Originally Posted by skmetal7  how about something like this? i am experimenting with making a ball joint for a project and thought this up.
its a 3/8 steel ball drilled and pressed onto a .1875" shaft, the socket is a .5" drill rod drillled and then i took a ball endmill and rounded the blind hole for a hemisphere shape. i turned the od to .420" and used a homemade die to roll the lip over the ball. its a loose fit only because i want it to be, and it should be made out of brass or bronze since it will be in a high wear applicaton (i dont like steel on steel) but i dont know how it will form like steel does. or maybe i could use a brass/bronze ball instead. |
Make little brass cups. They can both be identical because it doesn't really matter if the inside bottom has a hole; actually sometimes you can get a smoother action. Then you make the steel socket flat bottomed and roll the rim down onto the top brass cup.
We doing the rolling process in a different manner. Three rollers are mounted on a spindle in milling machine and the workpiece is stationary. The stem on the ball goes up a hole in the spindle during the rolling. This gives a balanced pressure which is what is needed when you are rolling down onto a cup covering the ball.