Hi, looking for some insight.
I have been looking into 'Chinese Puzzle Balls', ie concentric spheres (sometimes up to 40) each freely rotating, carved from a single piece of material. This is the explanation of how it is done:
Chinese masters rotate a solid ball on a lathe and start by drilling holes toward the center of the objects. Then, using special “L”-shaped tools, they begin to separate the innermost balls. The tool with the longest upright has the shortest cutter, and the one with the shortest upright has the longest cutter. The craftsman lowers the longest tool to the narrow bottom of each hole in turn and rotates it to cut the innermost ball free. Then, using the second longest, which doesn’t reach as far down, but cuts a wider arc, he separates the second ball, and so on, from the innermost to the outermost shell.
I don't get it! I can see you could go in with your L-shaped tool, you could create a disc, but to create a sphere would require the tool to move into the piece, how could you do that without affecting anything that had already been turned? Attached is a photo of one made in the 18th century.
Thanks
