Mini ball lathe tool

[Christophe Mineau]

Hi,
Here is a fine little tool that allows to turn relatively easily some small balls on the lathe.
The initial purpose of these balls is to make woodwind instrument ball shape posts for supporting keys.

This idea comes from a Youtube channel owned by the user "slausonm", many thanks to him !

The tool is very simple, it's formed with an HSS bar drilled with a hole at the end.

Here are the photos :

Drilling the HSS bar with a carbide glass drill bit. Works like a charm !







Beveling, making a cutting edge with my high speed motor on the tool post.




Here I am making a square tool holder, I didn't have one yet ...


Here is the tool in its support.


Two different diameters on both ends.



And here is how it is used.
First , starting by a cylinder, the same diameter as the hole in the bar, it will be the diameter of the ball.
Here I am using the caliper depth gauge in order to setup my parting tool.


Making a small groove at the base of the ball.


Now the compound is set at a 30° angle.
The tool is installed, and it is set so that the right inner edge is aligned with the tip of the workpiece
(see the red dash line)


Start machining the ball using first the cross slide, until the ball is half formed. (Red arrow)


And then, use the compound slide to finish the ball, in the 30° direction (Red Arrow)


Here is the ball !
There is always a small point at the tip ...


Which is cleaned up with a file.


Here this is just a detail of how the base can be turned down and threaded with a die.


And here is a sample ball post.


This is something not so common on the Web, I thank again Mathew Slausonm for having showed the method !