Ball Turning on a Lathe using a Boring Head 

no matter how brilliant you are, there is always, always someone that is critical. to have 113 thumbs down just shows that we all have a differing quality of grey matter. 2 thumbs up

I'm a professional jobbing shop machinist with over 30 years experience and I've never seen that one. Not that I ever needed to make many balls, but I do have a second, unused boring head that will soon be built into a tool like yours. Someone else said the learning never stops. It's really true. I do most of my learning on my own by just figuring my way through new job, so it's really cool to spot this trick. I especially like your use of the small round insert

Great video, thanks for the explanation and detail throughout. Voice over is the only way to present these videos. Thanks for not annoying ppl with music.

Today at work I found a boring head in the bin. The tapered shaft was all chewed up so I just threw it back in. Now I'm excited to go to work in the morning.

What a splendid, solid, functional solution to ball turning. You've given me food for thought. I especially like the use of the round carbide form cutter. Thank you, Al.

Just finished my version of your ball turner this weekend. Only big change was a totally scratch-built holder with an integral a AXA dovetail. Works great! The round carbide tool really cuts well. Thanks for posting the build!

Very satisfying watching that beautiful clean lathe with that ticking sound. Can almost smell the oil and pipe smoke. Excellent.

Iv'e been doing this 40+ years and that just blew me away Sir..Very nice.

Very nice adaptation of a boring head, better than my older model. I shall be making one of these, nice and solid and graduated adjustments too. Brilliant!

Clever idea! When the time came to make all those ball handles, plus some custom sizes, for my QUORN Tool & Cutter Grinder, I decided that making another specialized, ball turning tool, was not going to happen! Instead I assembled the at-hand tooling I had. One of which was a small dividing head I had built many years ago, with the foresight to make its centre height the distance from the cross slide to the centre line of my 10" lathe. I also had a small shop-made boring head with a 1/2" dia shank that I could hold in the dividing head spindle with a #2 Morse Taper collet. This made for a compact and rigid assembly. All I had to do was to make the turning tool for this job. For this I used a piece of 1/8" dia. HSS endmill shank, held at an angle to give it front clearance, and the end of the shank ground at an angle to give a little rake, which was necessary to machine the 303 stainless rod from which I turned all those handles. The rest was much as the author here showed in his video. The dividing head gave complete control over the turning operation, making it easy to stop at the right location for the handle's shank dia. The roughed out ball was made .010" larger in dia. and .010" longer, than the ball finished dia. It took very little polishing to produce a chrome-like finish on this mess of ball handles.

That was a great build!

I made one of these for my home shop, works like a dream! Of course the tips and tricks you present at the end of the video had to be reviewed a few times to get the technique down for turning the ball properly... I am super pleased with the outcome! Great video! Thanks a million for the idea and the tutorial.

Cheers Ade thats brilliant

Greetings from Louisiana! You taught this old "Coonass" an new trick. Good video.

Clear and easily understood, great video, great work :)

Nice! Thanks for posting.

Great tool. Awesome work. Thank you for sharing

Great demo and explanation, thanks for doing this.

I think this is great! Bravo and thanks.

outstanding Ade! this is definitely a project on the list now!!

Great presentation and demonstration!

Nice idea ,good video and perfect result.

I'm glad I watched it through ( Covid watching this now) I'd never thoughtof doing it like that - the idea opens up other possibilities -It's the METHOD that does it. thanks for posting

Love this. Will be buying a boring head and a couple of those taps.

The nice thing as well is you can put your tool in the lower hole on the boring head. Go below the diameter of the stock and then you can cut a concave radius. Makes for a lovely handle ball. Radius into the ball 🤙🏻. Nice video there are several out there using a boring head and yours is one of the best.

I consider this to be premium entertainment. You did a good job on this Ade, earned yourself a new sub!

Best ball cutter Ive seen so far thank you

Love it! Thanks for sharing 🇬🇧

I love this solution. I've got a real Criterion. But I also have a few older well used boring heads. Perfect use for one of them. Very nice!

Nicely done. Thanks for sharing.

Hello from NZ and thank you for putting up this video. I have studied your device and then adapted it for my 9” Southbend lathe that has a simple Banggood quick change tool post fitted. My alterations were necessary as there were space constraints to get the tool mounted and be far enough away from the centre line. I used a 2” long by 1 1/4 mild steel block and after machining the dovetail in the side to mount on the tool post set it up in 4 jaw and drilled and reamed the centre out to 2 MT so that the boring head fitted but turned freely. A nut washer and spring added to the rear in the draw bar thread keeps everything in the right place and well supported. The face of the boring head was drilled and reamed to take a 1/4 shank with some tool steel brazed to the front and ground to the same size with relief ground in so it would cut. This means that a long Allen key can be inserted in the adjusting screw and used to both rotate the head and to advance the cutter as that screw is now facing up, . A threaded stop screw was put through the block so as to provide height adjustment to the block to put it on centre. This works well and turned up a very round gear shift knob for a vintage car beautifully. Less parts,more robust bearing surface and no modifications to the boring head making it more versatile. Any enquires please contact and thanks again for putting up the video.

Well done, I suspect my boring head will get more use this way. Thanks for the video.

That has to be the best ball turner I have ever seen - nice project for me to get started on.

Wonderful idea and your narration/story telling is very clear. I especially like your explanation of design choices. Top notch.

