2 year CNC machinist program at the local community college, and the term 'tooling ball' was never mentioned once. I'm already replaying past indicating problems in my head and realizing how much simpler they would have been with that little fundamental trick in my toolbox. Thanks, Joe

Very good explanation, Joe. Thanks! Had a bad experience once when I designed a plastic injection mold using a tooling hole for alignment. Night shift "machinist" didn't understand tooling holes or tooling balls so he just obliterated the dimensions from drawing (CAD) and did NOT drill the holes in mold plates as drawn. Absolute nightmare to get mold parts to align correctly, but I did a country boy fix and saved the mold. Transfer punches saved the day!

Early into my pursuit to learn to machine one of the books I was reading briefly mentioned a tooling ball but never went into their purpose or how to use one. It even described how to make one. Enter Joe Pi some 20yrs later... not only do I know what it's for and how to use one I HAVE to have one. Bonus! I learned what the pointy end of the indicator is for.

Thanks, very interesting and useful. For what it is worth, I use the conical end of my centre-finder differently. With the milling machine OFF, I gently lower the conical centre-finder into the drilled hole I want to centre on. The cone-ended section will then kick-sideways to self-centre in the hole, thereby creating a lateral offset with the main cylindrical body of the centre-finder. Then I iteratively move the stage until the cylindrical sections line up in both x and y. Fingertips are very sensitive, and will detect even the tiniest of offset ridge between the two cylinders. It's a surprisingly accurate technique. For even greater accuracy, use a micrometer across the split in the cylinder of the edge-finder. When it matches the diameter of the edge finder barrel all the way around you're there.

And here I was thinking those were the things your gas shocks on your hatch back clipped onto :-o Thanks for the knowledge. There are so many tools out there that without people like you sharing, I'd never even know about them.

Great topic and explanation Joe. Ref Wiggler or "Sticky Pin" (plasticine with a needle), back of the thumb nail was my instruction as an apprentice in 1970's. We used to complain when the draft person missed a tooling hole/feature. We used to call them "Hicky Balls" for some reason. Best regards from the UK.

Nice Joe! I have always just rested the back of my thumbnail directly against the side of the tip of the wiggler. I plant the left edge of my right thumb on the workpiece and bring the tip down to about mid nail. This allow very precise control by rolling your thumb in until the tip stops tapping and runs concentric. I have my left hand surrounding the shaft above the tip to catch it if I overshoot and it wants to whip out. ATB, Robin

So informative Joe, but an essential piece of knowledge . I'm one of those who admitted that I didn't know what a tooling ball was, I wonder how many else there were among your followers who didn't either! You seemed very surprised at the numbers of us that did comment who didn't know. Great video, you're such a bloody good teacher! Greetings from the UK. And have a great Christmas and New Year.

A sincere thanks for another great machine shop 101.

I was watching some of your old videos I love how you tell how &why to do things straight and to the point!!!! keep on keeping on !!

Great info. and and excellent demonstration - as always. Thanks for taking the time to make these videos.

Thank you once again Master Joe! You never disappoint.

Enjoyed, very informative, will watch this one whenever a refresher is needed. Thanks!

Great explanation on how to precisely indicate a position on a part. Thanks for sharing with us.

Another great video filled with helpful information. I had heard of "toolmakers buttons," but hadn't seen the tooling balls in action. Thanks!

I just saw "tooling balls" listed on a local company liquidation auction coming up and had no idea what they were. I am going to bid on them thanks to your educational video.

This video shows why you’re my go-to guy for work holding. Thanks for the demonstration.

Enjoyed, very interesting - Never needed a tooling ball so far, but for sure handy to know/have. Tooling holes are something I started very early to put into my fixtures at work. I usualy model the fixture and the part up in Cad/Cam and use the Tooling hole as my X/Y/Z zero for machining the fixture itself (if possible) and to machine the part in the fixture. So I have only to keep the cad/cam file around and dont get problems with offsets that I forget to write down/document ;)

Everyone is a winner! Another great video Joe!

Thank you so much Joe. Great job educating us on something I personally knew nothing about and had I ever needed to do what you demonstrated I would have been lost. Now thanks to you I will be equipped to make an attempt at it.

Another great explanation/lesson from Joe Pi!

The tip was as good as the video tutorial! Thanks for posting great toolmaker's knowledge.

