How to get the almost mirror finish of the steel ball processing process?

Steel ball processing process

1. There are many processing techniques for steel balls and most of them are almost the same. Since they are all steel rings, the process starts with appropriately sized steel pipes. An automatic machine similar to a lathe uses a cutting tool to cut the basic shape of the raceway, and all dimensions are slightly too large. The reason for leaving them too large is that the raceways must be heat treated before they are completed, and the steel usually warps in the process. It can be machined back to the desired size after heat treatment.

2. Put the rough cutting temperature in a heat treatment furnace at a temperature of about 843 degrees Celsius for several hours (depending on the size of the part), and then immerse it in an oil bath to cool it down and make it very gentle. This hardening also makes them brittle, so the next step is to temper them. This is done by heating it to about 300 degrees Fahrenheit (148.8 degrees Celsius) in a second oven and then cooling it in the air. The entire heat treatment process makes the parts both hard and tough.


3. After heat treatment, it is ready for processing. However, it is difficult to cut the raceway with cutting tools, so the rest of the work must be done with a grinding wheel. These are very similar to the sharpening bits and tools that we can find in any store, except that several different types and shapes are required to complete the game. Almost every part of the machining process is completed by sanding, which leaves a very smooth and accurate surface. The surface where the bearing is installed in the machine must be very round and the sides must be flat. The rolling surface of the steel ball is ground first and then ground. This means using a very fine grinding slurry to polish the raceway for several hours to obtain an almost mirror finish.

4. Although the shape of the steel ball is very simple, it is still difficult to process. Surprisingly, these steel balls were thick lines at the beginning. The wire is fed from the coil into a machine that cuts into short pieces, and then the ends are crushed toward the middle. From here on, the steel balls are heat-treated, ground and ground, so that the steel balls have a very smooth finish.

5. In the first processing process, the burrs will be removed. Place between the surfaces of two cast-iron discs and slide between them. The inside of the groove is rough. A special conveyor belt sends the steel ball into one hole. The steel ball rattles around the groove and then comes out of the other hole. Then, they are sent back to the conveyor through the wheel groove for multiple strokes, until they are cut into a fairly round shape, almost reaching the appropriate size, and the burrs are completely gone. The steel balls are kept oversized so that they can be ground to the desired size after heat treatment. The amount of steel left for finishing is small; only about 8/1000 inches (.02 cm), about the same thickness as two sheets of paper.


6. The heat treatment process of steel balls is mostly similar because the steel types are the same, so it is best to make the wear rate of all parts roughly the same. After heat treatment and tempering, the steel ball also becomes hard. After the heat treatment, put the balls back into the working mode of the machine, the difference is that the grinding wheel is a grinding wheel instead of a cutting wheel. These wheels grind down the steel balls to make them round and within one-tenth of an inch of the finished size.

7. Move the steel ball to the grinder, which has a cast-iron wheel and uses abrasive abrasives. Here, they will be ground for 8-10 hours, depending on the precision with which they make steel balls. The result again will be that the steel is very smooth.