[JohnHaine]

I'm not sure if people here are familiar with Eccentric Engineering from Australia - they make some innovative tooling ranging from the Diamond Tool Holder (which is not new but an excellent general purpose turning tool that is very easy to sharpen and gives good results) and the Acute tool grinding system.

They have a new product called (excuciatlingly) the Turnado which is a hand metal turning system for complicated shapes - excellent video on their website, worth a look.

Obviously not immediately relevant to CNC but what interested me was the utility of being able to turn a lathe tool around a vertical axis under CNC control while cutting. Imagine a rather pointed trapezoidal insert where the tip angle could be varied by a small rotary table integrated into the tool holder, either between cuts or during a cut. As one can see from the video, this allows for example for a sphere to be turned with one tool and even parted off. Is anyone aware of such a thing?

[hfjbuis]

I cut outer radius and spheres, large or small using a HSS parting tool (not insert) and inner radius using a inner turning tool. It is just a 2 axis CNC move, Z and X.
However, i like the idea for free hand wood turning and it is not so difficult to make!