Finding a creative use for old ball bearings.

[Revs1972]

Always wanted to make a rolling ball structure, well since I saw Fracture,
See
http://www.rollingballsculpture.com.au/

They have quite a few of these at a local marble museum. The kids get bored of watching them before I do

 

[postie jon]

hows about throwing them onto the road to catch out unsuspecting cyclists?

 

[brightspark]

hows about throwing them onto the road to catch out unsuspecting cyclists?

drawing pins are better

 

[mart]

hows about throwing them onto the road to catch out unsuspecting cyclists?

The cyclists have started biting postmen as well as the dogs av they the buggers.

 

[Dieselman 63]

If I may interject... a ball bearing is a bearing with steel balls, just as a taper roller bearing is a bearing with tapered rollers. A tapered roller will always be just that, as will a steel ball be just a steel ball if it's no longer in the bearing race.

And steel balls were valued higher in currency than blu-tac and pencil sharpener blades in primary school!

 

[Wozzaaah]

^ I remember playing marbles on drain covers with ball bearings....or ball bearions as one of my mates called them.
I can't remember what value they had but I think the decent sized ones were highly prized and something like an eighter

 

[GW8IZR]

^ I remember playing marbles on drain covers with ball bearings....or ball bearions as one of my mates called them.
I can't remember what value they had but I think the decent sized ones were highly prized and something like an eighter

yes, we called them Iron Dobbers and they were worth ten glass ones.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Snake eyes: two dice betting on a pile of pennies, refresher chews and steel balls. I got a detention as did a few other lads for illegal gambling - Catholic school!

 

[ajlelectronics]

Offer them as spares to brass monkeys.

 

[CompoSimmonite]

Mate started motorcycle courier work (on ex Police BMW K1000LT) and started doing occasional journeys to London. At a cafe another courier gave him some huge balls bearings. When asked why he was told use them to break windows of any taxi that tried to kill you !

 

[Stueeee]

The balls are useful for all sorts of work once they've been 'let down' i.e heated to red hot and allowed a slow cool. I drilled a hole through the ball that mates with this clutch fork on my truck's clutch linkage.

I hardened the ball again once I had drilled the through hole.

I drilled and tapped a Whitworth thread into the shiny ball end of the power drilling attachment of this lathe. I did have to use some care cutting the thread even though the ball had been let down first -shouldn't be a surprise that a bearing ball would be made of decent material though.