Has anyone made their own ball joint arms?

[Jeff Lantz]

I’ve owned a Wicked Edge Pro Pack for a while now and can see the need for the ball joints. I just can not justify their cost for two rod ends and a small piece of stock. So my question is as stated in the subject.
Has anyone made their own? If not I will do so myself but I am just curious as to why no one has tried it.

[cbwx34]

Welcome to the forum.

Haven’t tried making these… keep us posted if you do.

One thing to keep in mind in your design, is keeping it “calibrated” with the angle bar (or you can switch to just using the angle gauge or some alternative).

I always like seeing mods! 🙂

[Phil Pasteur]

There have been some folks that changed the ball joints to fully shrouded parts. But used the existing brackets. I think the biggest part of the job would be fabricating the base rod to ball joint bracket. I am sure that somebody that knows what they are doing and has access to a machine shop could do this. Same with the vise extension. You can buy the ball joints and rod stock for the arms so that is not a problem.

I wonder if, when all is said and done, you would save much money when material costs and time (personal and machine time) is taken into account.

Oh, and welcome. We will be interested in seeing what you come up with.

Here is a design that my friend Steve Pinson used. He used the existing slider and fabricated a piece to connect it to a ball joint. This is obviously much easier that duplicating the WEPS bracket.

Attachments:

• 001.JPG

[Jeff Lantz]

I have access to a machine shop and will look to do something similar to your post photo. I have aluminum stock laying around to use for the rod end attachment and various drill rod diameters for the rods. All I need is two rod ends and i’ll will be good to go.

It looks like the stones are a mod also. How do they attach to the rods? I can’t say I would do that also but it looks curious.

[Phil Pasteur]

http://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/119/3699/=n1ngy9

Is what I boutght for the rods…
Stainless Steel (Type 416) Precision Ground, 1/4″ Diameter.

I had difficulties threading the rod, but I did not have access to the proper machines to do that.

If you look at the U channel in the photo with the tube between the legs.. that tube with the bushings slides over the rods. The stones with the AL backing are bonded to the U channel. The legs of the U channel become the “handle”.

[Author]

Posts