| Anyone here ever managed to drill and tap a hole in a ball bearing.
Nobody has mentioned that Ball bearings are *pot hard*, and shatter under tensile load. We used to get interestingly shaped chips of ball bearings on Magnetic Drain plugs. So even in the unlikely event that I managed to drill and tap a ball bearing, I would not trust it to take *any* load.
Gavin asks ..................
Gavin,
Have a look at this, if no one else has mentioned it.
I have some stainless steel foil that I use for heat treatment. Wrap up the item in an envelope like fashion weith double folds, and include a few bits of paper to char and absorb the oxygen. BTW it is VERY sharp stuff use gloves !
AWEM
Sounds like an expensive solution to me...just need to include a source of carbon in the container (charcoal, sawdust, ...) to mop up any free oxygen.
Never tried it, but caoting with soft soap is said to work well for protection from scaling - I suspect its basically doing the same thing.
Regards, Tony
Cheat... Drill, and superglue a threaded stud in the ball (or threaded insert). Forget threading the ball...
Joules
Chris's method worked for me.
If you want a big ball and can't find a large ball bearing then use the steel ball found in the center of a PC mouse. These aren't hardened and are easy to drill.
To get the ball accurately aligned with the drill then clamp a bit of scrap to a drill stand drill a pilot hole and countersink it - without moving the scrap drop the ball in the countersunk hole. Clamp the ball in place with a similar countersunk scrap on top. Now drill to the desired depth. You should be able to tap a thread with the tap mounted in the drill chuck.
Steve
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