Let's start from the beginning...
The first Rolling Ball Sculptures (RBS for short) I made were with construction paper and used BBs when I was in elementary school. I had a friend named Duane Brown and we would sit in front of my house and play with BBs and construction paper. We called them ball trails. I still have a hard time calling them Rolling Ball Sculptures. To me they are still "Ball Trails." We would start the RBS at the door knob and bend a paper u for the ball to ride in. We would cut slots in the paper and bend and tape to make curves and one even had a loop! Being made of paper, they didn't last long though!
One day my family was at a crafter's mall called Olla Podreda and they just happen to have a big metal RBS. It was inspiring! Every time we went there I wanted to see that thing.
My dad told me that at the Spaghetti Warehouse in downtown Dallas they had a RBS also, so one day he took me there. It was about 5 or 6 foot tall about 2 foot square footprint and was made out of clothes hangers type wire. There were no curves on it, all the turns were like corners. The entire track had four wire (two for the track two for rails). However, the thing was old and worn out and many parts of it were either missing or didn't work. Still my brother and me would take the ball and start it back to the parts that did work. It was still cool even though it was very messed up. One day we went back to the Spag Warehouse, but it was gone. Just about my only motivation for going there had disappeared.
We were at the grocery store and my dad was getting some toothpicks for some reason. They were flat as opposed to round toothpicks. A light went on in my head to try to make a RBS out of out of flat tooth picks! I basically would take Elmer's glue and glue toothpicks together to make a long support stick and tracks.
One toothpick RBS that I remember making in Junior High was really slick. it used tooth picks and BBs. It had three trails and was really nice. My dad took it to work with him, and they broke part of it. One of the guys at his work offered $25 for it. When I found out he would give only $25 I just burst out laughing ($25 HA). Days later I had it on my bedroom floor and my dad during the night came into my room with the light off and stepped right in the middle of it totally crushing it. The next day I took it out to the back yard and set it on fire. My brother told me later that he helped me make it, but I think I would have remembered that. He would argue with me about it so I finally gave in and said OK you helped me make it. Like it really mattered anyway because it's long gone now. I think he helped play with it after it was made and thought he remembered helping make it.
Another toothpick RBS I made in Junior High used a stryfoam train tunnel as the base. The BBs would go in and out of the side of the stryfoam train tunnel. I took it to school one day, and it seemed that no one thought it was cool. I was kinda bummed about that.
I made this ball trail while I lived in Henderson Texas too. I had very little money while living in Henderson, and I came up with the idea to build it for him as a birthday present to remind him of how we used to build them as kids. It took about 40 hours. It also uses a 1/2 inch ball and works great about 80% of the time. It has only one trail. I learned a great deal on this one. This is the one where I was still bending the wood with my teeth a-la-toothpick style. This is the first ball trail where I began using Bass wood sticks instead of toothpicks and began using hot glue instead of white glue - it went much faster. He absolutely loved it! It really surprised me that he kept it all the years and would show people and such. After he died, I got the ball trail back. It's now sitting on top of my TV entertainment center.
I made this ball trail while I lived in Henderson Texas. I made this after I made the ball trail for my brother. It took about 40 hours. It uses a 1/2 inch ball and works great 95% of the time. It has only one trail. I learned a great deal on this one. I stopped biting and bending the wood with my teeth and began wetting it and putting it in a peanut can and letting it dry. When the sticks dried they would hold their round shape. That made great curves and helped keep the balls from bouncing off from bite indentations. I took it to Electrospace where I worked and all the ladies made fun of me for it.
I made this RBS after the tall ball trail as a test to see how quick I could make a wooden ball trail. It took about a 10 hours. It uses a 1/2 inch ball and works great every time. It has only one trail. My mom and nephew wanted to learn how to make ball trails, so one day I had a class in my dining room with them. My mom's turned out ok, but my nephew's didn't. He was really too young at the time to understand about banking curves, etc. He got really frustraited and cried and such. I'm pretty sure he still likes ball trails, I just hated to see it turn out that way, though. You really have to have a lot of patients and care to make wooden ball trails.