Thank you Mr Pie, I have a tooling ball that was gave to me and had no clue what it was used for. Great video . God bless

Mr. Joe, Thank you for doing this video!! A coworker very vaguely described the use of tooling balls to me several years ago and since then I have asked several folks about them and no one really seemed to be able to describe in detail their intended use. It is something I have never used but as I think back I can think of multiple times where it wouldve been the best option. Also, while I am commenting, the rotary table videos were awesome too. Thanks for all the help youve given over the last few years. Keith Smith Belton, SC

Very interesting stuff, as always. Im just a hobby guy, but ive never even heard of tooling balls, but instantly can think of 1,000 uses for them, thanks for planting the seed!!

Joe, thank you very much. I had no knowledge of tooling balls, and now I know their value. I have numerous types of metric instruments, but no needle type edge finder, though I now know it's value. As always, I'm never disappointed; time well spent.

So simple, so slick, and so cool !....I liked the last part you said at the mill...."Keep the dust off it." Good advice for everyone.

Tony Tammer, machine shop teacher, California. I learned about tooling balls at Lawrence Berkeley Lab in the 1980's. I had to drill holes at a 15 degree angle to the surface of a part, at one inch +/- .002 from the edge. How to do this? Locate the hole vertically with an edge finder. Drill and ream a hole for the stem of a tooling ball. Tilt the head to 15 degrees, dial in the tooling ball, last step: raise the table up the reference difference from the center of the ball to the surface of the part, and you are ready to put in the hole, first with an end mill to get a surface roughly perpendicular to the drill , then centerdrill, and finally drill and ream the hole. If you can't drill that vertical hole in the part, use a tooling ball without a stem. Machine up a tube with an I.D. slightly smaller than the ball diameter, and chamfer the I.D. edge. Locate the center of the hole vertically (with the head vertical) with an edge finder. Then take out the edge finder, put in the tube, and use it on top of the ball, to press the shoulder of the ball lightly against the part (using the tube to align the ball). Then wick some crazy glue between the shoulder and the part to stick the ball down, and follow the steps in the first paragraph. Tap the ball off the part and you are ready to follow the steps in the first paragraph. No trig or math needed, and you will be very close, the error being the thickness of the crazy glue.

Joe great job as always. You keep opening up my eyes. Can't wait for the next video.

Glad I found your channel. Learning a ton from you. Keep up the great work and thank you.

Excellent come back Joe on describing tooling balls. Must say I love your tangents. These always add spice to your cooking. I have used the edge finder to pick you prick punched holes but never thought about scribe line.

I just learned what a tooling ball was and what it is used for and you and some of the commenters answered the question I have had for years on what the pointed end of the edge finder is used for other than dropping it and bending it to destroy a good tool. You are a great teacher!!!

Another useful and interesting tip video. I love fixtures and setups, even though I have never had to manufacture a quantity of anything. The problems that need solving are very interesting puzzles.

Enjoy it very much would have liked to have learned these tips when I was an apprentice machinist now retired could still look over your shoulder all day absorbing knowledge.

Thank you for this very informative video. I have used a tooling hole in a very simple fixture. Still use that fixture, works great every time. The tooling hole is actually the work offset in my program. As for the tooling ball, I had no clue. Now, I can see how they could be a great thing to have.

Tooling balls are also great for construction as well as inspection. Especially if you have multiple angles and or radii. They can all be located via the tooling ball and it allows for easy inspection. We often use a sine bar or plate and height gauge to inspect for proper location. Just thought I'd throw that in as a side note. Another great video that I am sure many viewers will find value in at the machine or surface plate.

Thanks for the lesson, Joe. I've never seen those before.

As others have said, thanks Joe for the lesson, something else learned today.

850 likes now and 6 dissenters! Thanks again Joe for great content and the education! Cheers from John, Australia.

Thanks Joe. Very, very helpful.

Another gem Joe and of course our friend trig again - most informative and thanks.

Super interesting and informative video Joe. You have a great way of explaining things so it's easy to understand .... Thanks Joe

as always sir an excellent informative video that will help many...thank you.

Great Video! I think I have a few of these floating around in a machinist box that I bought used. Now I know what they are and how to use them!

Thank you Joe, awesome lesson.

Good stuff as always. Thanks Joe!

Very cool setup tool - I had never heard of them until you mentioned them the other day. Just wondering if you've heard of them being made in-house in either home or commercial shops versus buying commercially - at 35 to 75 bucks a crack it adds up . . . Thank you for sharing your experience!

