Metal Lathe Accessories

[cfellows]

Carrying Rake60's theme a little further, let's see pictures of various attachments, fixtures, and accessories you've made for your metal lathe.

I'll start with a few of my own. More to come:

More as I find'em
Chuck

 

[Bogstandard]

Nice bits there Chuck.
Being bone idle and liking to make more than one use for a tool, I made something similar to your ball turner, but I made it so that I could fit my boring head instead. I must admit that by presenting the tool to the job the way this design does makes for very easy cutting, and a good finish.

John

 

[Mcgyver]

i like that style of radius cutter. I needed to do a bunch of small radius radius groove to a 1/2 radius depth, made a tangential style cutter, but the up and over style would have been superior. When i get around to making one, I'll borrow the boring head from the mill

 

[DICKEYBIRD]

Hey Chuck, can you describe how you use the ball-turner? IE: Set the tool to the desired radius and then swing the handle back & forth 180 deg. at one setting or do you set the tool higher for the 1st cut and then lower on each pass thereafter.

Milton

 

[Cedge]

Milton
Since the tool works "over the top" of the chucked metal, you set the radius and centerline, then work your way in to the end of the work piece. It takes a few passes to get corners rounded and the tool moved to the end of the work piece. Once the tool strikes the end of the metal you can begin cutting the back side of the curve.

When the tool has advanced to the end of the work piece, you have a hemisphere of the specified radius. Its only a matter of working over the"hump" to finish cutting the other half of the sphere.

I've built a similar, although much simpler version based on the one John "Gadgetbuilder" Moran has on his site. I like the way it cuts, but I've got to revamp my design for a bit more control over setting the radius.

Steve

 

[DICKEYBIRD]

Ahh, I see now...thanks. I built a Bedair/Moran ball-cutter too but made it too small. Rather than build the same design again, I'd like to try Chuck's tangential style cutter.

 

[macona]

Heres a thread on a real neat ball turner. Sized to fit a Logan/South Bend but can be scaled to fit anything. I plan on making one to fit my machine. At the end of the thread is dxf files and jpegs of the plans to make your own:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/17/920.html?

 

[Bogstandard]

As I said before, I am lazy when it comes to making anything, and if it can be used for another purpose, even better.

This is the bit that was knocked up to do the job.

And this is how it is to do the job.
This is most probably ten years old, covered in grime and has been used so few times the mark out blue is still on it. So really my decision not to make a 'good' one was justified. But it is there if it needs to be used.

John

 

[macona]

I was thinking about making one of those as well. I picked up a Criterion head off ebay and I have never used the boring head since I got it. Figure this ought to make it at least useful.

 

[cfellows]

Milton
Since the tool works "over the top" of the chucked metal, you set the radius and centerline, then work your way in to the end of the work piece.

Actually, Steve, I position the tool radially to the work with the centerline of the tool rotation perpendicular to the axial center of the work. The tip of the tool is positioned on the vertical centerline of the workpiece rotation. The infeed doesn't change for the duration of the turning. I start with the radius outside the swing of the work and gradually decrease the radius on each pass.

With this kind of radius turning attachment, you can turn concave as well as convex profiles, and the center of the radius turned does not have to be coincident with the center of the workpiece.

Chuck