I read Laura's thread about the Quikwall sphere and thought, yay,
time to make that big ball I've always wanted! Something quick and easy,
just what I need!

I called my local box stores for the scrim and drew a negative, oh, well, I'll find
something else, it's gotta be today (yesterday).
I found some loose weave fiberglass cloth left over from a bunch of big signs
we made years ago. Cool, that might work, draped obligingly over
the big ball in the mist/drizzle, resting on a garbage can.
I mixed up a batch of the quikwall stuff and had a fabulous time
spreading it on, thinking all the while what a great idea this quikwall stuff is.

It didn't seem to be curing after several hours, still very soft.
Oh well, go plant some stuff that's been waiting. Then It seemed like
it was getting firmer. I decided to turn the ball and do the other side.

SLOOSH! Like a wet nightie off an upside down girl on a trapeze!
I stood there laughing for a good ten minutes, thinking about America's
funniest home videos.

Then: Dammit, i want a ball! So I got some chicken wire and carefully
formed it around the ball, no more than 1/8" off the surface
and very well attached.
Having had enough of quikwall for the day, I mixed up a batch of
vinyl patching cement I had left over from an earlier (successful) project
and commenced to spread it on (still having a great time!)

First hemisphere done, pretty close to the mesh, I went home after wetting it down.
This morning it looked...odd. I touched it here and there and a few hexagonal
"cookies" fell to the ground. On closer inspection, it was clear that
the concrete was not really touching the ball, there was a layer of air
between it and the surface. It was pretty much cracking along the wire,
in many places. Oh, it must be on too thin, let's turn it and
do the other side thicker. Said and done, cover with plastic, go feed the Koi,
give it a few hours.

A few hours later, still some "cookies" and air under the concrete,
this thing is BREATHING dammit! It was like a p.o.p mask under the throat
where the victim had been swallowing and the p.o.p never set properly.

Meanwhile, layer one, where it was holding together, is getting quite hard.
FINE! You sit there til you're set! I'll re-coat this thing til it's
a ball, one way or another. Maybe I should move it into the garage..
It's definitely moving all the time, must be expanding/contracting with the
weather.

I'll use the quikwall yet, on something less volatile, no slur on you, Laura,
you obviously succeded wonderfully with your ball, it's beautiful!

I'm curious now, about these blow-up balls, what ABOUT the expansion as the
temperature changes. It must move. This is a big ball, granted, but even
smaller ones must have some movement while the 'crete's setting.
What's up?

I must have been the luckiest person around when I slapped some quickwall on that ball and everything went right. I think it is the mesh that you need to change. I am out of my free scraps and have to find a source. The mesh you need is used in the stucco business. A search for EIFS or stucco mesh should help online.

About the expansion of the ball - My attempt with a one dollar cheap-plastic-feel blow up beach ball was a complete failure. The walmart ball that was 16 inches in diameter with a much thicker-feeling wall made me 3 perfect spheres with no trouble and then failed during sphere number 4. For 2.50 $ I didn't expect it to last forever but it sure is a mess when they fail. So - for 3 sessions there was either no expansion due to temperature changes or the resulting sphere was not effected by whatever tiny expansion there might have been. Our temps here lately have been a very humid 98 during the day and down to 70 at night. I have used Quickwall and a regular portland mix with the mesh and the ball and never had any trouble unless the ball actually sprung a leak during the night and shrunk to nothing.

good luck! get better mesh and try again

ps. how in the world did you get chickenwire to take a ball shape over a ball? I can't get the nasty stuff to do anything I want.
Laura

It wasn't the scrim, or lack of it anyway, or the chicken wire/patching cement
would have worked (it still may). I swear it felt like trying to set p.o.p
on a moving object, that odd, soft feel, not the reassuring stillness
of setting concrete.

The size of the ball (28-30") and the weight of the cement, some flexing too,
it's pretty bouncy, must be part of the movement issue.

You can stretch chicken wire towards the "poles", run a wire through it
to hold one side, then pull up the other side, and squeeze the hexagons to
oblong. Fine tune by grabbing the little twisted sections and torque them sideways
and by cutting off any excess.
The trickiest part was not puncturing the ball with the cut-off ends.
I'm off to check on the latest development.

Next time I'll pump up the ball more, too, it's lost some air in 10 years.

I just went up to check on the ball, the chicken wire is now 1/2" from the surface.
It was at 1/8-0" at noon, all around. This ball is breathing!

