Okay, everyone has 30 seconds to get all the jokes out of their system before we continue looking at this 3D printed wood ball polishing machine.
ready?
In theory, making a ball out of any material should be easy. All you have to do is choose a point in space within the material and remove everything within a specific distance from that point. But in practice, making a ball is not that simple. god [Fraens] The one shown in the video below is geared more toward final polishing than initial shaping, with three gear motors spaced 120 degrees apart to drive the cup-shaped grinding pads.
Constant pressure on the developing ball is maintained by a clever triangular frame with springs that pre-load the arms and pull them towards the workpiece, but stop at the desired radius. The three grinding pads are equipped with sandpaper and rotate continuously, grinding the piece rough until it reaches the final diameter. The machine also supports more aggressive tools, in the form of hole saws that actually work on rougher blanks. Check it out in the video below.
While we appreciate the fact that this printer is 3D printed, seeing the vibrations it has to endure while the vacuum is still rough, not to mention all the dust and chips it produces, makes us think that this machine may not hold up for long. So maybe letting this circular saw cut a rough ball and using this machine for final polishing is probably a good idea.
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