The New Hotness

Despite successfully drilling holes in a few plastic balls, I wanted a somewhat less terrifying setup than this:

Micromark Ball Vise - lathe ball hack — Micromark Ball Vise – lathe ball hack

The stiffness of the bike helmet mirror mount suggested a similar clamp would have enough griptivity to immobilize the ball while cutting it in the lathe:

Helmet Mirror Mount - 10 mm ball — Helmet Mirror Mount – 10 mm ball

Building the clamp around the lathe’s three-jaw lathe chuck eliminates the need for screws / washers / inserts:

Lathe Ball Fixture - 19 mm - Show — Lathe Ball Fixture – 19 mm – Show

The Ah-ha! moment came when I realized the fixture can expose half of the ball’s diameter for drilling while clamping 87% of its diameter, because 0.5 = sin 30° and 0.87 = cos 30°:

Lathe Ball Fixture - 19 mm - Show - front orthogonal — Lathe Ball Fixture – 19 mm – Show – front orthogonal

That’s an orthogonal view showing 13% of the ball radius sticking out of the fixture; it’s 6% of the diameter.

Which looks like this in real life:

Lathe Ball Fixture - 19 mm - sections with ball — Lathe Ball Fixture – 19 mm – sections with ball

The socket is offset toward the tailstock end of the clamp (on the right in the picture) to expose half its diameter flush with the surface perpendicular to the lathe axis. The other side necks down into a cylinder of the same diameter to clear the drill bit.

This works nicely until the ball diameter equals the chuck jaw’s 20 mm length, whereupon larger balls protrude into the chuck body’s spindle opening. Although I haven’t yet built one, the 25 mm balls in my Box o’ Bearings should fit, with exceedingly sissy cuts required for large holes.

The fixture doesn’t require support material, because the axial holes eliminate the worst of the overhang. Putting the tailstock side flat on the platform gives it the best-looking surface:

Lathe Ball Fixture - 19 mm - Slic3r - equator — Lathe Ball Fixture – 19 mm – Slic3r – equator

The kerf between the segments ensures the jaws can apply pressure to the ball, whereupon the usual ~~crappy~~ serrated 3D printed surface firmly grabs it.

The fixture is a slip fit on the chuck jaws:

Lathe Ball Fixture - 19 mm - installed — Lathe Ball Fixture – 19 mm – installed

Tightening the jaws shoves them all the way into the fixture’s slots and clamps the ball:

Lathe Ball Fixture - 19 mm - center drill — Lathe Ball Fixture – 19 mm – center drill

Overtightening the chuck will (probably) compress the ball around the drill, which will (best case) give you slightly oversize holes or (worst case) cause the ball to seize / melt around the drill bit, so sleaze up to the correct hole diameter maybe half a millimeter at a time:

Lathe Ball Fixture - 19 mm - 6 mm drill — Lathe Ball Fixture – 19 mm – 6 mm drill

That fixture exposes 9.5 mm = 19/2 of the ball. The drill makes a 6 mm hole to fit the telescoping shaft seen above.

Obviously, you must build a custom fixture for every ball diameter in your inventory, which is no big deal when you have a hands-off manufacturing process. Embossing the diameter into the fixture helps match them, although the scribbled Sharpie isn’t particularly elegant.

The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:

	// Lathe Ball Drilling Fixture
	// Ed Nisley KE4ZNU 2020-11

	/* [Layout options] */

	Layout = "Build"; // [Build, Show, Body, Jaws]

	BallDia = 10.0; // [5.0:0.5:25.0]

	/* [Extrusion parameters] */

	/* [Hidden] */

	ThreadThick = 0.25;
	ThreadWidth = 0.40;

	HoleWindage = 0.2;

	function IntegerMultiple(Size,Unit) = Unit * ceil(Size / Unit);
	function IntegerLessMultiple(Size,Unit) = Unit * floor(Size / Unit);

	Protrusion = 0.1; // make holes end cleanly

	inch = 25.4;

	ID = 0;
	OD = 1;
	LENGTH = 2;

	//* [Basic dimensions] */

	Chuck = [21.0,100.0,20.0]; // chuck bore, OD, jaw length

	Jaw = [Chuck[LENGTH],15.0,12.0]; // jaw free length, base width, first step radius

