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(sort of) DIY roller blocks

So I got a little itch to try making some roller blocks. Fortunately, I've got access to a full metal shop, including a SuperMax 3-axis CNC vertical mill running Mastercam V8 numerical control and Vellum Solids Cobalt on my laptop to create the model.

Materials used:

2" dia. solid 4140 (normalized) chrome-moly steel round stock.

7/16" dia. Tungsten Carbide ball bearings (+.0000, -.0004).

On a lathe, I faced some 2" dia. x .500" tall cylinders as blanks, then chucked the blanks to the mill. The concave geometry is essentially a 5" diameter sphere, plunged .1875" into the top face of the cylinder. It was finish cut to .001" (could have gone to .0001, but there wasn't really a need, and it would have meant roughly 4 more hours in mill time). After milling, each cup, or race, if you will, was chucked back into a lathe and sanded, then polished. The final finish isn't perfect, but i couldn't feel any ridges with my finger nail. It's nearly a mirror finish.

I can easily say it was worth the 8 hours in the shop!!! Soundstaging improved dramatically over the set of Vibracones I used prior under my Rega Apollo. Tonally, my rig sounds even more fleshed out, with a midrange immediacy and palpability that's really quite pleasing. For roughly $50 in materials (and access to some really cool toys...) I'm a happy camper!

I'll try to snap some pictures once I get my camera back from a friend.




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Topic - (sort of) DIY roller blocks - yotacowboy 17:02:41 04/13/07 (4)


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