The Armour Archive

Like would a billard or croquet ball be usable and resistant to damage?
I've just been using a hardwood sphere, and it gets nicks sometimes.

Are you talking as a ball stake or using them as the hammer?

Either way, I would not be to keen on using them.

I was needing something to planish onto, as I can't weld or machine a steel ball/stake.
Surely a billard ball is more durable than a wood sphere(?)

You might try finishing and polishing a railroad spike, then clamp that into a vise. I believe Halberds does that for his Newbie armouring tool kit.

get a trailer hitch ball -- just grind the flat part rounder

Hi Jojo, I have some different sized balls I can make stakes out of, what size did you want? Halberds has some great stakes too you can see them at pitbullarmory.com on the tools page.

Take care

Pitbull

Let me rephrase what I hear you saying: "I want to spend hundreds of dollars extra of my time to avoid paying someone $20 to weld up a ball stake for me"

Now does this change your viewpoint on this?

The inside ball needs to be hard and heavy and smooth and firmly mounted to resist the hammer being used on the outside. Yes you can use other things---but you loose efficiency doing so!

If you were local I'd trade welding up a couple of ball stakes for mowing my yard!

Thomas

Buy a bowling ball at a goodwill store for 5 bucks, then gorrila glue a 1" steel bolt into the thumb hole. Not as duralble as steel sure, but mine has lasted for 2 years so far and still going strong.

Thomas Powers wrote:If you were local I'd trade welding up a couple of ball stakes for mowing my yard!

Thomas

??? mow what? I didn't see any grass

but that was one big bug on the wall

somedudeinutah wrote:Buy a bowling ball at a goodwill store for 5 bucks, then gorrila glue a 1" steel bolt into the thumb hole. Not as duralble as steel sure, but mine has lasted for 2 years so far and still going strong.

Wow neat!

Bowling balls usually get used as hammers, not stakes, for fairly shallow curvatures and dishes. Setting an eyebolt into a hole that way and slinging the bowling ball from a garage rafter with a bungee cord has proven highly effective in forestalling fatigue. You whonk the bowling ball into the metal, set upon a dish or on sandbags, using both hands. It's a really short, really round pile driver, and usable by one man, where a hand-type pile driver really needs two men, one on the driver and one manipulating the steel sheet.

Meanwhile find out what a trailer hitch ball costs at Pep Boys and at a swap meet. They make great beginner ball stakes, especially with that flat rounded over. Makes a good other curve radius, for in effect just about two ball stakes in one.

I'm in Al-Barran, I'll mow your lawn.
Thanks,
Brennainn

Did you see Sha-ul's post? Perhaps it would be better said "attack the weeds with a lawnmower"

But tell me what kind of stakes you need and we can probably come up with a trade, perhaps harvesting some of the rocks and piling them out of the yard...

Thomas

Thomas Powers wrote:perhaps harvesting some of the rocks and piling them out of the yard...

does it look like a good crop this year?

I need some wide mushroom stakes, truthfully. I would be happy to talk to you about it sometime. I haven't been to Golias in a couple of years. We had talked about me visiting your shop at a feast day several years ago. It might have been the one where I won the championship.
Thanks,
Brennainn

Get some Steel cannonballs on ebay, (i Pm that guy and bought an assortment instead of 5 of one size)(search 'steel cannon ball', that's the trick)

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=steel+ ... m270.l1313

buy some 1" black iron pipe nipples, and a 1" floor flange you will mount on your table.

Goto a uhaul where they install hitches, get them to weld it up, i bet if you get a couple it'll be less than $10 each for welding. 20 years ago I got my first helm top welded on that way for $6.

Or if you are in Ansteorra come over and I'll let you use my welder and learn how for free.

Cal-

Wow what a great scam! He probably buys the mill balls for scrap price and then *voila*
has "repro" cannon balls for 10 times as much! There was a fellow selling mill balls at a fleamarket once for US$1 a piece and three tables down a fellow was selling the same ones as ACW cannon balls for $10 a piece---he wasn't real happy when I pointed out they were not a sized used in American civil war cannons and so he was breaking the law selling them as such...

Cannon balls don't have "flats" on them and were cast iron not hardened steel.


Taking the ongoing discussion with "B" to pm....

Thomas

True, but I'm lazy
so getting 2 of each size, shipped to my door for $40+ was a pretty good deal.

I KNEW they were not cannonballs, but i have yet to find anyone who'll seem be grinding balls in 1s and 2s online.

