Ball Turners & Knurlers
CAUTION: the sphere is very hot after turning, especially when using SS.
For more info go to Steve Bedair's great site.
Aluminum base, SS cylinder, steel tool bit holder. Pivots on a bolt with a shoulder. A fabricated Teflon washer is under the bolt head. The bolt is held in place with a set screw entering from the top (centered inside the ½" x ½" groove). High viscous grease increases control during turning.
Ball turner with HSS tool bit holder for
aluminum & brass.
Set cutter at each end. Keep it close to the collet or chuck.
This is a steel ¼-20 arbor with a recess for the tool bit inset.
The arbor is held by an ER-40 collet in a
MT-3 to ER-40 chuck.
A finished aluminum ball. Sanding & polishing
easily done on the lathe.
Stainless steel takes a lot longer to make but looks & wears great.
After letting it cool, a strap wrench easily removes the sphere from the ¼-20
threaded arbor without marring the finish.
This example shows a completed 1.2" diameter stainless steel sphere.
Micro-ball turner for the Taig.
Taig ball turner with rounded corners & hex head screws
replaced
with set screws; both modifications provide more clearance.
Knurlers
Knurlers held in via friction pins.
Scissors-type knurler. This type works very
well.
All the pressure is in-between the cutters & it floats on the pivot.
Left, right & bottom views shown as mounted in a
Phase2+ tool holder.
I modified the pivot bolt head & added a lock nut to it.
Knurling aluminum in the Jet BD-920N lathe.
A standard knurler with interchangeable cutters.
Also holds a tool bit for facing cuts.
Really need a rigid machine & setup for this type of knurler since it exerts
high side forces.
Clamping-type knurler from
LMS. Good for light knurling in soft
materials.
Scissors-type can exert higher pressures to form a true, high-grip, pyramidal pattern.
Replaced pivots with 10-24, ¼" x ¾" shoulder bolts
with lock nuts
for added precision, strength & ease of knurl pair changes.
The bolt heads on the left had flats milled into them to engage the step to
prevent rotation.
A knurler for the
Taig Micro Lathe closely patterned
after the Sherline design, but stronger.
Standard-sized knurls pivot on ¼" diameter hardened dowel pins.
They are held in place by 10-24 set screws. The pin holes were precision reamed.
Knurl pockets (1" L x ⅜" W x 0.7" D) were made using a ⅜", 2-flute, carbide end
mill.
Used the RF-25 mill with its DRO-350 tool diameter
off-set feature.
Two, ¼-20 cap-head cross-bolts easily exert all the knurling force.
The two supports have keys that ride in a carriage T-slot.
10-32 threaded rods are used for the hold-down bolts.
First, finger tighten the hold-down bolts, adjust cross-bolts for desired knurl
depth, then wrench tighten the hold-down bolts.
Turn the spindle by hand for smaller jobs & use the low, 525 RPM for larger jobs.
Put light pressure on the right to left carriage travel while knurling.
