HO scale beach ball

[Bill Gill]

This is how the inflated beach ball squeezed into the wayback of the HO 1948 Mini Metals Woody
http://www.finescalerr.com/smf/index.php?topic=2495.0 was made.

That small detail had several false starts but the final process might be useful for other projects. There were no photos of the intermediate steps, but the description should be enough to follow. If you have questions, please ask. Here is how it was done.

The colors and their sequence around the ball were found online. There were variations in ball sizes and the colors and their arrangement. I chose a size that fit the space and selected a color pattern I remembered.

A plastic BB was a good size. It was cleaned up with a little sanding.

A tiny needle poke marked a 'North pole' onto the ball. A drafting circle guide was centered around the pole and a fine line was scribed with the needle point to delineate the blue circular panel on the ball.

A simple jig was made out of a small scrap block of styrene. It held the BB when scribing the 6 'meridians' on the surface of the globe that separate the individual panel colors. A centerline was scribed on the block. A punch marked the middle of the line. A hole was drilled there. The hole was the diameter of the BB wide and the radius of the ball deep. The BB was press fit into the hole so that the scribed circle around the 'North pole' was bisected by the upper face of the jig and the 'pole' touched the jig's center line. Picture the BB like the rising sun cut in half by the horizon-jig face.

A needle point resting on the upper face of the jig lightly traced around the BB to scribe a 'meridian' line starting at the polar circle, around the circumference of the BB and stopping at the opposite side, on the polar circle. Before the BB was removed from the jig another needle mark was poked where the 'meridian' on the BB and the centerline on the jig met. That marked the BB's 'South pole'.

A narrow strip of frosted tape was cut to a length a little longer than the circumference of the BB, approximated by multiplying the drill size by 3 (the value the Kansas legislature once tried to declare as the legal value of π). Since 6 'meridians were needed to separate the colors, the circumference was divided by six. Those increments were ticked along the edge of the tape with a needle point. The tape was wrapped around the estimated 'equator' of the BB with one tick mark aligned with the scribed 'meridian'. The 5 remaining tick marks were transferred to the BB with the needle.

Then it was a matter of pressing the BB into the jig so that the N & S poles touched the centerline and 2 opposite tick marks touched the face of the jig. The needle lightly scribed each 'meridian' in turn.

When that was done the BB was barely sanded with very fine grit to remove ragged edges raised during scribing. A pin stuck into the South pole held the BB for finishing. Each panel was carefully painted with modeling acrylic paint (craft acrylics are too coarse). The scribed lines kept paint from spreading outside each panel. It took two coats for an even finish.

The BB was left to cure for a week, then gently polished with a soft cloth. Several thin coats of glossy acrylic varnish were applied to give the ball a shiny vinyl look. Any remaining faint traces of scribed lines looked like the heat welded seams of the prototype.

After all that work, the body of the Woody would not quite fit back on the chassis with the beach ball glued in place. The non-visible part of the ball had to be carved away to squeeze it in for a nice tight fit. Paint and varnish were touched up and the ball glued into the wayback.

That was a lot of words for a little detail. Appropriate for a project about a naïve family's idea of 'essential' for survival in the wilds of 1950s Vermont.

[Ray Dunakin]

The end result looks so good, it's hard to imagine how small it actually is, and how much work had to go into making something so small look so good!

[Bill Gill]

Ray, I keep hoping some day the lights will come on and I'll find a way to model efficiently...nah, where's the fun in that

[finescalerr]

You keep reinforcing the rule that the smallest details often require the most effort. -- Russ

[Bill Gill]

Russ, Is that rule sometimes also referred to as O.C.D.?

At one time I tried to survive as a Limner, drawing ink and watercolor "house portraits" for people. It was an interesting pursuit. One big advantage over photos was that I could easily incorporate all 4 seasons and many memorable events separated in a single piece.

The drawings were often called "architectural" or "whimsical", sometimes in the same sentence! I thought of them as "primitive Americana mixed with cartoons".

The biggest thing I learned while doing this is that major proportions could be off on the house or yard and that was fine, but get some inconspicuous detail wrong and likely the drawing would be rejected.