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Gallery, Projects and General => How do I?? => Topic started by: NeoTech on November 22, 2013, 05:54:24 PM

Title: Mill a hemisphere / half sphere
Post by: NeoTech on November 22, 2013, 05:54:24 PM
So, this ball cutting and hemisphere cutting buisness has got me taken and i was in the mood for a "what if" - and this is what if your to damn lazy to make a radii cutter for your lathe.. But you have a mill, boring head and a roundtable.. This is not thaaat uncommon most of us has lying around actually..

So the goal here is to produce a hemispheric space in a piece of material, it could be a parabolic shape or just for the sake of it a radii of a diameter. To some on the board this is water under the bridge.. for me that hasnt worked in a workshop better part of my life and im a bit mathematically challenged i hade to figure this out with a visual aid before i figured out.. its only trig.. isnt everything we do bloody trig. ;)
(http://www.roughedge.se/blogg/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/brainFart.jpg)

So what you see here is a 60mm diameter hole, to cut that with equal radii all around, depth and width, you would need to pick out your calculator and see, what is the cutting diameter for a 30x30xY triangle in 90deg. well as it seems thats 42.43mm. you cant for obvious reasont not cut that deptin in one go.. But you step lathed/turnd forehand you would more skim out the "extra" material.. So by setting your workpiece in 45 degree or in my case just tilt the vertical head, you would feed the workpiece rouund and round on a turning table, and for every 40 turn or so (depending on your round table) you would feed the setup down that much your confident your machine can take out.

So i hope this visual aid, helps you guys out as much as it did me.. =)

This will work with a flycutter, boringhead and well such things..

Not sure if this was a howto, so i posted it in How Do I, someone can move it, if its in the wrong section.
Title: Re: Mill a hemisphere / half sphere
Post by: NeoTech on November 22, 2013, 05:56:10 PM
I link here some pictures from practicalmachinist, from similar work
(http://www.roughedge.se/blogg/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/smt_sphericalturning8.jpg)
(http://www.roughedge.se/blogg/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/smt_sphericalturning5.jpg)
Title: Re: Mill a hemisphere / half sphere
Post by: S. Heslop on November 22, 2013, 07:26:12 PM
That's pretty clever. I loaded up Sketchup and played around to 'prove' it to myself as well since I was imagining it wouldn't cut a real hemisphere, but I was wrong. Thanks for sharing it.
Title: Re: Mill a hemisphere / half sphere
Post by: Jasonb on November 23, 2013, 02:27:43 AM
And another variation on the theam on this guys build page using the mill to turn the work and Rotary table to move the tool.

http://www.fowlermodels.nl/index_bestanden/Page1042.htm
Title: Re: Mill a hemisphere / half sphere
Post by: NeoTech on November 23, 2013, 03:31:56 AM
S.Heslop, i had a bit of a hard time to accept it myself and tried for a while to bring my head around it. As you say, a visual aid is more or less a must to figure it out and see it from different angels explains at least to me why it works. =)


And using the round table and mill as a lathe is a way around it as well that i really didnt think about. Just need a way of mounting the work to the spindle i guess. =)
Title: Re: Mill a hemisphere / half sphere
Post by: mattinker on November 23, 2013, 08:07:25 AM
The idea of using a milling machine as a lathe is a very interesting one. In the following blog, the author uses a horizontal mill as a lathe, he has made a surface plate with a SA40 (I think) taper on it.
One of the part where he uses the mill as a lathe is about half way down the page. It's in French, but I think that there are enough pictures to understand it!

http://romubricoltout.canalblog.com/archives/p20-10.html

It's an ingenious build.

Regards Matthew
Title: Re: Mill a hemisphere / half sphere
Post by: Fergus OMore on November 23, 2013, 08:48:52 AM
Actually I re-Googled( is that a word?) put in 'translate' and it came up as exceptionally good English.

As Matt rightly says, it is extremely interesting stuff.

Merci mille fois!

Norman