Having a ball - turning spheres on a lathe

At last night’s club meet Hayden Bourke demonstrated how to turn perfect wooden spheres on a lathe. A true Kiwi DIYer, he also reveals impressive engineering skills with his arsenal of handcrafted tools used in their production.​

To start he glues scrap wood to each end of a larger piece of wood. After tapering and reducing the diameter of the end pieces and roughing out the shape of the sphere, he uses a specially-fabricated tool attached to the lathe bed to turn a perfectly symmetrical ball with a cup cutter attachment.

After parting off the ball from the end pieces, Hayden uses two handmade concave holders mounted on the head- and tail-stocks to secure the sphere, enabling rounding off of the nubs left by the scrap wood.

Lastly, using a clever contraption attached to the head-stock to hold the ball, he uses gouges to create divots, hollows and textures for added interest.

But to truly appreciate the technical ingenuity behind these unassuming spheres, watch the video of Hayden's demo - coming to this blog soon!

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