Mill Balls

S

Steve Hayden

Joined
Mar 7, 2003
Messages
4,270
Has anyone here tried working with steel balls from an ore crushing ball mill? They are very hard steel that only seems to pit while crushing hard rock ore. No apparent deformation, no big chips or plastic reshaping-only eventual wearing down.

I had forgotten about a few I had scavenged while working in Nevada. I think I will try heating one up and tapping on it to see what happens.
 
Think it might be something like S-7 or another shock steel, Steve? That might be sorta expensive for a massive operation like that, though who knows...
 
There was a time in the not too distant past that you could count on the balls from a "ball mill" being made of 52100. If your lucky, you can still get your hands on them, but the days of being sure are over. Since companies keep looking for cheaper ways to keep their operations running, many have gone to balls that are case hardened, Stainless, etc. Now it's tough to know exactly what your getting unless you have it spectrographed. If your sure what you have is 52100, USE IT! Some of the best cutting blades I ever produced came out of Ball Mill balls.
 
I picked these up after a truck rolled and spilled several tons of them just east of Golconda, NV back in '96. They are not SS and I doubt that case hardened balls would last crushing the type of rocks we were dealing with there.

My main regret now is I only picked up a few 1" size ones.
 
Ed Caffrey said:
Since companies keep looking for cheaper ways to keep their operations running, many have gone to balls that are case hardened, Stainless, etc. .............
Click to expand...


Stainless is more expensive than most non stainless steels.

If stainless is so inferior how would it hold up to that pounding in the first place?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm..............Could it be, that the stories of it's inferiority are much exaggerated?:eek:;)
I think, maybe so!!!
 
I dont think they would skimp there.I am currently working in a strip mining quarry they dont seem to cut corners when it comes to making material.We replaced a whole dumping table for the primary crusher the structrual steel was falling apart around the crusher but they kept up on the crusher jaws,4X4 solid plates 8" thick manganese:eek: .The other quarry has a ball mill in it i'm gonna see what i can scrounge up and if they know the supplier names.
 
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