Very useful info sir. handy little trick for the wiggler probe too. Thanks

Joe - using the ball for finding center was already understood , but never realized the long shoulder one measured down to the shoulder. Thanks for the great video.

Useful! Another tip: spray clear lacquer etc over sharpie markings to make them more shop-permanent.

Nice Joe. Love this stuff. Great way to get you TO your math - and math is never wrong. Learned something as always!

Thanks for another great tip!

Thanks Joe. You are amazing. I really appreciate your common sense basic way of solving problems. I have learned alot from your videos! p.s. I can hardly wait for the rest of your cannon build...

Great video. I use tooling balls every day to make complex 5 axis parts on 3 axis machines.

joe i have learned so much from you i was one of the kids 35 years ago that did not get algebra or trig and thought i would never use it but now as a hobby machinist its a everyday need would it be possible for you to do a video series i mean really in depth on basic trig but show each example you teach as what you would use it for in a machining situation i dont care if the videos are an hour long it would be a great learning implement for us novices and we could have it to refer to from time to time if i had a teacher like yourself when i was in school i would have gotten the trig and algebra then but our teacher just taught and had ni=o idea what you actually use the trig for

I'm sure most machinists ponder the purpose of the pointy end of the edge finder. I use it to align the spindle with small holes: with the mill off I pull the quill down until the cone seats perfectly in the hole, then it's a matter of moving the table until a thumbnail doesn't catch on any of the sides of the edge finder. I don't know if that is its intended purpose, but that's what I do with it. And my own preference is to use a Sharpie to center wigglers. It's so cool when you can feel it suddenly lock in on the perfect axis of rotation. Wigglers and edge finders are amazing in their simplicity.

I have a wiggler set with the pointer, and edge finding ball, edge finding cylinder and a dial test indicator holder. Cost me a whole £5.95. Good tips, many thanks.

Great video. Great training!

This is going to be a great help to me Many thanks !

Thank you, have never seen these used before.

I use tooling balls with the renishaw probes ALL the time. Our older Horizontal 4 axis machines don’t keep track of relative positions like our newer 5X mills. They are a great way to quickly check your setup. I always make some fine adjustments to my offsets using real outcomes from the machining and measuring. Sometimes I can see that it needs to move a couple grand in one way or another. But there is always the CMM in the quality room or even better Faro arm to wheel out to the shop to get dead nuts. I love my tooling ball, but you can also machine tipped surfaces planar to your rotations into the fixture too.

Tooling balls are also used in automated or robotic systems to achieve the accurate positioning of something (e.g., a test sample, a bio-tray (tray with a bunch of small indents to drop one drop of liquid in for growing biological samples)) without requiring high accuracy of the robotic arm or automated transport device. Take a flat plate. Build a nest on top to hold the bio-tray or whatever. Mill a conic section into the bottom of the plate, apex up (a cone with the top lopped off so it is easy to mill). Mill a slot with 45º sides, apex up (a flat bottomed slot with sloping sides) on the bottom of the plate. Mill a spot flat on the bottom of the plate. Permanently mount three tooling balls on the test fixture holder, in a triangle, in very accurate positions. Now when you drop the test plate on the balls, plus or minus .125" or so, the cone will center on one ball defining a point, the grove will slide onto a second ball defining a line, and the flat will sit on the third ball defining another point. If you layout the positions of the three balls and the pattern on the bottom of the test plate so the line along the grove and a line through the two points are parallel you have a plane . This allows you to position the test plate with high accuracy using a positioning device with low accuracy. The further the three balls are apart, within reason, the more accuracy at the test site versus the milling accuracy. If I knew how to add a picture to these comments, I would, but I don't.

Great video Joe! Learning a lot from your videos. I have to say the entire cnc community as a whole is absolutely fantastic for sharing years of experience and knowledge, I've only been using a Tormach 770m cnc for a couple of months (fusion360 driven) and I have to say "I'm luvin it" lol my 3d printer is so dusty hahahahaaa... I haven't programmed the machine much directly but im learning day by day, thanks ;-)

Grear Joe, must have missed this one, tooling ball! Great idea...

As usual, good vid and good info Joe.

