Gravity Powered Ice Ball Mold

[-Brent-]

I saw this ice mold maker while surfing and then I saw the price. It's a neat gadget and would be cool for parties and such but not for they'd like to get paid for it. I'm thinking one could be made for much less, what do you think?

Here's a link to a YT vid of it in action.

 

[MartyO]

It's a neat gadget and would be cool for parties

did you mean cool or cold? We are talking about ice here.

 

[Cryptic1911]

****, not for those prices.. could buy a hell of alot of booze instead of having round ice lol

 

[metaleltr]

Seems simple enough.
Two chunks of aluminum, Bridgeport mill, and one of these

Ball Mill

 

[-Brent-]

Seems simple enough.

I agree. While I don't have a Bridgeport I can't see the complexity in the design to warrant the cost.

 

[metaleltr]

I bet you could have one for spheres made by a machine shop cheaper than what they want for it.

I can sort of understand the diamonds and baseballs being expensive because of the complicated machining.

 

[-Brent-]

What type of material should I consider using?

 

[rsanter]

make it on a lathe with a ball turner

if its for small ones the ball mill will be great, for larger ones the ball mill would cost too much unless you want to make a bunch of them

you could look for one on ebay because they would be so specific that a used one likly would not go for too much

if you really wanted one you could buy one of those desktop CNC machines and let it work at it for several hours. this will start about $1500

you could find someone with a CNC in their garage that will do a little work on the side

bob

 

[dwright406]

A few years ago I signed up online to be an ambassador for Makers Mark just for the hell of it.

Soon they started sending me all kinds of goodies for free.

Last Christmas I received an ice ball mold from them.
It works awesome.

It's just plastic.
You fill up the lower section with water then push the upper part down all the way. Air and water escape the little holes in top and it seals to form a perfect ice ball.

 

[pro machine Engineering]

where the expense is on these is not in the machining. Its the polishing and hand finish work to get a crystal clear cube. The surface has to be polished to a perfect sphere. free of machine marks and flaws. while polishing you have to keep both halfs of the mold perfect to each other and there locating pins or there will be a offset line. Gauranteed it wasnt done with a ball nose drilled then reamed and sent to the customer. People dont understand that machining is just a minor part of the equation when dealing with molds.

 

[slopecarver]

The copper alone at scrap value is $240 for a 6"x6"x6" cube. Polishing isn't very critical because as soon as you pull it out of the mold the surface melts and becomes smooth naturally. I agree a 4-jaw chuck on a lathe with a ball cutter will give you repeatable results. Getting the holes for the guide posts lined up isn't a big deal, and half decent manual mill could do that, or if you had an indexing head on the lathe just do it with a drilling head mounted on the lathe carriage. Pretty simple overall but just the material would probably cost around $500+ and on a good day 2 hours of machine work after everything is set up with the proper fixturing. Getting clear ice is about as hard as the machining required for one of these.

 

[Kevin54]

Machining would be simple, but what keeps the ice from shattering when pressure is applied. Something is not being shown in the clip. It looks like it may be a time lapsed video.

They are putting a large square piece of ice on the mold and pushing it down with the ram of a hydraulic press. The ice should shatter. Where is the ice and water going when they start pushing it?

 

[metaleltr]

The mold is heated in water. The ice melts and gravity forces the ice into the mold.

 

[NathanJax]

A few years ago I signed up online to be an ambassador for Makers Mark just for the hell of it.

Soon they started sending me all kinds of goodies for free.

Last Christmas I received an ice ball mold from them.
It works awesome.

It's just plastic.
You fill up the lower section with water then push the upper part down all the way. Air and water escape the little holes in top and it seals to form a perfect ice ball.

I'm in the same club... lol

I've used the mold a few times and people are amazed to see them. Definitely a cool FREE gift!!!

 

[rsanter]

you will not get a clear ball from filling a void with water and freezing it. notice they are taking commercial ice that is quick or flash frozen and turning it into a ball

the ice melts from the pressure on the ice. with ice if you increase the pressure the freezing point is lowered. you can test this with any ice. just take a chunk of ice and apply pressure when its outside in the freezing temp and it will melt

bob

 

[zoomzoomjeff]

The copper alone at scrap value is $240 for a 6"x6"x6" cube. Pretty simple overall but just the material would probably cost around $500+ and on a good day 2 hours of machine work after everything is set up with the proper fixturing.

It's not copper.

 

[gte718p]

I see. A few of the other clips show pushing down with a ram.

I never tried it, but would distilled water freeze differently than tap water? By that I mean as far as clarity.

To make clear ice distiller water is important. More important is getting all the trapped air out.

We make big blocks of clear ice for ice lugges. Aggetating the water while if freezes gets the air out.

 

[slopecarver]

Only takes a bit over a minute to melt and yes it is solid copper. The weight of it keeps the copper in direct contact with the ice (no liquid insulating layer). This is a real time video, only 2 minutes:

 

[srmofo]

here's a non time-lapse video of it in action.

apparently the mold discharges all of its heat into the ice....the guy on the video doesn't really understand that "cold" doesn't exist, so he is kinda explaining it backwards.

"cold" is really just lack of heat

more vids

 

[NUTTSGT]

It's a neat but a novelty item. I can find better ways of spending money than an overpriced ice ball maker.

 

[geologist]

To make clear ice distiller water is important. More important is getting all the trapped air out.

We make big blocks of clear ice for ice lugges. Aggetating the water while if freezes gets the air out.

Lowering the temperature slowly also produces clear ice. That's one of the ways you can judge the consistency of lake ice if you desire to ice skate, or drive an ice road truck, etc.

 

[Kevin54]

make it on a lathe with a ball turner

if its for small ones the ball mill will be great, for larger ones the ball mill would cost too much unless you want to make a bunch of them

you could look for one on ebay because they would be so specific that a used one likly would not go for too much

if you really wanted one you could buy one of those desktop CNC machines and let it work at it for several hours. this will start about $1500

you could find someone with a CNC in their garage that will do a little work on the side

bob

You don't need a ball turner to do it on a lathe. It's a fairly simple process to do it, but one needs to fully understand machining. It amounts to doing the ball in steps.

I can post up how to do it if anyone is interested. When I started out in machining it was the way we had to make tooling for aircraft reflectors