How to Make Steel Balls

The process how to make steel balls.

An interesting YouTube video showing how to make steel balls. The process for the manufacture of steel balls is being presented over here.

Why is your wheel turning smoothly?  How is it that friction at the center of the wheel does not ruin the shaft with the heath created? Ball bearings are found at the center of most items which have rotating parts: bicycles, roller skates, turbines, and motor vehicles.

Ball bearings have a number of hardened steel balls running in grooves in the surfaces of two concentric rings. If uniform, and perfectly spherical, these balls, rotating around the axle, make the bearings run smoothly, and reduce the rolling resistance of wheels. Of course, a wheel with ball races requires less force to pull or push it, than a wheel with a plain bearing.

In order to make steel balls, a Permalloy steel wire which contains carbon, is used. This is first cut in equal parts before being processed any further. A lubricant is applied, then passed through a high speed ball heading machine, which runs faster than one can observe. A die presses the steel into a spherical shape, at a great force. In our days such machines can produce over one thousand balls per minute.

The raw balls are uneven, and not perfectly spherical at this stage. They have burrs on opposite sides and at their circumference. They now go through a process called flashing. In fact, the flashing machine removes  unevenness on the surface of the steel balls, by running them through groves contained in two surfaces which face each other. One of the surfaces rotates, while the other is fixed. The repetition of this process removes the burrs.

When purchasing a wheel or castor from Multitrade, you can now visualize how the steel balls at the center have been produced.