So one purchase, a trip to Home depot and a chance to play with my brand new tig welder and I went from no planishing balls on stakes to enough to
give some away to my friends.



Cal..

sha-ul wrote:

Thomas Powers wrote:perhaps harvesting some of the rocks and piling them out of the yard...

does it look like a good crop this year?

With a good rock harvest, you can make yourself a nice wall. Quoting Robert Frost the while.

T. Pow. wrote:He probably buys the mill balls for scrap price and then *voila* has "repro" cannon balls for 10 times as much! There was a fellow selling mill balls at a fleamarket once for US$1 a piece and three tables down a felon was selling the same ones as ACW cannon balls for $10 a piece---he wasn't real happy when I pointed out they were not a sized used in American civil war cannons and so he was breaking the law selling them as such...

Tweaked it for ya... tweaked? Twoke? Twuck?

I know I would avoid having mine planished, so the answer is "no".

If you have trubble finding mill balls or false cannon balls you might have luck with a shot put. usualy you can purchase a used one through your local track team or sporting goods store.

InsaneIrish wrote:You might try finishing and polishing a railroad spike, then clamp that into a vise. I believe Halberds does that for his Newbie armouring tool kit.

I've had a railroad spike forever, though it's only slightly round. Would it be able to planish as is, you thinki? (I know if I try to file it I'll make it even flatter.)

I think the trailer ball bolted to your work table, with the flat on the top rounded off would serve you better than a railroad spike. if you're good/lucky you might be able to find an older hitch ball, that didn't have the flat top.


a railroad bolt(which has a round head) might work, but it pretty tight for planishing.

depending on where you live, it might be easier to find a mill ball than the grinding on the hitch ball.

dartaghan wrote:I know I would avoid having mine planished, so the answer is "no".

if they are going to start smacking them with a hammer, I yield

Well, I'm just going to wait and see if my dad can find me anything suitable at his work, seeing as I don't have a grinder.
The rail spike isn't ideal, though it'll do for now.

I sell ball bearings, they are smooth and very hard, I also weld them onto stakes but the shipping to you would cost a lot

JoJo,
I bought my hitch balls at a local flea market. Usually (at least in my area) They cannot give the old ones away. I think the last time I bought a few in sizes from 1 7/8" to 3" (yeah an old mobile home hauler hitch ball) I paid $8 for the box of 6 or so. I kept what I wanted and passed the rest on to a budding metalsmith in our shire.

Old sledge hammers work well also, but if you hit the face with a hardened hammer face they may chip either the sledge or the hammer you are striking with. I also bought an old pick head and polished it. That makes a good creasing stake.

Railroad spikes galore...Hal's older posts on RR spikes got me to make a lot of different small stakes and I use them all the time...

My 4" ball stake is a andiron ball (fireplace log holder top) that I filled with crap lead and while it was hot put a pipe nipple in it. definitely works well...

I can vote for the shot put, i have one of those too.

been eying a hammer throw hammer, (ball just a haif under 5.25")
but have not pulled the trigger.

Cal-

One trick with trailer hitch balls that some folk use is to cut them off their short neck nd then flip them over and weld the flat spot to a longer, larger piece of steel and then dressing the cut part to round---easier to do with a piece that sticks up too far than one that is recessed!


Me I just pick up any round topped hitch ball when I can find them for a dollar or two.

The junk dealers at the local fleamarket know that I'm a sucker for dollar items!

Thomas

To the original poster - the trouble with the billiard balls is that they'll shatter. Not the first time, but it won't take long. Wood has more "give" to it, so while they'll deform pretty fast, they won't turn into powder. Same thing for steel.

You can use the bowling ball, but since it'll "squish" just a little, you'll have to be really careful. Using a ground-down railroad spike is a good solution, but Halberds has a pretty fair price for his tools, too. Just looking over the pictures of tools he's made will have you thinking "oh, THATS how you get that shape..."

Good luck!

Kase

These are pretty inexpensive, and they offer to ship them together in a flat-rate box. Search this seller for "shot put":

http://shop.ebay.com/staglaneprimitives ... ksid=p4340

They're cast iron, so you can't weld to them (easily, anyway), but there are 3 different sizes for a total of ~ $25 + s/h.

Nesting them in the end of a suitably-sized piece of pipe would make an expedient, if not great, holder.

Shot putt welded onto the end of a 3' section of 1" iron pipe.

Shot putt cost me $20, pipe cost about $3... and the welding was like $5 at a local welding shop.

I stressed to teh welder that it had to be hard core, because I would be shaping metal with it.

9 years later, and its still holding up strong.