Bearing Ball with Flat for Vise work...?

i also like using aluminum tig rod drops to provide the roller function
I'm laughing at me. I'm still thinking ball bearing and wondering how does he get a tig aluminum drop (ball) that large. I call them stubs. :D You could stand an aluminum rod vertical and melt a good sized ball on the end, and then end up with something to hold it in place with. Finding a decent J-hook with a ball end is difficult so I make my own. I can get a decent shaped 3/8" ball on the end of a piece of 1/4" stainless round.
 
There are many ways to hold your part/project. Yes, the vise is usually the first that comes to mind. But, think outside the box or the use of a vise. Do a workaround. I usually sleep on it and then come up with a better, faster, nicer and more accurate way. Works for me…Dave
Why do milling machines have those looong tables if you are only supposed to use the few inches the vise sits on? Let me say it again, think outside the box! My vise is off the mill a lot.
 
I have several strips of plummers lead that I'll place between the work and the jaw when holding uneven saw surfaces. It squishes enough to hold the part in place to get a good cut for the next operation. When the lead gets too thin, just fold over and go at it again.
 
Has anyone tried using the ball bearing with the ground flat on it to hold rough saw stock in a vise?...Of course, I would use a piece of brass to protect the flat against the vise jaw.

I've used such a flatted ball for press work (carbides into hard steel
tapers), where the parallelism of a 50 ton press's piston face and
table was not necessarily good enough.
A half inch aluminum pushblock took a nice spherical dent,
nearly mirror-polished. The ball against the dent was a 'knuckle' that would
allow some minor nonparallelism. It worked out well for me.

For a vise, two aluminum dented cauls would be good, and no need to
grind a flat on the BB. That's assuming you have ten or twenty tons
of press to make the dents with...
 
Last edited:
I have used both ball bearings with a flat, I have a set of them, as well as dowel pins to help hold uneven pieces and to square blocks prior to making parts. This is a simple solution to a common problem. Some of the job specific tools shown above are, I suppose, a step above the improvised method of the dowel pins. The ball bearings I have were made specifically for this purpose.
 
A piece of stock with a hole bored into it smaller than the diameter of the ball bearing would work if you do not want to flatten the ball bearing. Another option is to press fit it into a relieved bore in some metal stock.

Ken
 
Using a 3/4" ball bearing works well. I just clamped the ball in a vice and ground a flat with an angle grinder. using it with the mill vice every thing centralises automaticly when you clamp up. I just squared up a V block from a flame cut piece of steel and the ball clamp method worked great, not to concerned about a dink in the surface.
 
Awesome. I've seen ThatLazyMachinist use brass cylinders. Maybe putting a small flat on the cylinders may also work?
It's said that the ball bearings do indent the work, so maybe I'll try brass or bronze (if I can find bronze spheres).
In any case, the final result should be a nice square piece if work. The ScrewyBall set is sold out on Ebay. The set came in a fancy wooden box, 3 sizes. McMasters sells low carbon bearing balls that they say are machinable.

If you don't want your work indented, couldn't you put a piece of square brass shim on the work? or will this affect "squareness" on the vise?


How are these very hard BB's flat ground ? I don't have a surface grinder and I would like the flat to be, well....flat.

I was trying to drill a ball bearing a little while ago. Big mistake. Those things are as hard as granite, normally. Drill bits and and mills are ruined very quickly if you press them into the ball bearing. Unless.... I held a ball bearing in some old pliers and heated the thing up with a propane torch until it was red hot and non-magnetic. I'm then I left it sitting on the anvil part of the vise for an hour or so. Then I simply chucked it in the three jaw and faced a flat on it with a HSS tool. Couldn't have been easier. I haven't bothered to harden it again, but if I were to heat it up and drop it in oil or water I'm sure it would go back to being very hard again. The heating process causes the ball to go black, but that can be polished with some Scotch Brite, if you care about that. I didn't do that either.

In this video you can see a clever way to hold spheres more safely than just chucking it up.
.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top