Equipment.

[opalcreations]

That's an awesome design.
Can't wait to see it in action and the finished spheres.
So what kind of polishing blades are you going to use?

[SwordfishMining]

Its getting there Jake. We ended up with 8 or 9 of the Richardsons from an insurance walkaway that we saw rusting out in the weather. Not having anywhere to run them we sold them all, half were bought for replacement motors as these were the old style with the heavy duty motors then they went to a lighter duty motor when they had to be bought new. You can buy diamond cups for them now and it goes a lot faster. Don of High Desert Crafts made some smaller cheaper ones of of these and he added a rheostat to one motor circuit so he could slow it down a tad and improve the rotational movement of the grinding sphere. A thought if you have the issue of grinding circles come up.

[jakesrocks]

That's an awesome design.
Can't wait to see it in action and the finished spheres.
So what kind of polishing blades are you going to use?

Actually, the grinding cups I'm going to use are common plumbers bell reducers. Many people have gone to the special diamond cups, but I can buy enough bell reducers to have a set for each grit at about the same price as only one diamond grit set. Bell reducers are available at almost any hardware store, and come in many sizes to suit different sizes of spheres.

[PinkDiamond]

That's going to be awesome and I can't wait to see how it cuts. Brilliant!

[opalcreations]

So, when you use the bell reducers, are you going to use some kind of abrasive also, or do they just grind down the material by virtue of their metallic qualities?

I've built flat laps, cabbing machines, and other specialty goodies, but never a sphere machine, I'm intrigued

[PinkDiamond]

Well when you build one I'll have to send you some rough to sphere for me.

[jakesrocks]

So, when you use the bell reducers, are you going to use some kind of abrasive also, or do they just grind down the material by virtue of their metallic qualities?

I've built flat laps, cabbing machines, and other specialty goodies, but never a sphere machine, I'm intrigued

You use plain old silicon carbide tumbling grits to do the grinding & pre-polish stages. Polishing can be done on a lapidary polishing wheel, for small spheres in a vibratory rock tumbler, or like I do it with a small table top sphere machine that I have. Wire soft leather over the grinding cups & use a cerium oxide paste.

Here's my little machine. It's a vintage Victor machine. Some of the small spheres I've made with it are in front. Note the tiny amethyst sphere sitting in one of the smallest cutter cups.

[jakesrocks]

Well when you build one I'll have to send you some rough to sphere for me.

PD, if you'll cut your material into near perfect cubes first, I'll be glad to grind spheres for you. There are a minimum of 26 saw cuts that have to be made. Next all sharp edges have to be ground off. When the material is as near to a sphere as you can get it by hand grinding, then it's ready to go in the machine. I'm working on an idea to do away with 8 of the cuts.