Heelllppppp...Ceramic Ball Stuck in Stop Pin Recess

This is one of those face slapping moments. My first thought is to flatten the ball. Try to drill a hole in it and us a stud puller on it. What you use to remove a stripped screw. Maybe getting it to turn will pop it loose. Or just drill it out with a bit slightly smaller than the ball.
 
Unless you are thinking of drilling it out with a diamond drill bit I don't think you will have any chance of making a dent in it
115Italian said:
This is one of those face slapping moments. My first thought is to flatten the ball. Try to drill a hole in it and us a stud puller on it. What you use to remove a stripped screw. Maybe getting it to turn will pop it loose. Or just drill it out with a bit slightly smaller than the ball.
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How about trying compressed air? If you get a tight nozzle and point it at the seam or edge it may pop out
 
OP here again. Based on people's suggestions, I tried some more things. I'd already tried items 1 - 5, but here they are, for reference, again, followed by the new attempts:

  1. Wacking it on wood or a metal sink so the ball might just pop out.
  2. Pulling on it with plyers. I didn't think this would work, because the surface area is too minimal and too slick, and I was right. The plyers just come off.
  3. Putting some Nano-Oil on the ball so it would penetrate and loosen up the ball.
  4. Using a file to try to gingerly rougen up the surface of the ball to give plyers more purchase. The file just slips off. I haven't tried sand paper, but I don't want to sand away too much exposed surface, so I'm not doing that, yet.
  5. Putting the scale briefly in some boiling water, with the theory that metal expands -- hopefully more than the ceramic ball would expand -- thereby freeing the ball.
  6. Put the scale in the freezer, after lubricating around the ball.
  7. Tried using my vacuum cleaner to suck out the ball.
  8. Put the edge of a knife to the ball and tried to saw into it. Nada. Pushing on it doesn't do anything, either; it's wedged in too tightly to rotate.
  9. Super-glued a metal file to the ball. Didn't hold.
  10. Used a crappy knife to carve out a small indent in a small piece of a two-by-four. Put super glue in the hold and then put the ball in the hole. Didn't hold.
  11. Took three additional ceramic balls and drove them into the two-by-four to perform experiments on. On the first hole, I took a Dremel cutting wheel to see if it would shatter the ball. It didn't. The ball glowed white hot and gave off fumes. Looks like cutting it out isn't going to work.
Edit: I added in the item concerning my vacuum cleaner.

I'm getting a little desperate here. Thanks for all the suggestions.
 
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Also, if you are trying to drill, cut or grind it, you are going to need to use diamond. If you have a DMT plate you can put a flat spot on it for more surface area for CA glue to hold
 
Backyard said:
Unless you are thinking of drilling it out with a diamond drill bit I don't think you will have any chance of making a dent in it
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It was my first thought, but didn’t think of that. Good call, I didn’t think it through.
 
Brain storming here. What would weaken the ceramic ball? Would heat make it brittle? Then us a punch to crack it.
 
Dremel makes an engraving tool that operates like a mini jack hammer. They offer two tips: Tungsten Carbide and Diamond. Using the Diamond tip, you may be able to turn the ball into powder.
 
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I tried a conventional drill bit on one of the ceramic balls that I sunk into the two-by-four for testing purposes. Because it's a ball and it has a rounded surface, the bit just runs off. Even if it didn't, though, based on the Dremel cutting tool experiment, it is rather unlikely that that ceramic ball would just shatter. Instead, it gets very hot and very slowly yields to any sort of abrasive, staying in one piece the whole time. What I need is some itty-bity really strong suction cup. (The vacuum cleaner didn't work, so the suction has to be stronger than that.)
 
Last resort thoughts. Drill a hole in the metal next to it, up against it. It should give you some room to pry it out.
 
Ceramics have low heat expansion rates so heating the scales will not expand the ball any appreciable amount. This may be a good thing for making the hole grow without making the ball grow with it. But it looks like you already tried that

If you grind (with diamond of course) the ball flat or nearly flush with the aluminum, you could then tap on the edge of it and force it to flip up on it's side. This will likely cause it to fall out. If not the you will have room to pry it out
 
Backyard said:
Have you tried taking a center punch to it to see if it will shatter into smaller pieces?
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I contacted an extremely reputable knife maker (though not the maker of this knife), and he suggested exactly this method. I'm a little surprised that this would work, given that the ball hardly deformed under the Dremel cutting wheel, let alone broke up, but he sounds rather confident and said that he has used this method before when ceramic media gets stuck. I have a center punch, but I'll likely order a stronger one from Amazon specifically for this purpose.
 
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Sharperthansticks said:
I tried a conventional drill bit on one of the ceramic balls that I sunk into the two-by-four for testing purposes. Because it's a ball and it has a rounded surface, the bit just runs off. Even if it didn't, though, based on the Dremel cutting tool experiment, it is rather unlikely that that ceramic ball would just shatter. Instead, it gets very hot and very slowly yields to any sort of abrasive, staying in one piece the whole time. What I need is some itty-bity really strong suction cup. (The vacuum cleaner didn't work, so the suction has to be stronger than that.)
Click to expand...
Dremel makes tools that spin and ones that go rat-ta-tat-tat. The dial on the engraver lets you set the amplitude of the stroke. The insert in the tip of the hammer can either be Tungsten Carbide or Diamond.
 
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