Thank you from Italy, very nice idea and clear explanation!

Looks like a nice rigid setup! (and clever simple design) Making things simple takes some skill.

Great execution!

Very interesting video and great presentation, thank you very much-I’ll build one soon!

Good work Ade. I like the real time demonstration. One to make next winter.

What a brilliant tool, loved every minute of the vid, good for you .atb Mike

That is a really good idea. Thanks for sharing.

Fine job mate! awesome machinist you are!!

You’re so impressed with how clever you are. So am I. Nice presentation and demonstration.

Excellent tool solution. Works very well.

Awesome video learn something new everyday always good to have in the bag of tricks for that random job when you might need this ..

That was one quiet lathe! Excellent video!

Hello Ade, excellent video. I really like the way you showed how to reference the tool to the lathe chuck to start with. The use of a carbide insert is great, all the relief angles pre-ground. Thank you for sharing.

Great idea and nice workmanship, thank you for sharing!

Great ingenuity on this tool post setup!! Very nice sir. Thanks for the idea and share.

Fun to watch👍👍👍👍👍 One of the most wonderful diy tool videos I've ever seen. Great job and video.

" a nice, simple little device".... gotta luv it

Thanks for the tip about the carbide insert and the other end adjuster. I didn’t have a small enough circular carbide so I hollow ground the end of a 1/2” high speed steel rod and then hollow ground the rod just behind the edge for some relief and it worked very well. I’m trying for a 50mm ball but had to dome the end first and am now turning the underside of the ball.

Great work

Absolutely brilliant, thank you for sharing and explaining in understandable way to us new starters. Cheers Mr Swash

That's brilliant

Great and excellent video. Thank you for your painstaking work more grease to your elbow.

Thank you for sharing, good job, nice video, have a nice day & be safe.

This is brilliant. Beautiful job mate.

I have made a set of Croquet balls which are 3 1/2" diameter by extending the tool holder. Three in line holes in a piece of aluminium which fits across the face of the boring bar, two in line with the existing holes and held in with pieces of round bar the third holds the tool and any length you like. A number of extensions can be made depending upon the ball size required. I like your idea of drilling and tapping the opposite end of the existing adjuster, makes like easier.

A very big thank you to you for this fantastic trick, I will make one immediately.👍

Very VERY nice job...i like the set up a lot.Thank you for giving me the next project in my shop....

Nice work. Good to see!

Hello Ade, very interesting video,thank you for sharing.

Perfect ! 👍👏

Very impressive!

Great stuff Ade. Another idea could be to hollow grind the end of your HSS rod using a ball shaped stone held in a Dremel tool.

Que creativo, excelente idea.

Nice job Ade, like the round carbide! It seems like the right solution for the boring head radius cutter.

Good solution !

Great work Ade. I saw a small radius turning device a semi-circular base moved on horizontal arc by its leadscrew by hand on a centre lathe 50 yrs ago ~ commerical unit. Like the round tip use

Great video Ade. Now I have added yet another tool I need to make instead of working on other projects on my list. Your narrations are superb in describing what you are doing and why. I also appreciate that you don' t drown out what you are doing with music.

the ball turner is a ball tearer! nice one.

Nicely explained

great idea!thanks

that is so awesome great ideal wish something like that would have come to me before i retired

Smart tool construction!

Nice job with the ball turner

Thanks I am a fan!!

Excellent video and addition to the workshop Ade. I thoroughly enjoyed the video and can't wait to get out in the shed.

Excellent presentation. Very clever design.

Well done, thank you.

Thank you Ade. I've been using the same boring head setup you have for turning ball shapes, though I've been searching for the right cutting insert. Using a round carbide cutter looks like the best way to do it. I'm looking forward to trying it.

Thank You Ade....very nice....I now have a new project in the shop....TM

G’day ADE, nicely presented. Cheers Peter

This is a great way to do accurate balls which I haven't seen before but done a lot off brass knobs using HSS form tool which is a lot faster.Then again using this method you can machine harder materials I believe.Thanks for sharing your ideas.

Very cool! This is a great design for a ball turner using the materials you have. I have an idea for you. You could add stops on n2 locations of the aluminum body and an additional 2 sliding sides on the boring head body. This would be work stops. It appears as there would be enough room. Thanks for the video! I think I might make one like this using the same basic design with similar materials I have on hand.

Brilliant.

All is good indeed. The Carbide button is a hell of a good idea.

nice video Ade thanks for sharing.

Very interesting!

Ade this is an excellent video of a really nice tool, thanks. You didn't even mention one of the main advantages of this style (for those of us with a Myford ML10).....the height above the X slide is very limited so if using a typical vertical axis ball turner, the base uses up a lot of that precious height, so reduces the diameter of balls you can turn. Your horizontally pivoted style one only uses the fresh air aplenty above centre height so is definately the type to go for. And to use a carbide button cutter is a great move.

Well done! Great tutorial. 🙏🇨🇦

Well done and good cam work

Nice work!

Well done

Never thought to mount the parting tool in the rear, cool idea.

Very nice work I must say.

Genial !!! Gracias por compartir !!!

good work

really like this idea, one thing you can do is the setting with the piece of paper that you did at 21:00, is bring the cutter similarly to the BOTTOM of the piece and check the same way, they should be the same if you are exactly on center (vertically)