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Finding a large, hard, perforated metal sphere
My initial approach on the Ephemerisle giant koosh project isn't working.
Originally, I planned of connecting all the pool noodles to eight small metal carabiners in the center via string attached to the pool noodles. Each carabiner would hold all the pool noodles for 1/8 of the sphere.
Unfortunately, it looks like this approach doesn't work well. The noodles tend to clump up in large clusters all pointing the same direction, which isn't very interesting to look at. In addition, since the noodles are free to move inwards toward the carabiner, a small number of them get pulled in further than they should, resulting in the other ones pointing in funny directions.
I think there are a couple of things I can do to address the problem:
1. Wrap a foam ring around the noodle a couple of inches from the end. This will thicken the noodle into more of a cone so that it's forced to be at a different angle from its neighbors
2. Attach the ends of the noodles to the surface of a section of a sphere. This will prevent the noodles from sliding too far in and will further reinforce their pointing at the correct angle.
So I'm looking for a sphere around 18 inches in diameter. It needs to be strong, solid, and perforated or wire mesh. My first thought was to cut up a colander. There are colanders that big (like this one), but none of them are spherical, and most would require drilling additional holes and chopping off various handles.
There are metal accent balls, but they're either too small (like these) or too sparse. Plastic spheres (like these) are also an option, but they're likely too weak to support the force put on them by the noodles.
Maybe the right solution is to buy some heavy wire mesh, clip it so it can be folded into a sphere shape, and reweld it, but I'm thinking that this is way too much work to take on unless it's the only possible solution.
Any suggestions?
Originally, I planned of connecting all the pool noodles to eight small metal carabiners in the center via string attached to the pool noodles. Each carabiner would hold all the pool noodles for 1/8 of the sphere.
Unfortunately, it looks like this approach doesn't work well. The noodles tend to clump up in large clusters all pointing the same direction, which isn't very interesting to look at. In addition, since the noodles are free to move inwards toward the carabiner, a small number of them get pulled in further than they should, resulting in the other ones pointing in funny directions.
I think there are a couple of things I can do to address the problem:
1. Wrap a foam ring around the noodle a couple of inches from the end. This will thicken the noodle into more of a cone so that it's forced to be at a different angle from its neighbors
2. Attach the ends of the noodles to the surface of a section of a sphere. This will prevent the noodles from sliding too far in and will further reinforce their pointing at the correct angle.
So I'm looking for a sphere around 18 inches in diameter. It needs to be strong, solid, and perforated or wire mesh. My first thought was to cut up a colander. There are colanders that big (like this one), but none of them are spherical, and most would require drilling additional holes and chopping off various handles.
There are metal accent balls, but they're either too small (like these) or too sparse. Plastic spheres (like these) are also an option, but they're likely too weak to support the force put on them by the noodles.
Maybe the right solution is to buy some heavy wire mesh, clip it so it can be folded into a sphere shape, and reweld it, but I'm thinking that this is way too much work to take on unless it's the only possible solution.
Any suggestions?
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buy a basketball from Walmart
buy a bunch of long lag screws/threaded rod
buy a can of expanding foam
buy a roll of Gorilla tape
cut an X-shaped opening in the basketball large enough to fit your hand
push the lag screws through the inner surface of the basketball
screw the foam noodles to the lag screws
tape the the lag screws into place inside the back of the basketball
fill the basketball with expanding foam
tape up the opening you created in the basketball with gorilla tape
Not sure if that's more/less work than welding up a wire mesh/sphere though.
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(Anonymous) 2010-06-04 02:24 pm (UTC)(link)2) wrap it in a protective covering.
3) wrap it in chicken wire. A couple of layers would be best.
4) connect the individual carabiners (that are attached to your foam rods). Attach carabiners to a few of the strands of chicken wire for added strength. (that's why you wrap
a few layers of wire.)
Have more control over the shape this way, and since individually attached, should be able to get more koosh-like movement.
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