How They Make Stainless Steel Spheres

I've come across a small video clip in various compilations on YouTube showing a small explosion going off inside of a polygon shaped sphere which forced it into a round sphere the video usually only lasts a few seconds so I didn't know what the objects were or what was happening but I really wanted to know so I started doing some research and found a company in China who makes stainless steel spheres for art sculptures the company's name his shinsen Mel pink sculpture Arts they have been making stainless steel spheres for 23 years and can create any size stainless steel sphere up to 20 feet in diameter all crafted by hand you may not realize it but you've probably seen these types of stainless steel spheres in art museums or out front of buildings or in parks [Music] foreign based off my research there seems to be four common ways to create a hollow and metal sphere the full common ways are spinning mold pressing water pressure hydroforming and explosive hydroforming spinning is like working on a lathe they attach a flat round blank onto a machine while the blank is spinning at high speed they use various types of tools to start pressing down the blank into the shape of a hemisphere and once they've got two of them they can weld them together to create a sphere this method uses the skill of an artisan and a lot of Labor to create the hemisphere but larger companies will automate this process by using a robot or a CNC machine to do the hemisphere forming mold pressing is just what it sounds like they use a big hydraulic press and press a metal blank into a mold and form the hemisphere that way and then weld two hemispheres together water pressure hydroforming is when you create a sphere using flat or slightly curved pieces of metal into a large polygon sphere and then use a hose and pump to send lots of water into the sphere under high pressure forcing the sphere into shape during this process they can find any holes in the wells they created and seal them up explosive hydroforming is where you have a large polygon looking sphere made out of curved plates the sphere is then filled with water and a small explosive charge and when you set off the charge the explosive force of the water forces the sphere into shape explosive hydroforming was the Clipper kept seeing in compilation videos on YouTube but I'm not going to be showing you that method in this video I'll be showing you the creation of a sphere from start to finish using the water pressure hydroforming method both methods of creating a sphere are the same except the use of water pressure over a small explosive the method to create the final shape of the sphere is the most impressive part of the process but it's the overall creation of the sphere that is interesting as there are so many steps in the manufacturing process and it can take a long time just to create one sphere to give you an example it can take 15 days to create just one six foot diameter sphere here are the main step-by-step processes to creating a sphere the first step is cutting all the main segments of the sphere giving it that polygon look The Next Step would be to bend those flat pieces of Steel into the final desired diameter curved pieces next they would weld those pieces together to form the polygon sphere then connect the hose to the sphere from a water pump and then pump water into the sphere under high pressure until the final round sphere is formed during this process small holes in the weld will appear and they take a pin and mark the locations to finish welding after the water is removed next they grind down all the welds flush with the steel surface to help with the polishing process they then use various machines to grind and sand the surface going finer and finer each time to remove all welding marks and high points after that they use various polishing pads of different grades to remove the grinding and sanding marks to bring the sphere to a mirror-like finish and finally they use a hand polisher to get rid of any final blemishes as I said earlier this whole process can take about 15 days for one six foot diameter sphere such as the one being polished on screen now so the next time you're passing by an art sculpture using stainless steel spheres you now have some idea of the time and effort it takes to create it anyway that's the end of this video thanks for watching and we'll see you next time bye bye [Music]

Channel: Wonder World

Views: 359,291

Keywords: Wonder World, Wonderworld, Hyrdoforming, Explosive Hydroforming, Stainless Steel Sphere Hydroforming, exploform, High Energy rate Forming, making stainless steel spheres, how to make a stainless steel sphere, high energy rate sphere forming, water pressure sphere forming, stainless steel sphere manufacturing, How They Make Hollow Steel Spheres, metal fabrication, sheetmetal working, manufacturing, metalworking, metal work

Id: ieb2zwtAziM

Length: 5min 0sec (300 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2022