Banging out balls

Modern servocontrols help finishing machines produce golf balls faster than ever before. All golf balls today are made through some kind of molding process. That goes for the cheapest range balls to the most exotic models used on pro tours. But no matter what process was used to make it, a ball after molding has up to 20 small tubular projections sticking out up to 0.04 in. from the ball equator in all directions along with a thin parting line. Obviously, you can't sell golf balls in this condition. The imperfections have to come off. The first buffing machine for this purpose manually loaded and could finish about 30 balls/min. Current pure-mechanical machines produce about 40 balls/min and were, until recently, considered state of the art. Enter Gil Barfield, an engineer with more than 30 years experience designing golf-ballmaking equipment at his Big Bend Machine & Tool Co. in Carrabelle, Fla. The company builds thousands of golf-ball molds annually for every major ball manufacturer and recently designed and built a new servomotordriven ball finisher. Big Bend's CNC Seam Prep Machine is said to run at 60 balls/min and could go faster with some tweaking. And it lasts longer than machines that rely solely on pure mechanical systems for motion. Balls feed into the machine on a track and split into three rows. A pair of air-operated gates capture three balls, one in each row. When the front gate rises, the balls roll into three orientation cups. A rotating plate in the bottom of each orientation cup spins the balls. Around the inside perimeter of a cup is a ramp. As a ball spins the mold runner protrusions catch on this ramp and ride up it, bringing the ball equator to horizontal An improperly oriented ball sits on the runners so it