How do you go about designing and making the cutting tool? 
The cutter was designed in a 3d CAD package. Essentially, the desired profile is projected on to the cutting tool . A picture of the tool is printed, transfered (with a felt-tip pen) to the HSS blade and then the blade is ground by hand to the profile.
Is your lathe one of the larger, more massive models? Could I use this technique on a Myford ML7?
The Hardinge is about as massive as a 6 x 18 comes. However, the skiving technique is a forming process that is engineered to reduce the forces on the work, so I don't see why a Myford would struggle.
My computer doesn't cope well with your video - the strobing effect makes it difficult to be clear which way the lathe mandrel is rotating. It looks as though your cross-slide (or top-slide ???) is set at an angle, is this so?
The lathe turns in the conventional direction (forwards) .
The Top-slide is at an angle. I simply used it to set the correct angle for the blade.
How do you decide the angle?
All the angles are currently 'under review' for the MkII version. It should be more of a knife tool than it is ATM.
(There are a few bit on the web about skiving but very little practical guidance so I'm learning as I go)
The slide movement looks fairly slow - was it operating on 'auto' or on manual traverse? You seemed to have at least one hand free to apply cutting fluid.
The powered cross feed in the video is too slow , it actually works better at about twice that speed
Have you employed this approach to make any other shaped work-pieces?
Not yet, the MkII's first blade will be the tri-ball handle parts for my
Haighton Cadet renovation projectRegards,
Bill
