Gallery, Projects and General > Gallery

Ball Turner

(1/2) > >>

SPiN Racing:
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)

sbwhart:
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

Bernd:
Nice. I see Ralphs go a bit of competion on ball turners.

Bernd

Brass_Machine:
Nice! I gotta finish mine one of these days.

Eric

Bernd:
I got mine done :poke: Eric.  :)

Bernd

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page