any years ago I saw somescrap yard breakerssmashing up an old lathewith sledgehammers and

I rescued the cross slide handle forthe price of a pint of beer. On tak-ing it home, I found it to be an ideal size for turning the mandrelon my Myford Super7B and itsimply looks as though “it grew onthe Myford”. Our noble Editorspotted it on my websitewww.Haythornthwaite.com andsuggested that I wrote it up for themagazine. That would have beeneasy if I had made the original, buthe spotted the one thing that I hadnot made myself. I have now madea second identical handle (Photo.Above) and found it to be an inter-esting turning exercise whichwould benefit many lathe owners.

Handle DetailsAs stated in the introduction, I firstused this design of handle simplybecause it was there and of thecorrect size. However when I start-ed to use the handle, the fact that itwas almost perfectly balancedproved to be a massive advantage.Although I cannot officially rec-ommend the practice, when youare alone in the workshop, it isvery nice to be able to spin thelathe up to full speed, with the bal-

anced handle still in place, but dotake measures to keep others awayif you do this. On the MyfordML7 the handle also looks asthough Myford had designed itthemselves. It looks like a fittedhandle as opposed to a workshopmade accessory.

Order of MachiningAs the handle is comprised almosttotally of curves and tapers, it is aninteresting and challenging item tomake, but I do suggest that youuse leaded free cutting mild steeland not just any piece of metalwhich was lying around, as I did. Iapologise for the fact that themeasurements are mostly imperial,but I was copying the handle of anold imperial lathe.The main (radial) part of the han-dle is made from a 5.5” length of1.625” Dia. mild steel and needs tobe machined in a carefully control-led sequence, otherwise you willfinish up with no means of holdingthe item for the final sections. Cutoff a length of bar just over 5.5”long, face one end and put a smallcentre in this end. I used a fixed

steady for this. Remove from thechuck, fit the other end in thechuck and face the second end,bringing the length to 5.5”. Centrethis end again with a small centredrill. I did consider making thisitem without centres in the ends,but centering the bar makes ma-chining so much easier and a smallcentre does not detract from thefinished appearance at all, in myopinion.

Roughing OutFirst of all turn the bar down to athou or two over 1.3” diameter fora length of 4.0”. this will reducemost of the bar to the diameter ofthe middle ball, but leave a pieceon the end to make the large ball. .Then turn the end of the bar downto a 1.0” for 2.11” i.e. reduce tothe diameter of the small ball inorder to form the small ball andthe thinner tapered part. At thisstage it should look like Photo 2.Now it is necessary to makegrooves in the bar down to thepoints where the spherical parts ofthe item will adjoin the taperedparts. This will give space for the

Don’t Fly Off TheHandle !!

David HaythornthwaiteTurns his lathe mandrel safe-

ly with this pretty balancedhandle attachment.

M

ball turning attachment tool toswing round to complete the edgesof the balls.First make a cylinder 1” wide and1” diameter on the end of the barin which to make the 1” ball. Lineup a the left edge of a parting toolwith the end of the bar and thenmove the saddle down the lathebed by 1” plus the width of theparting tool. Lock the saddle andmake a groove with the partingtool until the diameter at the bot-tom of the groove is .510”. Thiswill leave you a cylinder 1”x 1”for the small ball and a section thatis just larger than the diameter ofthe small end of the taper where itmeets the small ball. I actuallythen widened this groove by tak-ing a second cut to a slightly largerdiameter. Release the saddle andmove it left so that the left side ofthe parting tool is now 2.11” fromthe end, i.e. the parting tool is up

against the previously made shoul-der. Lock the saddle and make an-other groove with the parting toolat this point until the groove diam-eter is .63” which is the diameterof the tapered section at the junc-tion with the middle ball. In thesame manner make a groove of.72” diameter with the tailstockedge (right edge) of the partingtool 3.41” from the end of the barand a final groove of .78” Dia.Which has it’s left edge 4” fromthe end of the bar. The process isillustrated in Photo 3. but you willsee that I did not follow the sameorder, having just cut grooves 1and 3 at this stage.

