Ah what the heck Serck Audco has been bought striped and gone to America so I don’t feel I’m spilling the beans.
Surface finish does play a roll in sealing certainly when your hovering around –198 C but the seat design is the key.
You do not indicate if you are looking at a so called floating ball, the old Jamesbury Serck design, or a trunnion. I guess your looking a floating as they are easier to get to seal.
The surface finish on the ball is around Ra 8 (ish) if your measuring stick is in units of inches. The seat can be as high as Ra 16 fresh off the machine or out of the mould but carries a specification of how any remaining machining marks should be arranged. Try spiral. The Ra 16 wont be Ra 16 for long as the high spots will be smoothed out by the first operation of the ball.
The seat, PTFE virgin or glass filled doesn’t matter, needs to have a certain volumetric compression imposed on it by the ball, somewhere around 11% would be a good start although this will depend very much on your seat shape. I’ve already provided the clue to that one.
The stuffing box or stem seal will be the next problem and that’s all to do with your bonnet extension. That bits another story.
Now if you’re dealing with super fluids then you have a different problem all together. A lot of people give up with ball valves at this point and go to a globe valve because they can get much higher seat loads.
I’m puzzled, why are you re inventing the wheel but good luck anyway.
Fog Jones