a milling machine and rotary table.

[R5H4D0W]

@fall22123 probably a slow frame rate of the camera

[fall22123]

why the slow rpms?