Turning the BallsThe first ball to turn is the smallball, so leave the bar in the 3 jawand fit a fixed steady so that theend is left clear to use a ball turn-ing attachment. I used my boring

head as described in MEW issue133 to turn all the balls. I do notuse suds on my lathe being fright-ened of rust, but I drip neat cuttingoil onto the work instead. Somesort of cutting oil or suds is defi-nitely recommended for a goodfinish. Photo 4. shows the setupand for all those readers who feelupset when looking at photos ofclinically clean lathes, when they,themselves, are actually knee deepin swarf, I have left some of theswarf in place in the photo to illus-trate that ball turning makes lots offine swarf.You can use either an “up andover” attachment or “round thehouses” (vertical axis) type of ballturner, but I shall describe the pro-cedure using an up and over typeas illustrated. First of all set theball turning attachment exactly atcentre height. Do this by adjustingthe ball size of the tool in the ball

Photo. 2 Roughing Out Photo. 3 Turning the Grooves

Photo. 4 Turning The Small Ball Photo. 5 Holding the Work for Turning the LargeEnd

turner so that the tool just touchesthe top of the work. Move the sad-dle right, swing the ball turner 180degrees so that the tool is under-neath the work and return the sad-dle. If the ball turner is exactly atcentre height, the tool will justtouch the underside of the work. Ifnot, then adjust the height of thetool, adjust the “ball size” of thetool and test again until it is cor-rect. Once you have set this cor-rectly, rotate the ball turner 90degrees and move the saddle sothat the tool just touches the end ofthe work. You have now provedthat the centre of rotation of thetool is ½” below the top of thework, ½” above the bottom and½” from the end of the work. Thecorrect position for turning a 1”ball. If you get this position wrongvertically, you will turn oval balls.Wrong horizontally and they willbe in the wrong place.

Lock the saddle and cross slide.Open up the jaws of the ball turnerto allow the tool to clear the shoul-ders of the work and begin the sat-isfying work of turning the ball.Take the size of the ball to a fewthou under 1” diameter for reasonsexplained later.Once the first ball is finished,bring up the tailstock to supportthe end of the bar and remove thefixed steady. Using either dials or,in my case, the DRO, move thesaddle left by 2.26” to bring thecentre of rotation to the centreline of the middle ball. Turn themiddle ball in the same mannerensuring that you do not cut toodeep at the ends of the “swing” asyou will cut into the tapered por-tion of the handle. From the pho-tos you will see that I left themiddle ball until later, but it ispossibly best to do it now.Having formed the two smallerballs, reverse the work in the 3 jaw

chuck. As shown in Photo 5. Youwill see from the photo the reasonfor making the small ball a coupleof thou under 1” – it will pass intothe centre hole of a 4” Pratt Burn-erd scroll chuck, so that the workcan be held by the 1” diametersection that you have left just be-hind it. Bring up the tailstock tosupport the work, and bring theend of the bar to a diameter of 1.5”in readiness to form the large ball.Remove the majority of the metalbetween the large ball and themiddle ball by turning it down to0.8” Diameter. And the resultshould look like Photo.6 althoughyou may have the centre ball al-ready formed.Set up for the large ball as you didfor the small one and turn as be-fore. I left the middle ball untillast, so that I could use a fixedsteady, but in fact I found that itwas less cluttered if I used a finerotating centre to support the end

Photo. 6 Ready to Turn The Large Ball Photo. 7 Finishing the Large Ball With TailstockWithdrawn

Photo. 8 Turning the Smaller Taper Photo. 9 Milling the Flats and Reaming theHoles

for most of the turning, and thatthe bar was secure enough to with-draw the centre and take light cutswhen finishing off the end of theball as in Photo 7.. There is not alot to choose between the twomethods. If you haven’t yet doneso, now turn the middle ball.

