Large sphere turning lathe

The picture of the sphere turning lathe was grouped with others from an abandoned industrial site. Is the lathe also abandoned? It seems unlikely given the condition of the equipment, but who knows.

That=92s an interesting website. To me, industrial archeology is both fascinating and depressing. Some sites I=92ve visited in the past (like ones with pictures of industrial ruins in the former USSR) are gone. They always make me wonder what could have been.

I wonder if the machine in the pictures does any rough cutting of the ball shape, sine there doesn't appear to be a chip in sight.

The setup pictured appears to be a finishing/polishing operation, and the toolpost appears to be a big belt sander. It looks as though the swarf is a dusty accumulation of steel particles. Then I noticed the front toolpost which does look like it's set up to do some cutting, as it looks like a compound/top slide.

The ball surface seems to be fairly well polished.

An interesting piece of machinery, as it's spinning that large part which can't be very well balanced unless maybe, some of the workholding apparatus compenstes for the imbalance.

The picture of the sphere turning lathe was grouped with others from an abandoned industrial site. Is the lathe also abandoned? It seems unlikely given the condition of the equipment, but who knows.

That?s an interesting website. To me, industrial archeology is both fascinating and depressing. Some sites I?ve visited in the past (like ones with pictures of industrial ruins in the former USSR) are gone. They always make me wonder what could have been.

The way I read it was there is one pic of an abandoned lathe, the later 2 pics have been added by a forum user and show the lathe he used at work to turn the ball valve "ball".

Ok, I see what you mean. He was commenting on a previous picture with an FLCB nameplate. Thanks.