	JawInclAngle = 112; // < 120 degrees for clearance!
	JawAngle = JawInclAngle/2; // angle from radius

	WallThick = 5.0; // min wall thickness

	Kerf = 0.75; // space between clamp blocks

	ClampSides = 8(23);

	ClampBore = BallDia/2; // clear bore through clamp

	ClampAngle = asin(ClampBore/BallDia); // angle from lathe axis to clamp front

	Plate = [ClampBore,
	BallDia + 2WallThick + 2Jaw.z,
	Jaw.x];

	LegendDepth = 1*ThreadWidth;

	ShaftOD = 3.6; // sample shaft

	ShowGap = 1.5;


	//———————-
	// Chuck jaws
	// Real jaws have a concave radiused tip we simply ignore

	module ChuckJaws(l=Jaw.x,r=10) {

	for (a=[0:120:240])
	rotate(a)
	linear_extrude(height=l)
	translate([r,0])
	difference() {
	translate([Chuck[OD]/4,0])
	square([Chuck[OD]/2,Jaw.y],center=true);
	for (i=[-1,1])
	rotate(i*(90 – JawAngle))
	translate([-Jaw.z/2,0])
	square([Jaw.z,2*Jaw.y],center=true);
	}
	}


	//———————-
	// Clamp body

	module ClampBlocks() {

	difference() {
	cylinder(d=Plate[OD],h=Plate[LENGTH],$fn=ClampSides); // main disk

	translate([0,0,-Protrusion]) // central bore
	cylinder(d=ClampBore,h=2*Plate[LENGTH],$fn=ClampSides);

	for (a=[0:120:240]) // kerf slits
	rotate(60 + a)
	translate([Plate[OD]/2,0,Protrusion])
	cube([Plate[OD],Kerf,2*Plate[LENGTH]],center=true);

	translate([0,0,BallDia/2 * cos(ClampAngle)]) // ball socket
	sphere(d=BallDia,$fn=ClampSides);

	for (a=[0:120:240]) { // legend
	rotate(4.5*360/ClampSides + a)
	translate([Plate[OD]/2 – LegendDepth,0,Plate[LENGTH]/2])
	rotate([0,90,0])
	linear_extrude(height=LegendDepth + Protrusion,convexity=10)
	mirror([0,0,0])
	text(text=str(BallDia," mm"),size=2.5,spacing=1.20,font="Arial:style:Bold",halign="center",valign="center");
	rotate(-4.5*360/ClampSides + a)
	translate([Plate[OD]/2 – LegendDepth,0,Plate[LENGTH]/2])
	rotate([0,90,0])
	linear_extrude(height=LegendDepth + Protrusion,convexity=10)
	mirror([0,0,0])
	text(text="KE4ZNU",size=2.5,spacing=1.20,font="Arial:style:Bold",halign="center",valign="center");
	}
	}

	}

	//———————-
	// Clamp with jaw cutouts

	module ClampBody() {
	difference() {
	ClampBlocks();
	translate([0,0,-Protrusion])
	ChuckJaws(l=Jaw.x + 2*Protrusion,r=BallDia/2 + WallThick);
	}
	}


	//———————-
	// Lash it together



	if (Layout == "Body") {
	ClampBlocks();
	}

	if (Layout == "Jaws") {
	ChuckJaws();
	}

	if (Layout == "Build") {
	ClampBody();
	}

	if (Layout == "Show") {
	ClampBody();

	color("ivory",0.2)
	ChuckJaws(r=BallDia/2 + WallThick + ShowGap); // move out for E-Z viewing

	color("red",0.4)
	translate([0,0,-Jaw.x/2])
	cylinder(d=ShaftOD,h=2*Jaw.x,$fn=ClampSides,center=false);

	color("white",0.5)
	translate([0,0,BallDia/2 * cos(ClampAngle)]) // ball socket
	sphere(d=BallDia,$fn=ClampSides);

	}

view raw Lathe Ball Fixture.scad hosted with ❤ by GitHub

The dimension doodles, including some notions that didn’t work:

The New Hotness

Mini-Lathe Ball Drilling Fixture