Videos of Pittler B2
Above: milling a spiral using the drilling spindle at the rear of the workpiece, both the cutter & the lead-screw are being driven via the overhead belts. Although the milling head takes small collets the end mill used here is being held in a small chuck.
On the right shows a spiral being cut with a pointed tool instead of a milling cutter, this does not require a milling/drilling spindle but just uses the standard cross-slide toolholder but takes shallow cuts.
The video on the left is showing the leadscrew being driven by the overhead drive from the tailstock end of the lathe. It's cutting a coarse spiral using the milling/drilling head at the rear of the workpiece, both the cutter & the lead-screw are being driven via the overhead belts. Although the milling head takes small collets the end mill used here is being held in a small chuck.
It's moving the saddle and turning the leadscrew extremely slowly, altering the overhead speed along with various combinations of worm & wheel give different spiral pitches.
Ball turning on all lathes usually requires special equipment but the Pittler is able to do this with just the basic cross-slide.
At present I'm just experimenting on how best to do this as it requires intricate settings to the angle of the saddle ring casting, the cross-slide stem and also the cutting tool itself.
An automatic ball turning device, powered by a telescopic universal joint, was available as an extra for the B2 but they are very rarely seen compared to the larger C3 lathe for which it was provided as standard equipment. If anyone has one for sale then please contact me
Left: A non standard type of Pittler milling spindle, ( see Milling spindles) made to fit on the standard cross-slide, it's shown here cutting a wide spiral whilst running from the overhead drive which powers both the spindle and also the tailstock drive from a second belt. It is turning the leadscrew very slowly whilst moving the saddle along and going up through the reversing gear and to the chuck.