How do they make steel ball bearings so they are all the same size and shape,?

Question

Some ball bearings are tiny, yet they are all perfectly round and the same size. How is it done?

Answer 1

1) Thick steel wire is chopped into stubby pieces.
2) The pieces are cold forged into spheres with flattened discs around them.
3) The flattened discs are trimmed off.
4) The balls are heat-treated to improve strength and hardness.
5) The balls are put into lapping machine, which applies abrasive compounds while spinning the balls.
6) Finally, the balls roll down two nearly-parallel knife edges. The gap between the edges grows larger the further the balls roll. When the balls reach a gap equal to their diameter, they drop into different containers, ensuring all the balls in a given container are very similar in size.

Answer 2

I looked this up on the web a little while ago, small heated "****" (yes thats right) of metal are dropped between two round tools turning in oposite directions. Each tool has a curved round bottomed groove gradually reducing to the desired size and a hole in the cetre from which the completed ball falls out.

The rotation of the two tools force the "tit" down the groove reducing the size and creating the ball shape.

Finally the ball bearings are pollished in stone media contained in a vibrating circlar drum, the abrasion of the media polishes the balls to a perfect finish.

Perfection is variable and determined by laid down parameters +/- 000ths and the longer the polishing the more perfect the final product.

This method was first perfected in Germany in 1850 and the tooling used has changed little since. The polishing medias have been highly developed and the degree of perfection is far higher.

Answer 3

I even have consistently wanted to renowned and see how they are made. At one time, some years in the past, a pass to to a production unit replaced into arranged and later canceled very plenty to my remorseful approximately. I get excitement from the finished and descriptive answer of "carlysim" and recommed it for the perfect answer. One small piece of information i could want to characteristic from leaflet given to me on the time. After machining, the balls are hardened and then ejected to bounce on a flat surfice and fall right into a hall to be accumulated away. The ball that misses the hollow is rejected because of the fact of incorect hardness!

Answer 4

It's a grinder actually, the balls are gotten to a specific tolerance by standard means, then chromed, once that is done they are ground between rotating plates, with some tolerance to roll, then polished in an tumbler.

Answer 5

First, you have to learn how to make a perfect
roller bearing, and then everything else
is just GE weirdos.

Answer 6

Tiny tiny little men make them using tiny tiny ping pong balls as moulds.

Answer 7

Computers using precision machines using casts, molds.... same way they make bullets, and shells for the bullets.. and other similar repetitive things.

Answer 8

Machines - precision computer controlled.