Good morning Richard I call it "House Rules" You need to work with your equipment, and learn all for its quirks. Every machine handles just a little differently. (as far as the tail stock goes.)
I did understand your Ball problem. The wooden ball that you are making are some what egg shaped/ elliptical, meaning something is slightly off. Perhaps its the depth of cut being slightly off, or your template is just a hair to one side. Perhaps its the router bit its self, that's the problem??? What I was suggesting is to make a number of your elliptical balls, make them all the same, then using a jam chuck and turn those balls 90 deg. and re-cutting those balls, truing them up. (making them all round.) Another idea, Is Can you take a few pictures of your set up? Perhaps someone could see something more in the way your machine is laid out? The template follower is a very nice tool, and can be a lot of fun to use. ( I cant wait to see all of your skittles that you've made.) As a General rule of thumb. when I make a lot of anything, I use the mass production idea. meaning I make one cut exactly the same on every part I'm making, and then move on to the next cut. this idea keeps everything the same, If I'm slightly off, everything is slightly off .Using this idea Makes, it much easier to fine tune the problem. To many people try to make one idiom form start to finish and then repeat the process. I find that I get better uniformity using this method, "ONE CUT" Not One part at a time. Richard I wish you the best of luck with this project. I cant wait and Hear how everything works out of you. ONE MORE IDEA. keep everything as is. and use your lathe to do the fine touch ups? If you use the WC to rough out the balls, and then true them up on A different machine,(lathe, belt sander...? ) You might find it quicker switching machines, then it would be to, "Find your, needle in the hay stack" (so to speak.) Have a great day. C.A.G ----- Original Message ----- From: "rchrd ellis1" <rchrd.ell...@gmail.com> To: "Legacy Ornamental Mills" <legacy-ornamental-mills@googlegroups.com> Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2016 2:40:51 AM Subject: Re: Balls Hi Curt I have no trouble turning a ball between centers on my normal lathe, exactly as you described, between two jam chucks, made out of some very hard boxwood (Buxus ) What I am trying to do is use the Woodchuck instead of the Lathe. I have done a few mods to it . The way I do pattern work is from the rear of the Woodchuck ( opposite side to the leadscrew ) I stand there and pull the router towards me and the pattern, the spindle turning at about 80 r.p.m. and the leadscrew going very slow. Using this method I can see just where the roller bearing is , or as in this ball turning experiment ,Stylus peg. The depth of cut is controlled by a stop that touches on the axis screw nut. I just did 18 skittles by this method and it is so easy, One of my Mods was to the tailstock quick action lever. It flicked up a couple of times dropping the wood whilst turning. The red plastic now has a metal clamp around it and a rare earth magnet fastened to the tailstock. holds it quite firm now. I do not like the lever type control, would rather have a wheel as per normal lathe. When tightening the lever it tend to tip the tailstock backwards and that lifts the wood up at that end,,also it can put too much pressure onto the headstock bearings that I have just replaced with some oilite bushes . Roger kindly pointed out that my description of my skittle balls need a better explanation The balls once I turn them are not a true round ball shape but look as if they have been squashed into an elliptical shape. I wish I was getting paid by the hour for this job, or shall I say caper!!! Richard On Friday, September 23, 2016 at 6:02:35 PM UTC+1, rchrd....@gmail.com wrote: Hi All I am at a loss to understand why, when I try to turn balls from some pine to go with some kids skittles I have made, they come out looking like rugby balls instead of spherical shape. The wood is 1 1/2 dia. and is held in a chuck,--- router cutter is 1/2 inch dia. the stylus on the end of the router carriage is 1/8 inch dia I use a metal washer /plate of the same dia. as the wood as a pattern . The ball as I have said before comes off oval in shape it parts of very easily, I do the end of the wood first then travel back to the washer to do the other side of the ball, it just drops off into the sawdust, which was a surprise Do I need a larger plate washer or what do you recommend I do is there a magic formula for the diameters of the cutter plate and stylus ??????? Richard -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Legacy Ornamental Mills" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to legacy-ornamental-mills+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to legacy-ornamental-mills@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/legacy-ornamental-mills . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Legacy Ornamental Mills" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to legacy-ornamental-mills+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to legacy-ornamental-mills@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/legacy-ornamental-mills. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