Excellent video. I might add that the tooling ball allows you to pickup the fixture when it is rotated in several axes. It's usually beneficial to have a couple different styles on hand to match the particular variation called out on the blueprint. If, for some reason you find yourself setting up on two angles, or an angle while rotating the workpiece , you will find yourself slipping down the rabbit hole known as compound angles. Instead of merely calculating sides of a triangle, you may find yourself looking for base angles, angles of inclination and/ or angles of rotation of a pyramid. That topic is worthy of at least a full semester (or more ) at college . Keep up the good work.

Nice tip for storing the sharp wiggler tip. Great lesson.

I guess I didn't know what a tooling ball was... I thought you were talking about the small balls like at the end of an indicator, which I guess are basically used for similar processes... Also, I've seen wigglers used, but usually only for touching off edges to find center, never for pin pointing... Awesome, always learn so much watching you...

You know how you feel when you want to ask the question on how something works or how to use a tool, but you don't want to look like a newbie, thanks for that lesson in machine shop technique.

Great tips! Thanks joe 👍

Thanks for the video, Joe. BTW, I use a 7/16 open end wrench to center the wiggler.

Great demenstration, learned Somthing new thanks!.

the Starrett brand wiggler that I have stores the needle inside of itself the body another great tip thanks Joe

The pencil tip is my favorite way to center a wiggler.

Excellent video

Joe, You must have been a excellent teacher in a previous life 🤗

Very smart, Joe.

Sounds like you are due for some repairs on the mill. A little noisy. Would drive me lock up the shop and go home. LoL another great video. Always a pleasure 😊

Another excellent video.

Nice! Thanks Joe!

Holy schmit i had one of those tooling balls but i never knew what it was ,its rusty thous ,i might do some cleaning. Thanks Joe ,smarter every day.

That pointy thing practically disappears when it it knocked to the side. Scary. I knew, from your warning, that it could cause problems if it got away from you at high speed, but didn't expect it to just about become invisible. So, using the tooling ball you used, when your dial indicator runs around the ball, the spindle is at the center point of the head of the TB. And simple geometry would tell you that the center of the spindle is the height of the center of the head of the TB down from the center of the tooling hole. In the case of the TB you used, it would be 0.5". I learn something every time I watch a Joe Pieczynski KZfaq. Nice little Easter egg bonus at the end on how to store the pointy end.

We had an ever-expanding collection of part-specific soft jaws and fixtures. Each had a fixture reference feature(s), the reference offset numbers, and the part number machined into it. The jaw pairs both had the part number in case they got separated. The data files (CAD, CAM, G-Code) were all named with the fixture part number. If you picked up a pair of jaws and didn't know what they were for it was a straight forward exercise to find the associated file. At least with CAM / CNC, adding the text was a trivial additional step. The other take-away: create a part numbering scheme EARLY and apply it to everything you create.

Love the old school! Thanks

Great Info...it took me a Second watch to clean my cobwebs

brilliant....love the tool box tip

Another great video. Thanks. Your presentation is well prepared. The explanation is very clear. You are probably the best presenter on You tube for machining content. My comments apply to all your other videos, as well, except for the damn spider. Other than that, keep your fingers away from the rotating wiggler. Use a scale or other object to get it to run true. If you are only touching one side of the needle it can go from dead true to a flycutter faster than you can say ,"OH CRAP".

Simple! Perfect!

awesome video.

very cool , thanks for the lesson .

Thanks Joe, once again.

Welcome to the van Dyke era Joe 👍 Looks good on you! My hair doesn't grow straight enough to get nice twirls at the end of my 'tash.

Thank you for the video

Great videos, thanks.

Great presentation as always. I'm wondering why a pointed wiggler would be used to pick up a scribe line versus just chucking up a precision ground pointed pin. I've had a wiggler like the one you showed but never figured out why you would go to the trouble of trying to center it by hand to use it like a pointer - have I missed something here? I've usd an edge finder a million times but never the pointer. Great safety tip on that by the way. Please don't quit making these videos - I love them - they make me think.

Thanks, Joe -- always wondered how one uses a tooling ball. Been bit by the wiggler -- just use a pencil or 6" Delrin rod on the on the side down near the tip, a light pressure will cause it to easily run true. Push too hard, it will over center, helicopter and potentially attack ya.

We often had parts that had construction holes that part features that were dimensioned from. Often the wedge surfaces on clamping assemblies for fixtures

Taking 2d-refrences to 3d saves the day!

My brother gave me a load of stuff from a metal shop teachers estate sale and what do you know Joe tooling balls i had know idea what they were what a timely video Thanks for sharing all the best from john in Texas

love the tool tip at the end thank you