the ball is phosphor bronze and sits in a thingy. this is softer than the spindle so should wear first. the seller suggests you can rotate the ball when you see wear after a year or two and sends two spare balls
they're listed again now listed again now, but the price has increased by about £1.50 so its a bit expensive now
It has been suggested in the past that it may not be a good idea to use anything hard as the bearing surface as its better for the bearing to wear rather than the spindle as the spindle is harder/more expensive to replace so a ceramic ball may not be the best thing to use.
Dont know how 'soft' the garrard spindle is, there were signs of wear on richards but nothing bad.
The garrards are the only TT ive come across that specificaly use a soft surface and let it wear. Ive not a great deal of experience with different TT's though.
Ive used pieces of 'feeler guage' as thrust pads before (im currently using a piece of stanley knife blade!), if the garrard spindles are soft you could always bond a piece of thin feeler guage on the bottom of the spindle.
Yep, there are risks if the spindle isnt up to it.
I did lengthy testing when i set mp my lenco bearing and i found the harder the ball and thrust plate the quieter the bearing became.
However, this made the bearing way to free spinning which effected the sound for the worst.
I then went with a slightly softer ball (ruby) and although the bearing was slightly noisier it sounded better.
Then, messing with oils, i found a thicker oil that provides a bit of 'drag' sounded better than thinner oils, even though it ment the bearing was less free spinning.
All TT's ive owned had a steel shaft and steel ball, never had one with a ball softer than the spindle and ive never seen any wear on a spindle, except for the slight markings on the 401 spindle.
so i had a play with some blue tack and a big thick elastic band from the postie.
with the rings on and the mat off i conducted some "tapping the platter tests"
adding blue tack to the bottom further reduced the ringing but not completly at the outer edge (the platter rings more even with the rings on if you tap it towards its outer edge)
adding the elastic band on top of one of the rings pretty much completly stopped all ringing (to my surprise)
listening to music i think the sound has become crisper. a worthwhile improvement for me. ymmv