any ideas on what lathe this is made for? home built ball turner.

[The Steamer]

I picked this up recently and im interested in finding out which lathe is was made for, the seller spoke of a big old belt driven lathe his dad had but this appears to be from something a lot smaller.

The 'T' Nuts are exactly 2.5" apart with a 3/8 strip to sit in the t slot.

It tool tip is exactly 2" height from the bottom edge that would sit flush against the cross slide.

I was hoping to adapt it to suit my lathe but I cannot bring my self to mess with it

[dickda1]

Definitely looks like a ball turner.
Only other possibility I can think of might be for sheet metal spinning.

[Pete.]

Looks like it might be set up to fit on a Myford vertical slide.

[Fergus OMore]

It is definitely a ball turner.
Having said all that, it can be adapted to fit many other lathes apart from a Myford,either on the saddle or on the vertical slide.

There are lots of this 'concept' about. I had one but less sophisticated  on  an old Round bed Drummond.

The trick is to align its pivot exactly under the ball to be turned and for the tool height again to be exactly on lathe centre height. So I doubt that it is-as it stands- Myford.

Well worth keeping, believe me.

Cheers

Norman

[TLGriff]

Given the limited vertical distance from the top of the pivot nut to the tool, it sure won't turn a very large ball. I suspect it's a manufacturing fixture made for a specific application, not a general purpose ball turner.

Tom

[Fergus OMore]

I have scrapped most of my information but I still have a note of similar tools in both Bradley and Thomas who were impeccable model engineers albeit of a bygone age.

In a slightly more recent age, Professor Dennis Chaddock brought out the Quorn( 1973?) but made innumerable ball handles for his machine. He went for the simple(?) form tool from a scrap file but others found chatter unacceptable and went for the ball turner in all sorts of guises- since.

The model engineering world- on this side of the pond- is littered  with modified upon modified ones.

This one hints at the addition of a bit from a long gone Reliance drill grinder jig.

So I'll stick with my earlier comments and repeat that it is worth keeping

Regards

Norman

[jb3cx]

Fergus is correct in what he said ,this was originally designed for the myford size lathe .i have had mine for about 40 years .the bolt that is used as the centre pivot should have a hole in it.a 3/16 rod with a point on is inserted in, then the cross slide y axcess is advanced until the point is on the centre of the bar that is being used to make the ball .the  apron x axcess is then advanced so the pointer is half the ball dia , lock off x and y ,take out the pointer ,the feed is by the micro adjuster on the top ,for the finishing cut ,make sure that the nut that secures the tool bit in the holder is nipped up ,
Hope this helps ,I might have forgot a few things ,as it is a long time since I have used mine .
Regards Peter

[Fergus OMore]

Thank you, Peter! Don't the years simply romp on unnoticed?

After I scribbled my epistle over my morning intravenous injection of coffee, I got down my copy of Holzapffell . Dear old Jacob was using the confounded things -to make optical lenses at the time of Maudsley and if we want a bit of history, he made an ornamental turning  lathe for the Tsar of Russia-- and we all know what happened to him, don't we?

Regards

Norman