This ball knob is going to be for the Ball Turner. From my quick drawing of the finished ball knob I cut a piece of stock about 1/16" (1.6mm) longer than the drawing. Here I have machined the plain shank, drilled and tapped M10x1.5, counterbored 12mm dia by about 3mm deep, and chamfered the corners. This item is now ready to fit to a mandrel.
Here it is screwed onto a bolt with a washer up against the chuck jaws and the job set up to the machined shank of the ball knob.
From the drawing I measured the distance from the shoulder to the centre line of the ball, this measurement has been marked on the job.
With the tool rotated to it's highest position I have moved the saddle to get the tool in line with the mark.
Dial set to saddle and set at a zero reading. Small hand on 1 and dial on 0. I write this down as zero@1
With tool rotated to the right and being eyeball set to be on lathe centre line. The cross slide can be nipped up at this position.
Have done some roughing and am now adjusting tool downward closer to job.
Am adjusting tool now for final fine cut and have increased speed from 500RPM to 900RPM. After adjustment I rotated the tool to it's uppermost position then wound the saddle to the left until I had the dial indicator to my original reading.
Now for the finish cut the ball turner was rotated from the uppermost position slowly to the left then slowly to the right all the way around to the centre. Machining finished.
After a bit of emery taping with mix of CRC and oil the emery tape was then turned over to do some polishing with the back of the emery tape and with the slurry that was created from emery taping. After cleaning all residue off I then did a quick polish using Autosol polish and a small piece of paper towling. I have a piece of 3 ply over the lathe bed so no emery or emery sludge gets on the bed. This high polish is rediculous, absolutely not required for successful operation of the ball turner when I fit it,,,,but hey it sure looks good. Whether you make one of the really fancy and or complicated ball turners or just a simple one you will sure have fun making ball knobs.
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