Turning the TapersWe are now ready to turn the ta-pered parts of the handle. Howev-er, with a ball on each end, it isdifficult to hold the item. I turneda steel tube, 0.75” long, 1.61”O.D. and 1.501” I.D. so that it wasa sliding fit over the large ball. Ithen wrapped a strip of 80gm pa-per round the large ball and usedthe tailstock to press it into thetube with the tube against thechuck. The result was as shown inPhoto 8. which allowed me todrive the work. The walls of thetube were thin enough to ensurethat they deformed in the chuckjaws and gripped the work. Thepaper ensured that the work wasnot marked by the tube and gavegrip. This worked well. A calcula-tion of the original taper showed itto be 2.4 degrees so set the topslide - or taper turning attachmentto the correct angle and turn thetapers as shown in Photo 8.When using a taper turning attach-ment, do remember, first, to dis-connect the cross slide lead screw.Also, I always push the top slideto the back of the lathe when start-

ing the cut to take up the backlashin the taper turning device. Ofcourse if you are cutting with thesmaller taper on the left, you haveto pull the top slide to take up thebacklash. Use a round nosed toolwith side angles sufficiently acuteto ensure that it will clear the sidesof the balls and will cut right intothe corner. You will note that thelarger taper is only roughed out atthis stage. Eagle eyed readers willnote the die-cast box on the lathebehind the middle ball. This is aB&W DRO for the cross slide.Unfortunately this device is nolonger made, which is a shame asit is very compact, does not inter-fere with the taper turning attach-ment, and is great on a smallerlathe such as the ML7.Remember that we are only inter-ested in the aesthetic appearancehere providing that we are able toensure a correct balance at the endof the job.

Milling & DrillingOnce the ball turning and taperturning is finished we now need tomill the flats on the centre ball andto drill holes for the centre spindleand the axial handle. Leave thework in the chuck and transferboth work and chuck to the rotarytable or dividing head on the mill-ing machine table, supporting theend with a tailstock. Alternativelyif you have a drilling/milling spin-dle on the lathe, you can use that

but a ½” hole is asking a lot ofmost of these devices.Touch the milling cutter onto thetop of the middle ball and zero theZ axis dial/DRO. Gradually mill aflat, dropping the cutter until yourZ axis reads 0.1825”. Rotate thework by 180 degrees, lock the di-viding head and carry out the sameoperation on the other side. Thisshould leave a centre boss of0.935” thickness.Drill a hole through the centre ofthe boss either 12.5mm or 31/64”depending on your drill set andream ½”. Do the same with thesmall ball, but making a blind hole0.7” deep, as in Photo 9.

Turning the Axial HandlePart BTurning the axial part of the han-dle proved to be one of those jobswhere scratching my head onlycause splinters in the end of thefingers !! I did it by a combinationof various techniques includinghand turning and turning with aprofile tool. Both worked ok, butin the end I preferred using theprofile tool and executing muchcoordinated “knob twiddling”.Photo 10 and Photo 11 illustratethe two methods. Start with apiece of 1” diameter FCMS ofaround 4” long and then reducethe diameter in appropriate placesas much as possible by normalturning methods. I also part-madethe ½” spigot at this stage to re-

Photo. 11 Using a Profiling ToolPhoto.10 Using a Hand Turning Rest

mind me where the end of the han-dle was to be. Once you arrive atthe need for curved surfaces, thenthe fun begins.The hand turning rest that I used isone made from the George Tho-mas design and from a Hemming-way kit. The hand graver is fittedinto a long handle and the lefthand is guiding the tool across thework, or pivoting it, whilst the toolhandle is held in the right hand.This is quite satisfying to do, butslow going with light cuts. Usingthe profiling tool in the top sliderequired careful coordination ofthe left hand on the cross slidehand wheel and the right hand onthe saddle handle. If you falter fora moment and don’t keep cutting,then the result will be chatter –and consequentially “mutter” asyou have to get rid of the chattermarks !! – so be positive with yourfeed rates. Once you are happy

with the shape, finish the spigot to0.498” diameter and part off. I re-gret to say that I resorted to emerypaper to finish this item after care-fully covering the lathe bed andslide ways