I made this ball trail while working at Hematronix. John Yundt worked there and he commissioned me to make it for him. It took from November 13th 1994 to February 21st 1995 to build this RBS. It uses a 1/2 inch ball and works great 95% of the time. It has three ball trails each with their own elevader all powered by one motor at the bottom. The trails are connected in such a way that if you turned it on and put one ball on it the ball would run through all three tracks. It has a loop (hard to see on the picture but it's in front on the left). It has a big dip, and even has a jump that's a couple of inches distance. John Yundt paid me $500 for this RBS (I'll never price them that cheap again! It's too much work.) I also made a video - The making of John Yundt's ball trail for him for free - I kept the original but I don't know where it is anymore - It's pretty boring though so I dont expect anyone would want a copy anyway. He tells me that when it gets humid the elevaders don't work so good.
I made this ball trail after the John Yundt's ball trail. It took a couple of months to build. I gave it to her for a birthday present. It uses a 3/4 inch ball and works great 95% of the time. This one has a clock at the top. She put it on her mantle over her fire place (they never use the fireplace by the way). It has two tracks, a loop and a few fast curves that go all the way side ways. I think the 3/4 inch balls work really good. They're heavier so they stay down on the track better.
This RBS was the first one I made using plastic resin. I made rubber molds of all the wooden tracks and then I cast them with the resin and then assembled them into a ball trail. This method is a little faster (but not by much) than the wood ball trails and the size of the tracks are a little more standard. I tried a bunch of different glues, but nothing seems to work except hot glue. I was really trying to get away from hot glue. My intention was to sell them, but it still takes too long and they aren't very sturdy.
This RBS I had on top of my TV center. One day it fell off down behind the TV center and shattered! I don't think that this resin method is a good choice for RBSs.
This one I made March 2005 out of pipe, Galvanized wire, and lead free solder. It works great all the time. Rarely if ever does the ball come off the track. This is more like it. It has a loop and banked curves and hangs on the wall. It also has a level and thumb screws for leveling. I think this one is the best method so far. It goes much faster building it and it's a magnitude more reliable. I still think wood looks cool, but this is really the way to go. I think it takes about 4 seconds to complete. I sold it on ebay! So, hopefully I'm in business.
This one I made April 2005 out of copper pipe, 16 Gauge craft wire, and lead free solder. It works great all the time. It has a corkscrew loop and banked curves and hangs on the wall. It also has a level and thumb screws for leveling. It has a smiley face for the end. It's very quick so run time is about 6 seconds! This one is a lot bigger than the previous sculpture at 22"Y x 13"X x 11"Z. I sold it on ebay!
Here's some video of the Flower Vase Ball Trail in action.
This is a small ball trial I made. It looks vaugely like the Sun Java Duke icon from the Java Language. It took a couple of days to build. It's 7.5" tall x 8" wide x 5" deep. It sold on ebay!
This is a small ball trial I made. This sculpture has a dark purple frame that is shaped like a cross. The track is blood red and has the letters JESUS SAVES embedded in the track. Try to see the various letters in the track. It took about 4 days to build. It's 8.5" tall x 6.5" wide x 8" deep. It sold on ebay!
This is a small ball trial I made. I did this while teaching my daughter Bethany how to build ball trails. So far she hasn't finished hers. Hers looks like this one but with purple track. It took a few hours to build. It's 4" tall x 5.75" wide x 7" deep. It sold on ebay!
This is a medium sized ball trial I made. I did this one out of eight gauge copper wire. 8 gauge wire is sturdy and thick. What's cool about it is you don't have to bend the track ties for the ball to go over it, and since it's bare copper you can solder right to it without sanding or bending a hook. I worked constantly on this one without stopping mostly and got it done in a day. It's 11.5" tall x 8.5" wide x 11" long. I've sold it on ebay.
