On a previous visit to a wood crafts shop in the UK, my wife had seen a christmas tree full of turned wooden baubles. She started plucking them, only to be told by the shop owner that they weren't for sale - customers had donated them over the years, so put them back, please.
I decided to knock a few out. I wanted them to be nice & spherical, so I started looking at the various ball turning attachments for lathes. This looked like turning into another one of those making things to make things projects.
Instead, I rigged up a dividing head and a boring head, and held the work in the miller's spindle:
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/10...t/2963c48f.jpg
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/10...t/ec20a1ea.jpg
And it worked fine. I'm lucky, in that the dividing head has the same taper as the mill (if Tim Leech is reading this, yes, that's your old dividing head...)
For some of the balls, I offset the table on teh X and Y axes - the shapes were no longer balls, but decorative all the same.
I made a dozen balls, now I just need to polish them, fit brass eyes to hang them with, and that's one Christmas prezzie sorted out.
Ian
I decided to knock a few out. I wanted them to be nice & spherical, so I started looking at the various ball turning attachments for lathes. This looked like turning into another one of those making things to make things projects.
Instead, I rigged up a dividing head and a boring head, and held the work in the miller's spindle:
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/10...t/2963c48f.jpg
http://www.photobucket.com/albums/10...t/ec20a1ea.jpg
And it worked fine. I'm lucky, in that the dividing head has the same taper as the mill (if Tim Leech is reading this, yes, that's your old dividing head...)
For some of the balls, I offset the table on teh X and Y axes - the shapes were no longer balls, but decorative all the same.
I made a dozen balls, now I just need to polish them, fit brass eyes to hang them with, and that's one Christmas prezzie sorted out.
Ian
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