I had seen a picture of some wooden balls in a catalog and having a new lathe thought I'd try to see if I could make one. I didn't have very high expectations for the finished product, but when it was done, I liked the way that the wood grain was visible at all angles in the ball. It was also fairly easy to make - less than an hour, which was a nice change from making something that takes 10 hours or 30 hours or 300 hours.
I ended up going through most of the kinds of wood I had in my shop, and a few more I bought for variety (list
here). I generally made as large a ball as I could from the size of wood that I had. Since wood is most easily available in planks of thickness under 2", most of the balls are just under 2" in diameter. I could have laminated boards together for a larger ball, but that seemed to defeat the purpose of a nice continuous grain.
For finishing, I sanded the balls on the lathe, and then applied a coating of wax. On most I used up to 600 grit, which gave a nice semi-shiny matte finish. I also made a few where I continued on to 1200 grit followed by a 5 micon
abrasive. These have the kind of shiny finish you might associate with a billiard ball. There are a few details on the technique that I used
here.
| Material: | Various |
| Construction: | Turned |
| Finish: | Goddard's Cabinet Maker's wax |
| Size: | 1.3" to 2.6" dia |
| Done: | March, 2010 |
