# Ball Turner for G4003G



## Earl (Apr 11, 2014)

Has anyone used a ball turner on their 4003G?   I need to round off the ends of about a hundred  half inch Garolite (Phenolic)  rods.  I had one for my Heavy 10 but never used it so I gave it away a couple years ago.   
Any alternatives to a ball turner for rounding the ends of a rod?

If you have one, did you make it or buy it?  The only Garolite I have machined is for a gear.   Stinky stuff.


Earl


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## kd4gij (Apr 11, 2014)

For 1/2" you could grind a form tool out of HHS blank. Or losen your compound and swing it. I built one like this. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Small-radiu...484?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53f0719a54


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## chips&more (Apr 11, 2014)

A lot of phenolic is machinable friendly and then there is some not so friendly. All can raise a bit of dust/swarf when machined and the smell as you have noted. Your machining challenge is to keep the cutting speed decent throughout the arc of the cut, if single tooled. If form cutting even more challenging, I vision the area towards center tearing instead of cutting. Then there is the abrasive method (my choice). Easy to control the finish on the part, BUT you have set-up time on some kind of sanding machine fixture AND this process will cause the most phenolic dust which must be dealt with for people safety and your lathe won’t like it either…Good Luck.


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## JimDawson (Apr 11, 2014)

Just for rounding over the end.  How about a carbide, radius router bit.

They come in a lot of radius sizes of about 1/32 increments, or you can have them custom ground to your spec.  Put it in the tool holder and line everything up either across the lathe or in line with the bed, and you should be good to go.  As a bonus, you have 2 cutting edges.  I would recommend a 1/2 shank bit for stiffness.  I use this method for aluminum and plastics in both my lathe and mill.  I have quite a collection of router bits now.  A corner rounding end mill would also work if you have one.


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## mgalusha (Apr 11, 2014)

JimDawson said:


> Just for rounding over the end.  How about a carbide, radius router bit.
> 
> They come in a lot of radius sizes of about 1/32 increments, or you can have them custom ground to your spec.  Put it in the tool holder and line everything up either across the lathe or in line with the bed, and you should be good to go.  As a bonus, you have 2 cutting edges.  I would recommend a 1/2 shank bit for stiffness.  I use this method for aluminum and plastics in both my lathe and mill.  I have quite a collection of router bits now.  A corner rounding end mill would also work if you have one.



Great idea and I'm not the one making these.  I did build a turntable using phenolic for some parts, damn hard on HSS tooling and killed a bandsaw blade trying to rough cut it.


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## nightowl499 (Apr 12, 2014)

I made mine it works great, got plans from steve bedairs 9x20 page, its is nice and tight easy to use



mgalusha said:


> Great idea and I'm not the one making these.  I did build a turntable using phenolic for some parts, damn hard on HSS tooling and killed a bandsaw blade trying to rough cut it.


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## coolidge (Apr 12, 2014)

nightowl499 said:


> I made mine it works great, got plans from steve bedairs 9x20 page, its is nice and tight easy to use



The Hurst shift knob is brilliant! lol Got any pics of various things you made with it?


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## Earl (Apr 12, 2014)

Thank  you for the idea of using a corner rounding bit.  I had not thought about that.  I know that I have a couple of corner rounding bits for the mill but having never used them,  I can't recall what size they are.  That Alisam ball turner looks just like the one that I had.  I believe that mine was a bit smaller or maybe it is just my memory that is shrinking!

Thanks for all of the responses.

Earl


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## 737mechanic (Aug 13, 2016)

I made one for my atlas 10in and then when I got my g4003g I adapted it to fit the cross slide on it. I posted it in this thread to give you an idea of what I did. The brass ball on the handle was turned using it.

http://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=88698


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