# How are wooden balls made for production?



## quvia (Nov 1, 2013)

I've often wondered how they mass produce the craft wooden balls you buy in the craft store. I use a lot for different projects and when I run out of 3/4 inch or 1 inch balls I always wonder how they do that. Who wants to run the lathe to produce a few of these!!! Crazy question I'am sure but does any one know a simple way??


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## REO (Sep 20, 2012)

once set up they are not difficult or time consuming. start from the tail stock end with no tail stock. swing the cutter around full depth till the newly cut ball is parted from the feedstock dowel. advance the dowel and repeat. take the nib off the finished ball on the sander or by hand. here is a high speed specialty lathe for the purpose









some use a hole saw on a cross feed









a jig for a traditional lathe









I included some links but they did not show up in the post.


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## quvia (Nov 1, 2013)

Thanks. Now I know. It drove me nuts how they can sell them for only a few dollars for a bag of 12. I just got some on Ebay


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## Bluepine38 (Dec 14, 2009)

If you want to make a ball making jig, David Springett has a great plan for one in his "Woodturning Wizardry" 
book. They do have professional made jigs available, but I am having too much fun making my own to waste
time and money buying one. These were for balls about 3" diameter, but could be adapted for smaller ones.


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## Woodbum (Jan 3, 2010)

What a cool post! Somebody on here still has a sense of wonder about how something is made and actually asks about it. I for one would like to see a factory where sewing needles are made, or straight pins or nails or how they spray that fake looking finish on commercial office furniture or the sh**ty humidors that are sold in cigar shops. I can live without the dumbass duck people, but don't take away "How its Made" Examples of product engineering at it's finest.


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## 280305 (Sep 28, 2008)

My 10-year old son asked me how they "fork split" English muffins. I looked online but didn't find a good answer for him. Any ideas?

Thanks.


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## Wildwood (Jul 22, 2012)

Buy your wood balls, as you need them, stop wondering.

It is a lot of fun learning to turn balls/spheres on a lathe if have lots of scrap wood and time. Do think bigger than ¾" or 1" starting out unless need lot of frustration. One time want to think big, learning to turn balls!

Actually harder to turn small ¾" & 1" wood balls uniformly on a wood lathe without a special jig. Most commercial and homemade jigs will not let you turn balls that small. I made two different jigs shown in David Springett's book, he has a metal version online these days. So size does matter if want a jig to turn balls!


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## quvia (Nov 1, 2013)

Thanks everyone for all the input. For wildwood I do buy my wood balls and was just wondering how it was done.


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## socrbent (Mar 9, 2012)

This video helped me learn to make wood spheres when I wanted some from cherry to match the rest of the wood on a project - 




After 2 practice spheres I was able to make the 4 needed. By number 4 it got pretty easy.


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## JL7 (Apr 13, 2010)

My guess in production they would use a centerless grinder. Or probably more correctly, a centerless sander. Hard to explain the process, but as the name suggests, there are no centers capturing the wood.

There would be a belt sander and rubber coated drive wheel that would pull the spheres (spinning) across the belt and contains them from launching out of the rig, and progressively making them smaller as they travel.

Again, Hard to explain, but this is pretty common way to make spheres in general that require some amount of accuracy


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## wormil (Nov 19, 2011)

Not the same but there is a guy on youtube who makes wood balls with a tumbler but they are not perfectly round; basically it's a vibrating bucket lined with sandpaper.


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## oldnovice (Mar 7, 2009)

I have never seen them make wooden balls but I have seen them tumble acrylic spheres to be perfectly round. I assume the same can be done with wood by using the appropriate grits of abrasive.

My brother tumbled rocks, when he was into that hobby, into perfectly round spheres too but it took a long time.


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## REO (Sep 20, 2012)

Rick the bottom of the can is live with sandpaper bonded to the bottom and the sides of the can. the idea is that if there is a high spot on a moving surface there is a higher percentage of time that the irregularity will be exposed to act upon.





Now I think i have it down here is the hole saw setup




automated setup




one of the ball makers for traditional lathe


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## Wildwood (Jul 22, 2012)

Ted, only trying to say continue buying your balls and explain difficulty of turning uniform small size balls. Many of the commercial & homemade jigs will not get the job done.

Having said that do not be afraid to have a go at turning balls!

Not going to drag out my xmas ball ornaments and post several pictures of perfect and not so perfect hollowed out balls to make a case for turning balls. I do not use a jig today but have in the past. Think other posters have done better job with information & links provided.


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## jbald (Dec 11, 2011)

It's called a "variety lathe" and they've been around a long time.


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## quvia (Nov 1, 2013)

Wow. That variety lathe is something. You think youv'e seen everything and then this comes along.


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## fuigb (Apr 21, 2010)

@Chuck - a slitter made of wire similarto how bread is sliced? 3/8s penetration and then rotate.


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## oldnovice (Mar 7, 2009)

*fuigb* is that similar to a wire cheese slicer?


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## Mammatus (Dec 6, 2012)

ChuckV - on the English muffins: I think the way they make them is instead of placing a single flattened ball of dough in the pan for baking, they place two flattened balls (one on top of the other) in the same muffin tin and then let them bake together. That way they're fused together, but not entirely one.


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## 280305 (Sep 28, 2008)

Very interesting. This is the same as the results of the discussion we had at our house. Some people are in the "single dough ball then poke later" camp and some are in the "double dough ball" camp.

There is nothing as wonderful as the process of great minds pondering the great mysteries of our very existence!


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