Making Rolling Ball Sculpture: GO

welcome to my first making video on my rolling ball sculpture go i want to hear your comments let me know what you like or don't like about the video maybe things that can improve this is my first one so for this sculpture i had a chain lift drive in mind but i needed to find a base so carrying on the bicycle theme pedals and other used parts i've collected i put together a base that i was pretty happy with i like the three petals on there so now sorting through the the sprockets i've got and some chains i like the idea of a larger sprocket and a smaller sprocket so i start fitting some of these things together finding which ones i like which sprockets look the best i have the best kind of design to them and then also trying to find bearings and things to fit them that's a big part of this process yeah the design of course have to do everything with the design in mind but but mechanically putting everything together finding the right pipes the pieces of stainless the bearings to fit so everything will actually physically work together well that's really important so i've put together a stand a frame that i can mount the sprockets on i think i like it seems to work sometimes i do i redo things two three times until i get it the way i like it yeah but this is gonna work mount it like that on that base cool okay so sprockets chain mounted it's a little tight at this point but that's easy enough to to loosen off a little most important at this point is making sure the sprockets are lined up well because if they're not lined up really well lined up together you're looking at potential derailing okay now we need a drive sprocket i've got to put the motor on here somehow i don't want to put it directly behind the the small sprocket or the big sprocket so you know i used another short piece of chain and a small sprocket from a derailleur off a bicycle and here you go this works well i like it notice my coupler there of a piece of tubing i like it works good reliable that's most important this thing has to work and work and work for years okay ball lifts how am i going to attach ball lifts to this chain and this idea was going around in my head for quite a while a u to hold the sides and one rod to hold the bottom so the marble will balance in there we'll hold in there so another tricky part of this is all of these little lifts these little scoops have to be exactly the same the same height the same depth they all have to be mounted on the chain exactly the same way because if one's a little off you're going to have accidents the scoop's going to hook the ball is going to fall out something's going to happen this seems to work okay made a whole bunch of them polish everyone up this isn't just a lift every sculpture every weld every piece has to be polished if you don't they have a lot of staining from the welding for most of my sculptures i like them shiny well my customers my clients like them shiny i have made a few sculptures where i leave the the welds raw but that's for effect okay the little scoops are on the chain they seem to work pretty good but there's a lot more involved yet yeah seems to work okay now we get got to get the marbles off the lift this little fork with a divider yeah this should do it here it is mounted still needed and needs more tweaking but works here's a proper left right switch this one works really well these have to be reliable they actually take a little bit of abuse from the the hitting of the marble so i gotta build it strong has to work every time reliability yup important okay got that mounted let's put a corkscrew on here things like a corkscrew well every element actually helps define the the shape of the overall sculpture putting this at the side gives sort of boundaries to the to the visual aspect to the to the sides of the sculpture helps define it that's pretty good i like it okay got a couple of corkscrews yeah let's mount another left right switch right here here's a clamp that i've had made up this is how i uh connect all my straight lines straight rods it's always best to connect to join the rods on a straightaway much more reliable here's a little dumper it's got a ball weight on the back end of it it takes two marbles and then dumps it doesn't dump on the first holds one second marble comes along and dumps the both of them yeah looks good okay here's a sprocket that's going to carry the ball the marble down a level i had to fidget with this for a while but works pretty good and it's a neat visual element looks really good right in the center there and a loop-de-loop always a crowd pleaser everyone likes those and the chain's running here i ran that chain all the time just about to make sure it works now here's the pickup for the marbles a little fork and a stopper at the end they're little a little 90 degrees seems to work pretty well now you you can see better my idea for the little uh scoops right why they were three pronged like that seems to work pretty well all right let's put a uh a spiral in here right about right about there yeah mark the the rod with red marker so i know exactly where to splice it in okay starting to take some shape here starting to look good a few more pieces to put in but overall not bad i like it the chain's running still making sure that it's not going to cause problems and how do you like this uh this bowl here i like this one visually it's cool but it works really well and it's quiet too i like it so i make a lot of the the components on the bench first then add them later this is a little jumper with a hinge on the bottom yeah and careful a little bit warm flip it over and so things like this with a hinge on them take a little bit of abuse they gotta be strong gotta make sure it's the welds aren't gonna fail so give it a shot from both sides make sure that one's that one's solid and here it is largely complete i've got supports in between the different rails to reduce the shaking and movement and this is the time where i can do quality control to make sure there aren't any flaws just like in this left right switch here it didn't switch yeah those kind of things are really easy to correct at this point sometimes something's just not quite in alignment needs to be correct a little bit maybe a slope on a curve can be improved part of the problem is the marbles are there's variation in the marble sizes some are they're really close but some are a little bigger some are a little smaller that means weight but it also means that some marbles sit higher in the rails and some sit lower so the only way to really prove this is just to run it so i decided the whole time here i was making this i was looking at the those three pedals and thinking this could use a bigger base something something to sort of ground that's something for it to sit on so this is what i decided on it's a maple covered maple veneered piece of plywood i finished it up nicely and on the bottom side i've got a little laser engraver i engraved the name of the sculpture and the month and year it was completed and yeah so here we are on the base running on the bench now this is this is sort of the quality control section and there's that sprocket spinner that uh in action i was talking about and here's that bowl nice and quiet and nice and prolonged and at this point there's not a lot left to do except uh clean off the workspace put down a nice backdrop set up the sculpture and take some nice photos and video use a couple of sidebars to cover over the work area that's not covered by the backdrop check out this sprocket chime what was that if you look at the black petal arm you'll see i engraved in the name of the sculpture go i like to have it up front too up top not just underneath on the bottom of the base but up top so people can see it and that is my process that's how i go from idea to parts and pieces to a completed sculpture hope you've enjoyed this and if you have i'll really appreciate if you can put some comments down below let me know what you thought of the video and please hit subscribe and hit the bell so you'll know when i post new videos you

Channel: Objects In Motion

Views: 10,295

Keywords: Rolling Ball Sculpture, Marble Run, Kugelbahn

Id: XY2PQEeL4D0

Length: 11min 59sec (719 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022