Basket Balls

[David Delo]

Cherry, oak, poplar, cherry burl and spalted beech spheres. Some all natural wood and others embellished with paint, dyes, inks, eccentric splits with Lindsey inlace.

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[Sid Matheny]

I thought this was going to have something to do with March Madness! :) Those look mighty good and something my wife has been asking for.

[Robert Hayward]

Nice job, I like what you have made. I have had a sphere turning setup in my shopping basket a few times and never pulled the trigger. One of these days...

Okay, so tell us how you made the spheres ? Also how you cut the embellishments ?

[Adam Petersen]

Very cool! I agree with Robert, tell us more. The X looks like an Xbox symbol.

[David Delo]

I thought this was going to have something to do with March Madness! :) Those look mighty good and something my wife has been asking for.
Thanks Sid. Was thinking of putting Easter in the title but the shapes weren't really eggs even though a couple of them have a little Easter egg coloring.

[David Delo]

Nice job, I like what you have made. I have had a sphere turning setup in my shopping basket a few times and never pulled the trigger. One of these days...

Okay, so tell us how you made the spheres ? Also how you cut the embellishments ?
Sometime I used an old Carter sphere jig, sometimes use a Berger caliper and sometimes just freehand. Depends on how long it's been since I've done a bunch to fill up a bowl or vessel. Have a couple ways to do the splits. One is sort of homemade with a couple rubber chucky sphere chucks. I'll post a picture later, it's packed up for a demo tomorrow. The other version is copied from David Reed Smith. Here's a link to his version of a sliding eccentric chuck, works great. http://www.davidreedsmith.com/Articles/SlidingEccentricSphereChuck/SlidingEccentricSphereChuck.pdf

[David Delo]

Here's a couple pics of the jigs I've been using to create the incisions/splits into the spheres. I'll eventually add a vacuum line to the variable sliding jig but for now I haven't had any problems using it as a jamb chuck with painters tape. As pictured, it's set up with a 1/4" offset with the pin serving as a zero position stop.

The jig with the rubber chucky sphere chucks has a 3/4" x 10 threaded bolt epoxied into a countersunk hole with enough threads for the rubber chucky to attach and be secure. Works really well to hold the piece in place and holds spheres from 2.5" to well over 4". Downside is it has a fixed offset distance so there's no adjustment.
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