Cup & Ball Challenge - May 2010

This is another in a series of posts regarding older projects.  This was done in late May of 2010.

Mine's not completely done as I'm still applying coats of wipe-on poly, but I don't want to miss out on this challenge. I made mine out of apple wood and made it unique in a few ways.

I made it quite small and simply designed. However, the ball isn't really a ball. The end of the catcher thing has a slight point turned on it; the ball has the same design - round except for a blunt point, just like that on the end of the catcher. It's rather easy to catch the ball with the pointed part down (even without string), so that's where I'm going to attach the string in order to make it more difficult. The other end is going to be connected to the pointed end of the base of the catcher thing so a good amount of momentum needs to be used to get the ball high enough to catch, again making the game more difficult than it would be otherwise.

Also, since I'm rather new at turning, I decided to use this project to practice. (One of the reasons I made it small.) I used a roughing gouge to round the branch, remove the twig remnants, and take off the bark. Other than that, the only tool used was a skew chisel. 


Somebody on WoodNet mentioned that they need to find somebody who would make one small enough to fit on the head of a quarter.  Well, I had to show off a little!

I put it off to the side to show the quarter. And if you leaned forward to look at the pictures, the force of your breath on your computer screen has probably disbalanced this and caused it to fall over...  Without the ball, it fits nearly perfectly with about 1/16" to spare all around.