I may still try the scrim on it, climate controlled.

I removed all the "cookies" before they cured completely, inflated the ball
to the chicken wire size and put a roll of p.o.p bandage on it.
The temperature has stayed even all day and there is no change in size.
The plaster is set and I'm doing 'crete next.

The movement was the whole problem. For the next one, I'll try concrete over
scrim if I can find it. only one place over an hour away had it at 78.00
for 30"x150', only. Don't need that much yet.
But now the problem is identified I may just stay with chicken wire
(I have tons) and a fairly thick shell for this size.

Laura, here's a link for the balls. I hope they mean DIAMETER.
I got tricked once, the fine print said "circumference".
One ball blown to bits :-o

The air inside will expand when the ball is left in the sun, covered with concrete or not.

This is how we all learn physics! There's nothing like failure to teach a good lesson! (I should be approaching BRILLIANT by now!)

Sue

I have made a few spheres using a Walmart ball and also a big cheap beach ball. One thing I did that helped was to first wrap the ball in baling twine. This is nylon multi-strand string. I wrapped the ball up like a spider-web. I also taped the string to the ball where ever it started slipping off here and there. I had 3 inch x 24 in strips of lath that I could tuck into the spider web of string. I worked my way around the ball over several days - tucking more strips of lath into the web and patting my mix over that area. The lath never punctured the ball (pure luck) but tucking some mix under the sharp edges of the lath helped too.

The big beach ball lost air every day. I made sure to reinflate it often. That was the hardest part because I was so afraid of exploding the thing! Oh, my big sphere is not quite round but if you roll it right, it looks ok.

Good luck making spheres...I think the exercise ball would work great, I have one too and will try my luck with it soon. If you are brave...Target has a 50 inch diameter playball! = Carol

Intercourse with reality tends to do that, keeps us young!

Rick, it's all galvanized. I'll try the mesh when I find it. I think chicken wire
may be a good idea for bigger things, but it needs something smaller-meshed too,
tying those "cookies" together.

I've actually considered a geodesic sphere for a really big ball,
but the Target one sounds intriguing, 50", oh my!!
Carol, what have you done!

THANKS PUP! Where were YOU Saturday!?

You know, I always wanted to try one of Bo Atkinson's 5' tire pots,
built on a sand bottom over a truck innertube, beautiful!
He never mentioned anything about the rubber expanding and contracting.
Suppose he figured any dumbo would know that.
Hmm, that would be an interesting base for a 5' ball..

Soo.. are we on the verge of a big ball epidemic?
Come on Laura, what are we waiting for, frost?

Here's a link to Bo's web page about sand molding, the basin is towards the bottom
of the page.

area of surface of sphere = 4 X p X r (squared) (p means pi which =3.14) so for this 52 inch diameter that would be 4 times 3.14 which = 12.56.
r squared is 52 times 52 = 2704 so now we have to multiply 12.56 times 2704 which gets us 33962 sq inches of area on that ball surface.
33962 divided by 1296 (inches in one square yard) = 26 SQUARE YARDS of mesh for one ball. Adding 20 % for overlapping edges means we need 31 square yards of the mesh.
One source sells mesh in my city for $30 for one roll that is 150 feet long by 9 inches wide. That is 12 square yards so I would need 3. If my many calculations are correct I would need to invest $ 90 in mesh for this project. YIKES.
Heeding Rick's warnings about the potential for being run over by the dang thing, I think maybe I will try a 30 inch ball first!!

Just think.. if we ever make the BIG ONE, it won't fit through gates or doorways. I think we better build it about where we want it to stay! Let's see, if I can make a 16 inch sphere that weighs just 9 pounds, how much will a 52 inch sphere have to weigh? I don't think I have the math skills for that calculation - even with help from the internet. wait... I just did the formula above for a 16 inch sphere and the surface of that needs 2 and a half yards compared to the 31 yards for the 52 inch ball. That is 12 times as much. I am not an engineer but something tells me that big ball is going to need a lot thicker coat of concrete too. I think we are in big trouble weight-wise.
sigh, Laura
Surely we could do it for under 300 pounds. I wonder how many concrete leaf makers it takes to move a 300 pound 52 inch concrete orb??? If anyone figures this out be sure to factor in that my yard is on a slope... easy to start but hard to stop .

