Best Ball Burnisher Build

This is my design and construction of a custom tungsten carbide ball burnishing tool for the lathe. With burnishing you can typically get very clean and uniform finishes on metal, which makes it a very useful technique to have in your toolbox, especially if you care about final results.
Download the plans from my website for free:
www.brace.design/product-page...
Follow me on Instagram to see what other projects I'm up to here:
/ jerskoog

[@ImolaS3]

This is great, but some explanation along the way would be even better such as sizes, depths etc.

[@glenmabry3848]

Thank You, look forward to other projects.

[@kjquiggle]

Very clever and simple design - it looks more suitable for smaller home shop lathes (like mine) than other designs I have seen.

[@somanyhobbies]

Yeah, I definitely wanted something that was a more approachable design than what most burnishers are.

[@homemadetools]

Beautiful ball burnisher. We shared this video on our homemade tools forum last week 😎

[@rodbutler9864]

Outstanding !

[@EitriBrokkr]

This is genius, The only improvement I'd made is hardening the pin. or use a pre hardened pin. the back of the small balls are essentially using it as a bearing race.

[@somanyhobbies]

Yeah I would agree. Probably after a year or so I'll take it apart and see if there is any appreciable wear on it and if it needs to be replaced.

[@EitriBrokkr]

@@somanyhobbies a 60RHC dowel pin would be a good cheap solution

[@javaduke1]

Pretty cool design, I'd like to make one for myself. Looking at your drawing, one important dimension that's missing is the depth of the 1/4" drilling operation (or the length of the lip that holds the large ball). Any suggestion on how to calculate this?

[@somanyhobbies]

I did that portion by trial and error, drilling until it looked right and testing with the ball (seeing if it stuck out enough on the tip). You don't need to leave a lot to hold the ball in.

[@practicemakesbetter7132]

Great video and a very useful, well thought out project, thanks for sharing!

[@machinists-shortcuts]

For a similar design that can burnish the face + o/d - all angles & radii inbetween, check out - Unique rolling ball bump tool for any angle. on my channel. Lots of other pattern burnishing videos too for the lathe & mill.

[@somanyhobbies]

Never seen pattern burnishing before, but it looks like something I want to try!

[@camillosteuss]

Yo, glad to see ya here, i actually recommended that video of yours - about ball pattern mill tooling - to a few people in comment sections... I see that you like to draw attention to that idea too... Definitely a good tool, even if my comment on your video may voice a few issues about the general issues regarding it, it still is an interesting tool... Best regards! Steuss

[@machinists-shortcuts]

@@camillosteuss Thanks Steuss for sharing. I have just uploaded a contour burnishing video that you may find interesting. I don't see any of the current crop of burnishing tools that can follow contours.

[@marley589]

The small balls must be skidding on either the large ball or the end of the internal rod, they can't be rolling on both.

[@somanyhobbies]

Yes, it is not a roller bearing in the conventional sense. The idea is to distribute the load across multiple points to reduce chances of marring the large ball or the rod.

[@marley589]

@@somanyhobbies Perhaps a dished end on a Brass central rod to suit the large ball would work to distribute the load over a large area, instead of 5 points.

[@somanyhobbies]

@@marley589 Sure, you could do that and it would probably work just fine. The second half of my theory is that by using small balls, we decrease the overall force load without increasing the contact area. I want there to be as little friction acting on the large ball as possible from the inside.

[@jmbstudio6873]

Another Tangent Jim copycat. Tons of copycat vids, not one mention of who inspired it. I have the materials to build one, but my finishes have improved so much over the last year that I really dont need it anymore.

[@brianmihlfeith7135]

“Lathe”. Never heard someone say “laath” that way. Have you ever heard someone else say “lathe”? It doesn’t sound like you’re saying it. Where did you hear it said this way? Just curious.

[@tireballastserviceofflorid7771]

I can think of a few words for you. None of them I will post here out of respect. Something you don't have.