Machinist's Minute: Machining Spherical Surfaces on a Lathe

The geometry of your machines can be used in many ways!

[beavergunsnroses]

This guy has forgotten more than I'll ever know.

[scottmitchell]

Would of liked to see the setup you had.

[creativerecycling]

A lathe is one of the most important machines. It can turn, bore, face, trepan, drill, thread id and od, broach, shape, cut keyways id and od, yep! And much more.

[mutatgaming]

You can step it off. You add tool nose radius to external or subtract for internal to the radius of the ball you are wanting to cut. Then calculate a bolt hole circle equal to the number you came up with. Depending on the radius of your cutter, you select how many degrees over you want to step over. A 72 hole B.C. equals 5 degrees (360/5). You only need 18 of the numbers to move 90 degrees around the part or 180 on a lathe. This works on lathes and mills. The only difference on a lathe and that depends on if it is 1:1 or 2:1 when you move the handle. Use to use this to sink dies for forge Hammers. Used it on both manual and CNC machines before CAD/CAM. Learned from an old mill hand. I have a cheat sheet now.

[ogtfromthestep]

Depending on the size ( preferably a lot smaller than 1 -15/16 lol) you can use a ball nose end mill on your tool post to achieve similar results. You always put out good content and keep up the good work.

[Dane]

I never thought of using the compound for that. I have to make a 1 inch ball drive adapter for something coming up. I'll have to try this.

[Geoduck.]

I stared learning the craft in 1978. Only ran lathes for a few years. Shop I was in at the time had a tracer lathe I never ran and a Peg Board lathe I did run but don't remember much about how it worked.

[MsWnDrLnD]

Quick question, What is a tracer?
I've never heard that term on a lathe before :)

[ogiejii]

Would have been nice to actually see the workpiece.

[ChrisMclaughlin-gn]

“ the beast of the earth are hear for us”. That is the most self centered thing I’ve heard on this show. I like the people who grow, learn, and become humbled from their encounter. These big bad tough guys are hard to listen to. These are the guys who end up dead from them.

[engineerpauly]

🤔 but the pivot point is outside the centre of the radius?!?

[jessejarvis]

We have the same lathe at my work and it's so worn out I don't use it. It won't hold size well it needs work

[SasquatchBob]

Professional dum-dum here with another odd question. Is it possible to make something square shaped on a lathe? Or are you only capable of making round things with it? Sorry if it's a dumb question, it just kind of popped in my head and I got curious lol

[asailijhijr]

Most of the work product and the tooling you're talking about is hidden or out of frame. "To make a really good demonstration of this, " you'd have a better positioned camera or a better editing team.

[everybodyslawyersusanbetzj]

should show what you are talking about

[johnw]

What's going on here? Spherical ball? Where ?

[Nick-vcut]

Stop wearing long sleeves on a lathe. People who don’t know proper safety on a lathe are watching this and learning from you. You have enough experience to know better.

[jamesd]

Great machinist, not so great videographer.😮😢

[ChrisMclaughlin-gn]

The camera guy is terrible. It would be nice to see what your talking about instead of guessing wile looking at the back of that tool post