Riorose Posted June 10, 2011 Report Share Posted June 10, 2011 geez, its only been 18months. first we got the mill going then I found a porcelain jar hidden in the center of Portugal. Bailey ceramics sells porcelain balls, 1/2 inch in diameter. for a 1.5 liter jar I apparently need 3 pounds of porcelain balls. Well to have that shipped from th USA is a bit pricey. So I inquired here in Portugal and they only have stainless steel balls. Is that OK to use in a porcelain ball mill jar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denice Posted June 13, 2011 Report Share Posted June 13, 2011 geez, its only been 18months. first we got the mill going then I found a porcelain jar hidden in the center of Portugal. Bailey ceramics sells porcelain balls, 1/2 inch in diameter. for a 1.5 liter jar I apparently need 3 pounds of porcelain balls. Well to have that shipped from th USA is a bit pricey. So I inquired here in Portugal and they only have stainless steel balls. Is that OK to use in a porcelain ball mill jar? I don't know much about ball mills but my husband has some knowledge of stainless. He said to stay away from them, the stainless surface will wear away add small amounts chromium and iron and many other metals to what ever your grinding. I hope someone with more experience with ball mills can give you a better answer. Denice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcia Selsor Posted June 13, 2011 Report Share Posted June 13, 2011 You could make your own porcelain balls easily. I have some that came with my used ball mill that were home made. Just fire them to the maturity temperature of the porcelain. Some can be round . The commercial ones are barrel shaped and have rounded edges. You could extrude 1/2" coils and cut them to 5/8" lengths and smooth the edges. Marcia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Posted June 14, 2011 Report Share Posted June 14, 2011 Agreed. Make your own. Ball up a white firing clay and fire those balls until mature. Porcelain would be best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riorose Posted June 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 So, i fired up the extruder and pressed out cylinders. As I was smoothing out the rounded cylinder edges my partner, Lena, at Atelier2ceramica came over and said why don't you just make them round. so we made all of them round, or sort of. Is that OK, because I did notice those that are commercially available are like little rounded cylinders? Problem is now, we haven't been firing much beyond cone 7 and this is Limoges porcelain which will go to 8 or 9. is this going to be a problem. BTW, the wine this week was the remains of a house wine from a restaurant dinner. Lena and I drank it at the end of a firing then got rather happy and failed to check the cones toward the end. We went a bit over our bisque target temp of 06 and noticed our tank had frozen. WHOOPS, we decided to hold off on the wine until we shut the gas off from now on.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcia Selsor Posted June 17, 2011 Report Share Posted June 17, 2011 It would be best to fire the porcelain balls to the full maturing temperature otherwise the balls will wear down rather than the stuff you are trying to grind. The cylindrical forms provide a better surface contact for grinding but the balls will work ..if they are fired hard enough. Looking forward to visiting the Atelier in the future. Marcia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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