This is a small sized ball trial I made. I worked constantly on this one without stopping mostly and got it done in a day. It's 7.5" tall x 7" wide x 8.25" long. I've sold it on ebay.
This is a medium sized wall hanging ball trial I made. This one features a really big swirl in the middle. I worked constantly on this one without stopping mostly and got it done in two days. It's 17" tall x 17" wide x 10" deep. I've sold it on ebay.
This is a medium sized ball trial I made. The trunk is a coil that the ball goes all the way sideways on. This one took about a day and a half. It's 16.5" tall x 15" wide x 15" long. The marbles are 1/2" which makes the track small. I've sold it on ebay.
This is a grand sized ball trial I made. This one took a few weeks to build. It has an atomic clock parts in it, however with the metal track and all I think it blocks the signal but the clock still works just doesn't reset itself. It's 5.75' tall x 14" wide x 10" deep. The marbles are 1" which makes the track big and the balls stay on really well. It has two loops and a third that is a double loop. It also has two mini ball trails to fill the empty space created by the drop of a loop. The drop of the loop at the top is hidden by the clock so I didn't bother putting a mini ball trail there. I really like this one. That's my daughter Bethany on the right.
Here's some video you can watch of the grandfather clock in action.
Here's some video of the Blinky Ball Trail in action.
This ball trail was my first try at making an RBS out of popsicle sticks. I used a dremmel tool to carve slots that the runners could be glued into. I used clear craft glue which worked great and is very sturdy and sticks fairly quickly. I used wooden clothespins and rubberbands to hold the track together while it dried. I used a pair of dikes to crimp the track to make the curves. I think I made this one sometime in October 2005. It took a great deal of time but it's really hard to sell.
Here's some video of the Popsicle Stick Ball Trail in action.
This ball trail was my first copper ball trail with bells. They're not very loud except for the big cowbell after the loop.
This one I made has a computer that controls the speed of the elevators. Each elevator is controlled by a stepper motor that runs the cork screw elevator. There's two tracks. The first track ends at the start of the second track's elevator and vice versa so a marble would go through both tracks continually in a continuous loop as the motors remain running. If I were to do it again, I'd make the motors more beefy or make the elevators lighter. The thing works but you can't have more than like 5 marbles going at a time or it bogs down the elevators. I guess that's acceptable, but I want like 20 going at one time! Actually with 5 going at a time, the RBS is plenty busy to watch, I guess I'm just a little greedy with wanting it to be able to handle more marbles. Also, having the black box in front is a little distracting. If I did it again, I'd probably cover the box with copper and/or hide it near the back. All in all, though, I'm pleased with the way it came out and I love the size of it. What I've found is that a motored ball trail is cool but it's much less interactive. I've noticed that people will come look at it and then walk away whereas a manual ball trail someone will look at it and then pick up marbles and play with it. So really a motored ball trail is cool but not all that cool. Perhaps a really big RBS with motors make more sense. There again a big RBS with motors still needs to be interactive with buttons or something to keep people playing with them.
Here's some video of the Two Elevators Ball Trail in action.
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This is a grand sized ball trial I made. This one took a couple of weeks to build. It has two tracks! This is the first RBS I made with 2" metal marbles. The marbles are those Chinese hand exerciser balls you can get a chinese shops. My sister bought me a couple for Christmas but she only gave me 4 that were 2.5". I went to a chinese shop and bought about 10 that were a little smaller at 2". With 4 I tested it, and the other 6 I'll give to whoever buys it. I have it listed to sell on ebay.
Here's some video of the Reconciliation RBS in action.
This is the first RBS I made in Acrylic. I made this one in Feb 2006. I used a propane torch to melt and bend the track and I used Weld-ON 15 acrylic glue to glue it together. This RBS is really just a prototype to making a bigger and better one, but for a first try it ain't bad!
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My dad wants me to weld big ones, and my mom wants me to add curly ornaments and glass beads. I have plans to use motors, LEDs and electronics. Who knows where this could go?
Send email to Jim Brown
A good clean joke is especially welcome.