Taig sized ball turning gadget

[joe d]

Hi

I need to make a tubing bender for the Snow Tandem that I'm building... so I need to make some nicely radiused (new word for the day...? :big cutting tools to make the various forming wheels... so I need a ball & radius turning attachment.

Chopped up a few chunks of 6061 from the stash and got to work: flycut the square bit and turned a recess in it to fit the rotating part, then flipped it over to mill an opening big enough to fit as a replacement for the factory slide on the carriage... problem ensues:
factory dovetail is 45 degrees... the only cutter I have is 60... so, make one!

Turned an arbor from some drill rod, screwed on a piece of O1 tool steel, faced it off (including part of the head of the screw) turned it round, then out with the compound to cut the angle

Put it in the indexing head to drill some holes to create the flutes

a little work with a cut off wheel in the dremel, and a quick hardening, and here we go:

Only had to make it through 2" of cutting, just as well as I seemed to get one of the flutes all buggered up, so it "shook rattled and rolled" all the way through.

The other side of this recess gets a floating brass gib strip that I shamelessly copied from the factory original (well, it works!)

Turned the rotating part, then used my commercial 60 degree cutter to make the slot for the tool holder (The extra little bump in the middle is for a bit of teflon to ease the travel of the tool holder)

Here's the component bits (didn't take any photos of milling the tool holder, pretty straightforward stuff)

Here it is in place on the lathe, note the really cool bolt acting as the lever while using the thing to turn the knob for itself...(proof of concept test?)

and all done:

Been meaning to build one of these for a long time, finally one less thing on the round-to-it list.

Cheers, Joe

 

[Deanofid]

That came out just great, Joe. A handy gadget, for sure.
Don't you just love scratching something off "the list"? I have one of these on my list, too, but haven't got to run the pencil through it, yet.

For next time, on the cutter;
Just looking at the pictures, you may have needed a bit of clearance on the trailing edge and tops of the cutting "fingers". Also, cutting the end (bottom) of this type of cutter to a slightly concave shape will help.

Nice job. A fine new tool for the lathe.

Dean

 

[joe d]

Hi Dean

Thanks for the kind comments, and the cutter information... I had relieved the end, but not the trailing edges or tops. I'll have at it one of these days, and give it a test drive through some spare stock. It may be a keeper after all! (none the less, I was happy with it, the first real cutter I've ever made).

Joe

 

[gbritnell]

Hi Joe,
Very nice work on the ball turner. I made one years ago from drawings that were published in Popular Science. It works ok but doesn't have the rigidity that the one you made does.
gbritnell

 

[dethrow55]

wow very nice very good design since taig only has about an inch and quarter to centerline. very good james

 

[barnesrickw]

Your lathe bed looks longer than the one on my Taig. Is it, or just the angle the picture was taking.

 

[dethrow55]

hello barnesrickw bb6corp.com carries any size taig lathe bed you could want. he also sells on ebay and is really cool guy to deal with. have a look, james

 

[canadianhorsepower]

hello barnesrickw bb6corp.com carries any size taig lathe bed you could want. , james

The bed on a Taig is aluminium tubing filled with concrete.
How can he sell longer one ??
and if the bed is longer then you will need a longer rack for the
Z travel ??

 

[dethrow55]

drop him a line at (bb6corp.com ) the bed its self is anodized aluminum the rack i have no idea about. he mostly deal with cnc. check him out.