How Basketballs Are Made

There is a step-by-step process to making a basketball and this article will explain each step. There are two types of basketballs, indoor and outdoor. This article will be about indoor basketballs.

There are multiple parts of a basketball. There is a bladder for holding the air. There is a carcass that is made to get the perfect shape  every time.

The bladder is the core of a basketball. It is made from black butyl rubber, which is a kind of rubber that is good at holding in air. The rubber is melted into flat panels and is attached to other panels to form the general shape of a basketball. A 1 inch tube is then pierced into it so the air filler tube can be installed.

After the bladder is made, it is then brought to a twining or winding department. There, machines that have spools, with either nylon or thread in them, wrap strands around the bladder. This machine makes the ball a more precise and uniform shape.

The leather on the outside must go through a long process. It is sorted by the thickness and the clarity of the grain. The selected pieces get colored and put into tanning drums where the leather then gets tanned and preserved. The leather then gets stamped with a 1000-ton press, painted, then goes through a double-drying process. The leather gets trimmed and graded and it is now ready to use on the ball. Each ball uses six panels and a machine called the vulcanizer attaches them to the ball.

At the end, once the ball has been finished, it must be tested. It can’t be shipped without being tested. It has to pass something called the “bounce-test.” Then, some hand touch-ups have to be made by hand. After the ball passes the test, it gets deflated so that it can be easily packaged and shipped.

Related Stories:

https://basketballstem.weebly.com/basketball-engineering.html

https://www.spalding.com.au/blog/making-of-the-nba-game-ball#:~:text=Creating%20the%20Ball,a%20rigorous%20three%2Dweek%20process.

http://www.madehow.com/Volume-6/Basketball.html#:~:text=3%20The%20odd%2Dshaped%20bladder,vulcanizer%2C%20the%20bladder%20is%20inflated.

https://branded.disruptsports.com/blogs/blog/how-are-basketballs-made

https://izi.travel/fr/ba15-the-manufacturing-of-basketballs/en

Take Action:

• Where You Can Sign Up to Test Basketballs
• Where You Can Buy a Ball