Thread: first try at a ball

You need a ball turner

Quite a few different designs floating around on the net.

another way is to work out the size ball you want and do some math. im not sure how it works but you size in to some diameters at accurate lengths and then you shape it with a file dead easy

nice try

If you don't want to make a ball turning attachment as suggested by Big Shed, and don't want to do the math as mentioned by new guy90, Guy Lautard has a set of feed tables for cutting a ball or radius in steps using a flat tool, e.g. a parting tool. The steps are then smoothed out using a file as Patrick mentioned above. This sounds complicated, but is not when you try it, and it is surprisingly quick. One source of the tables is:

http://http://www.ploughbooksales.com.au/005013.htm

Frank


,

The size of the "brass ball", at 6mm, is really well suited to this very simple way of doing it.

Get a bit of flat steel, drill a 6mm hole in the steel, up towards one end of the steel. Over to the grinder and grind of half of the 6mm hole, put it into the toolpost, so that the half 6mm hole is facing up. You now plunge cut the balls, by that I mean you just have enough of the workpiece hanging out of the chuck and advance this tool into the workpiece, now how many perfectly round balls do you need.

This will only work, on any material that is softer than what you made the tool from, so you want to make 6mm balls from steel, then you will have to make the tool from D 2 or some other equivilant material, then harden it.


regards radish

Or your other allternative if you want the Grinding experience Grind up a Left and Right Hand form tool from a piece of HSS tool Steel.

Thanks guys for the great ideas,
Big Shed ..I did see the same type of ball turning tool on youtube [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4pwUw0G3RQ&feature=related"]YouTube - Turning a ball (knob) on the lathe.[/ame] I could never make anything like that.

franco, i tried the link but it didnt work.
new_guy ....just hand holding a file??? thats cheating

radish...your idea sounds like fun..but I think I'm picturing the drilling in the wrong direction, still I get the idea.

pipeclay..i did get quite a few tool blanks, I think I do need to learn how to grind these shapes.
Thanks again

Turbo TA,

Sorry about the link - an extra http crept in there somehow. Try this one for a description of the tables:

http://www.ploughbooksales.com.au/005013.htm

Note that this is an Australian site, but Guy Lautard is a Canadian, so the tables should be available to you from a local source if you want to get a copy.

Regards,

Frank

Hey Frank, sorry I didnt notice that first http. I went to the site,,theres a lot of interesting topics there,,thanks

just if you haven't got one next time you go to your local machine tool supplier get your self a radius gauge i don't think they are very expensive and this would be really the only time you would use one but it will show you where you are going wrong in the grind and hopefully tell you before you put it to metal and see a great big gouge

im sorry it was hard to describe what i was talking about and i think Frank was saying something similar and i would point you to this great post that shows in detail what exactly to do but i cant find any of the threads ill try and find them latter sorry

No problem. i'm a visual aids kind of guy ..... After looking close at the ball I made I can see that it really isnt as round as I thought it was. But still, it was my first time ever using a lathe (I know,,,I'm tooting my own horn)