Isn't it r squared x pi? R here being 27". I never remember these things when needed,
it's too late for math, but I know cloth and what it covers, I'm a costumer.

I read your "cheap beach ball" post and had a good giggle.
I really like what you made of it!

I'm lucky to have double doors everywhere, no way am I building that
out in the sun!!
How about a dolly, no, a chariot, Helios, you know, driving the sun out
into the pastures of dawn! It IS late. But I like the idea.
Gold leafed.

My off-hand guess is 10 40lb bags of whatever. 400 lbs, so what?
Don't want it to blow away, do we? I have a pair of lions that weigh 1200lbs each,
we moved them with a backhoe, up.
I figure three naked men with fig leaves and laurel wreaths on the level
and five on a slope.
When do we start?

Glad you figgered it out. See, cheap too!

Now that you have me picturing the naked men in fig leaves and laurel wreaths pushing my ball up the slope I am getting more interested than ever in making a big sphere.
Laura

One of my employees came out and wondered how "the death star" was doing.

I think 5 or 6 bags would be plenty for big boy, say 220lbs. A layer of
diamond mesh might be in order, lapped pieces, like your (still elusive) scrim.
The sphere itself, if the concrete is sound, is full of inherent structural virtues,
I think that's part of its appeal T.E.

Life itself is in love with the sphere, space is crawling with them and
you and I began as little balls.
From soap bubbles to dwarfed stars, versatile, mobile, ubiquitous, what's not to love?

A garden, our own little portrait of the universe, is a natural for homage
to the sphere.

What came first, the chicken or the elongated sphere?
I rather like the squashed ones too, like whatshername's pumpkin (a must-make).

Target, now, around here, has decided outdoor play season is over. Nada.
I found the beast online (California, play season permanent) for 33.00 +sh.
How much was the Target one Carol, are you still with us? You started it!
And chocolate boxes to you for that!

One other thing, I was going to close the "navel", once the ball is out.
Is that a bad idea? Some feature of physics I'm still blind to?

Laura, thank you, I'm gradually weaning my business from me.
I'm lucky to have a very competent and creative daughter and a great staff.
It took over 30 years to get it there.

As for the boys a-playing with the ball, isn't that what they always want anyway?
Volunteers?

Here's a link for the marketing division to ponder:

Jo

The big playball at Target was probably around $30. I just wonder if it could support the weight of the concrete? My original plan was to make several large spheres--34"--and put them out in a pasture. Paint them like pool balls (stripes and solids?) with cattle grazing around them. Someday. I love the pic of the big blue balls along the road. Really impressive.

Definately, do not try to stop a rolling concrete ball. Just grab the kids and hope the damage is otherwise minimal!

Did you leave that hole open?

I think once you,ve got a rigid skin on it, gradually reinforcing it
with mesh/lath/chicken wire, 50" should be fine.

The wind was from the north today, first reminder, thought I'd be pleased
after this summer!
And I'll be working 30 hr. weekends all September, drats!

Whatever would we do without google image search!?

Hi Laura, Your perception has been shared by untold numbers of high
schoolers who've left broken and bent pry bars attempting just what your
imagination suggests. In fact, there is a huge concrete caisson going ten
feet into the ground below each "ball" which has a heavy steel tube that
connects to a cast in structure in the bottom half and continues up to the
top where it indexes into a hole at the very top. Each sphere weighs about
ten thousand pounds. They might as well try to roll a house down the hill.

Thanks for your interest,

Steve Gillman

This question popped in my mind.
How many pounds of Tufa has everyone done in this group?
I've tried to add mine up.
Almost 3 bags of White portland 230 pounds.
2 bags of Gray 180 pounds.
40 pounds of peat.
160 pounds of of copper slag.
At least 400 pounds of misc sands and rocks.
So far this year I have made around 1000 pounds of Crete stuff and it wasn't that many pieces.
This doesn't include the several cubic feet or perlite and vermiculite.

I decided to, uh, put wings on mine. Just cut one out of lath.
This is an older idea, not sure if it's going to work yet.
All I know is it won't look like an air force emblem.

I found a roll of "pest screen", fiberglass, at Lowes, 8" wide, price ok.
Seems like it's going to work. For me it's just to facilitate application,
the real reinforcement is the chicken wire.

P.o.p gauze appears to be strictly art material these days,
"surgical gauze" is no longer available at our serious pharmacies.
What do they use for fractures?