Thread: Ball Turning - The Trials and Tribulations of Banjo Making

Yeah..... not bad.....

If you were making more I'd suggest looking at making a new tool post, but you made it work as is.

Did you drill the hole with a slot cutter in one pass?

Stuart

Stu,

A post incorporating an insert along the lines of that made by the late Steve Bedair would be a definite improvement over the existing if I was to attempt to make more of these things. I probably won't.

Part of the reason for posting the photos was to show Simon L why I thought my turner had shortcomings because his turner is somewhat similar.

I crept up to the final bore size because of the delicate setup and I did use a slot drill on No.4. On the first version I used a boring head and got lucky with the fit of the cap iron screw's head. Rather than press my luck on No.4 I turned a whisker off the screw instead.

BT

Hi BT,
As usual you have made a very nice job of the Banjo- great work. It sounds like you ran into almost the same problems I did when I made my ball turner, never knew it was so hard to turn up a ball. It is surprising how much material you need and the distance required from the chuck and tail stock to swing the tool. I reduced the length of my cutting tool to the minimum to save some length- a short piece of HSS with a rounded nose. Here is a very small photo of it.
Bob

Hi Bob,

Nice intricate work with attention to detail as we have all come to expect from you.

WRT the limitations of the ball turner, it did not take me long to find them! The biggest being the amount (or lack of) room between the chuck and the ball turner. It's really a compromise between getting so close to the chuck it's scary and not having it too far away so as to create wobble. The other limitation of over shooting the mark and creating a dinosour egg can be overcome with a mark and some kind of dedicated depth stop on my cross slide. The delema of measuring the distance from the pivot to produce the desired radius I have overcome by scribing a set of scales (1mm increments) on both the tool slide and the side of the dovetails. The tool bit overhang is measured (with a small square) and then added (or subtracted) from the tool slide distance from the pivot point.

My first attempts at using it were very clumbsy and awkward but with some use I have managed to get the results I have wanted. I certainly will do what I want from it. In terms of rigidity, it's surprisingly solid as a rock with no chatter even with reasonably heavy cuts (>1mm) I am about to make an additional tool post, one that will hold a standard triangular indexable cutter, then I'll let go and move onto my next project….. or, back to an older unfinished one!

Simon

Looking at the A6 on the Holtey planes website, he is using an up and over style turner and looks to be much closer to the chuck. When I made that 3 ball handle the up and over was able to get in there quite easily https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...84#post1778984
so I think the issue is really around having the tool that fits the job. Regardless of the type of turner, positioning the tool is critical to avoid football shaped balls.
I'm tempted to have a go at making one but then I'd need to make up the plane to go with it...

Michael

Hello Bob and Simon,

It is sometimes difficult to visualise the problems that might arise during use. I saw all these other ball turners and thought easy peasy, I'll make one that enables the simple changing of cutters. Never thought about running out of room. Not so easy peasy after all.

As a revision I would probably do as Simon intends, a triangular cutter on a simple post.

BT

Originally Posted by Michael G

Looking at the A6 on the Holtey planes website, he is using an up and over style turner and looks to be much closer to the chuck. When I made that 3 ball handle the up and over was able to get in there quite easily https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...84#post1778984
so I think the issue is really around having the tool that fits the job. Regardless of the type of turner, positioning the tool is critical to avoid football shaped balls.
I'm tempted to have a go at making one but then I'd need to make up the plane to go with it...

Michael

Michael, Looking at your photos again certainly reinforces the merit of the up and over device.



I had fooled around with a vertical slide mounted boring head but it was just too large. I'll have another fool around.

Bob.

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

Michael, Looking at your photos again certainly reinforces the merit of the up and over device.



I had fooled around with a vertical slide mounted boring head but it was just too large. I'll have another fool around.

Bob.

Yes I was pretty impressed with Michaels 3 ball handle at the time, now that I have a ball turner I am even more impressed. There is no way I could ever work that close to the chuck (or collet) with our horizontal swing design. I am however confident that most workholding issues can be worked around with mine. I was sold on the idea of our design because I wanted to try making a dovetail on the shaper and needed an excuse! It turns out that the amount of wear on the slides of the shaper resulted in less than satisfactory davetails and so re-did them on the mill with a dovetail cutter. I must confess, I felt rather spoilt doing them with a dovetail cutter, not much to it really although I did manage a more exacting fit than the dovetails on my lathe compound. Take that dodgy Chinese lathe maker!

Simon

The thing I can't do with my up and over is do a shallow radius concave on the side of a handle as the pivot does not have enough vertical travel. With your turner, that should not be an issue as it is just cranking in the cross slide while pulling back the tool. (as Josh/ Ray did).
Tools for the job at hand.

Michael

Originally Posted by Michael G

The thing I can't do with my up and over is do a shallow radius concave on the side of a handle as the pivot does not have enough vertical travel. With your turner, that should not be an issue as it is just cranking in the cross slide while pulling back the tool. (as Josh/ Ray did).
Tools for the job at hand.

Michael

Another excursion I had planned ( to keep me away from what I should be doing ) was to make a set of leveling feet for the 13. They would feature a shallow ball and socket. Matching the radii will be the challenge.

Originally Posted by simonl

There is no way I could ever work that close to the chuck (or collet) with our horizontal swing design.

Thats the reason for my pivoting tool post and adjustment. It allows work very close to the chuck......the penalties are its ugly, difficult to set/adjust and which might be ok if you were setting up to make 100 of something, but a little painful for 1 offs. It seemed like a good idea at the time

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

Another excursion I had planned ( to keep me away from what I should be doing ) was to make a set of leveling feet for the 13. They would feature a shallow ball and socket. Matching the radii will be the challenge.

When I was coping Phils plate stand I was going to try machining sockets to match the 1" ball radius. I decided the problems that might come from getting the radius a little off weren't worth it. So effectively I have a ball sitting in a c/sink. I'll be watching with interest when you get around to it!

Stuart