BalancingThe balance is not critical, but thebetter it is balanced and thesmoother it will run at speed if you(inadvertently) run it at speed.Temporarily fit the two parts to-gether, put a ½” bar through thecentre hole and balance it betweentwo horizontal parallels (vice jawsif horizontal). I recommend thatyou make the axial handle heavyas it is easy to return this to thelathe and take another few thou offthe diameter, or to drill a holedown the centre of the spigot tolighten it. I was not pleased to findthat mine was heavy at the largeball end. Faced with making an-

other (heavier) axial part or fillingit with lead, I decided to make atube to hold the small ball, put theradial part back in the lathe, with asteady on the tapered section, andtake a few thou off the large ball –twice actually. Much to my sur-prise it worked fine, but it wouldprobably have been easier to haveused tailstock support and reducethe taper on the large end. Oncebalanced, fit together with AralditeEpoxy Resin, clamp and leave in awarm place, or, with permissionfrom the domestic authority, cookat 50oC to cure.

Making the MandrelExtension Part CThe initial part is a straightforwardturning job. Cut off a 3.5” lengthof 1” diameter FCMS bar, chuckin the 3 jaw, face and centre theend , and clean up the outside for2.75”. Turn down to 0.498” diam-

eter for a distance of 0.92” (justless than the thickness of the cen-tre boss of the handle) making itan interference fit in the handlecentre hole. Chamfer the shoulder.And then drill though the centre asfar as you can with an 8 mm drillfor the 8mm bolt.Turn the item in the chuck andhold by the section you have justturned. I used a ½” collet to ensureconcentricity. If you are using the3 jaw chuck and it is worn, I sug-gest that you start with a 4.5”length and try to turn the wholething at one chuck setting. Turnthe second end to 0.623” diameterfor 1.25” which will leave a bossin the middle of around 1.25”long. Chamfer the shoulder. Drill8mm from this end to meet upwith the already drilled hole fromthe other end. My Myford alwaysmeets up perfectly when I do this,but I know that some lathes strug-gle to drill long centre holesstraight. If yours is such a lathe,you will have to drill smaller andtackle a very fiddly boring job, orfinish with a reamer or D bit.Now set the top slide over to 10o

and bore the inside taper until themouth of the bore is 0.536”. Youwill remember to use the top slidehandle for boring won’t you? Ifyou once use the saddle handle outof habit then you are making an-other piece. Transfer the chuck /collet to the dividing head on themilling machine and cut the 4 slitswith a slitting saw as in Photo 12.

If you are better than me with ahack saw, you can use that as thereare 4 slits. Finally finish off theend of each slit with a drilled holeas in Fig 1. Clean up the slits witha triangular needle file both insideand out.

Tapered Nut Part DWith the top slide still set over at10o from boring the taper, chuck ashort length of 0.625” silver steeland turn a taper, large at the end,until the end diameter is 0.536”.Using the same setting of the topslide ensures a good fit into thetapered socket. Drill from the tail-stock 6.9mm and tap for an 8 mmbolt. Measure ½” from the end andpart off.Before hardening this item, selecta piece of fine piano wire or a finemoulding pin that will fit throughthe slots in the mandrel extensionand drill a small radial hole in thenut so that a short length of thewire can be epoxied into the sideof the nut, after hardening. In use,this pin will engage withone of the slots, to stopthe nut turning whentightening or slackeningthe bolt. Finally heat upthe nut to 770 oC andquench in oil. I also tem-pered my nut by heatingin the domestic oven at200 oC. A standard 8 mmheavy duty washerwould suffice betweenthe bolt head and the

handle, but I preferred to turn ashaped washer, 23 mm diameter,with a nice bevel that finished offthe job. Photo 13 illustrates thevarious parts.

AssemblyFit the pin into the nut with Epoxyor Loctite. Opinions vary as towhether turned steel objects bene-fit from polishing, but personally Ispent a few minutes buffing theparts on the buffing wheel and Iconsider the result to be most sat-isfying and in keeping with a han-dle of this type. I used EpoxyResin to fit the two parts of thehandle together and fitted the han-dle onto the mandrel extensionwith the help of a little nut lock, incase I needed to separate these atsome time. The bolt is a standard 8mm plated bolt 95 mm in length.

I have to say that, although noteasy to make, the handle is verytactile and this makes it a joy touse.

Photo. 12 Slitting the Mandrel Extension Photo. 13 The Finished Parts

Photo. 14 The Assembled Handle