Producing Medically Oriented Ball Products

Even within our very strict manufacturing system, medically oriented ball products must be given special care. Balls made of gold, niobium, platinum, tantalum, titanium and all small diameter balls made of titanium are automatically treated as medically oriented. The first restriction on these products is the strict use of only virgin materials and supplies.

The abrasive slurries used in grinding these balls are made with abrasive taken directly from factory containers. The liquid lubricant is taken directly from factory drums. This is in contrast with the production of commercial products, where the lubricant is more often than not settled and desiccated liquid.

Medically oriented ball products are cleaned in individual stainless steel containers using virgin organic solvent, pumped directly from original factory drums. We use a low frequency, very high energy system to remove any adhering foreign particulate from these balls. In special situations, we perform additional pre-cleaning for vacuum annealing. For other special customer requirements, balls are chemically cleaned and rinsed, usually at elevated temperature.

All of the machines and the pumping systems employed in medically oriented production are dedicated exclusively for this purpose. According to standard shop procedure, a copy of the computer generated work order with the material certification number is posted on each machine being used to produce any of our ball products.

We do not ship 100% of any ball orders produced for medically oriented products. We ship in even thousand ball increments. The leftover balls from each batch are inventoried in “Bond” for three months minimum and are then released to the general inventory. Then, they are sold or used as material to be lapped down to custom balls of smaller diameters.