Scratch Built Pokeball WIP

[lizander]

Hello!

This is my first build log, so I'm open to constructive crit.

I've been working on this project off and on for over 2 years now, as I have time. At the time of starting, I had planned on being finished in a week or two... clearly that didn't happen!

I've gathered a lot of reference pictures, and images of artistic interpretations of the Pokeball, but I liked the style of the Slouchworx/Pallet Town balls:

I want this pokeball to be able to open, and while the push button on the Pallet Town balls is much larger than in the cartoons, at the time of starting, I felt making a small push button might have been beyond what I was capable of at the time.



I shopped around my city for a few days, looking for a sphere with the right dimensions, that was made of a decent material... Unfortunately I couldn't find anything, so I decided to use some Apoxie sculpt to make my own shell..

I used a process inspired by that MythBusters turd polishing episode ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI ) to evenly work the Apoxie sculpt around the styrofoam ball. I would smear some onto the ball, dampen it with water, then distribute the putty evenly.

If you look in the top left of this picture, you'll see two grey balls. These are the shells in progress, you can see a noticeable difference in the smoothness of the surfaces.



As you can see, it worked pretty well! It took absolutely for ever to get the finished sphere on the left though... I spent about 4 days just working the putty into as round a shape as I could.





After letting the Apoxie cure for a few days, I was ready to hollow the ball out. To do this though, I had to somehow cut the sphere perfectly in half, without going crooked part way through.. Not an easy task without a bandsaw or chop saw!

So I came up with this.

The tape held the sphere firmly without marking up the smooth surface, and the edge of the tape roll provided a straight guide for a hand saw to follow:


I then hollowed out the two halves, which left a pretty neat texture inside:


After smoothing the inside of the sphere out, I was ready to figure out a good way to join the two halves together. Since I had made my own sphere, it was difficult to find a ring that would match the inner diameter, so again, I made my own:

I just made a slab of Apoxie (wasteful, I know), and used two hole saws to cut the ring out.


After a bit of sanding to smooth the rough areas out a bit, things were starting to look pretty good:

In the background, you can see a mock up I made, to figure out my next steps without risking damage to the good copy. It was invaluable!

This concludes the first post, and covers about the first two weeks of construction.

 

[lizander]

Here's a few pictures of how things looked at this point:



I felt pretty pleased that the width of the inner ring was quite consistent around the perimeter:



So the next step was to figure out how I wanted the Pokeball to open up.. I poured over this thread http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=155972&page=2&highlight=pokeball but decided I wanted to make the insides as accurate as I could. This meant sacrificing some accuracy in how the ball would open, but I was okay with that..



I'm quite a fan of Apoxie sculpt: it's easy to shape initially, but after curing is hard enough to be able to drill holes into, and hold hinges in place.

At this point I glued the inner ring into the top of the pokeball, and built up an inner lip on the bottom half. This was so the pokeball would shut tightly without gaps.
I carved a slot into the upper and lower halves of the pokeball, so I could recess the hinge, and keep it as hidden as I could. I used hand files and picks to do so.

The below photo shows my initial mock up for the push button on the right, and the approximate size I was aiming for on the left. I debated just using magnets to keep the pokeball shut, but I thought a real, tactile push button would be more satisfying to make.

The red areas were where I decided I needed to add Apoxie in order to support the push button.






Now, this next part took me a while to figure out. I had already chosen the location for the hinge, and needed to find the location for the button. I felt it was critical to get the button directly across from the hinge, because I knew that if it was off center even a little, it would drive me mad, and make the whole project feel cheap.

I taped some floss to the pokeball, by the corners of the hinge recess, and anchored the other sides approximately straight across to the other side. Then I measured out where the halfway point was, and taped a horizontal line on.

I had initially planned on taking photos and using a photo editor to determine a point directly across from the hinge. This was too complicated to do though, as I didn't have a good way to hold the pokeball in place, and mount a camera directly above the pokeball.

Instead, I just used a protractor to measure out 90 degrees between the crossing strings, and adjusted the anchor locations until I was satisfied.




I then marked a point in between the two floss lines,


which would act as a guide for my hole saw.



Actually drilling the cut out was stressfull! I wasn't sure how the Apoxie would react to the hole saw, so I drilled a little bit, then let the pokeball cool down. Previous experiments showed that the Apoxie becomes flexible when heated, which was something I desperately wanted to avoid! I didn't spend all that time making a sphere only for it to warp and become egg shaped or worse.

The result was...mediocre. I didn't drill all the way through, as I wanted to finish the cut by hand. The smaller ring is how large the actual push button is, while the larger ring is about where I wanted the outer shell to stop.

 

[lizander]

I must not have mixed the Apoxie correctly, as some of it cracked while drilling the holes. I'm not concerned, the stuff that cracked was the extra that I added over the red areas, it's just a filler.


That's not a big deal though, I'll be removing the center portion soon enough




At this point, I spent some time planning out the best way for me to build a push button, with a durable latch.
Initially, I really wanted to make the button completely out of metal, so my plans focused on creating the cleanest looking button while using minimal power tools.
I tried a few different methods, but quickly realized that it just wasn't achievable in the time period I had given myself, with the tools I had available.

I went shopping at various hardware and plumbing stores, looking for a chrome ring I could convert into a button, and mount reasonably easily.

The above picture shows three different options I considered. All are similar in function, but they use different materials. I ended up going with the middle row, as it seemed like it was the easiest to work with, the parts fit together the best, and I liked the look of the chromed brass ring.

I found a spring similar in size to the copper tube, and tightened it up by heating the spring, and wrapping it tightly around the tube.


After fitting the brass ring into the pokeball, I assembled everything to see how it looked:


I was pleased with the proportions, and decided to continue on.

 

[lizander]

placeholder

 

[lizander]

another placeholder

 

[lizander]

one last place holder

 

[Xolin]

I must not have mixed the Apoxie correctly, as some of it cracked while drilling the holes. I'm not concerned, the stuff that cracked was the extra that I added over the red areas, it's just a filler.
View attachment 725887

That's not a big deal though, I'll be removing the center portion soon enough

View attachment 725888


At this point, I spent some time planning out the best way for me to build a push button, with a durable latch.
Initially, I really wanted to make the button completely out of metal, so my plans focused on creating the cleanest looking button while using minimal power tools.
I tried a few different methods, but quickly realized that it just wasn't achievable in the time period I had given myself, with the tools I had available.

I went shopping at various hardware and plumbing stores, looking for a chrome ring I could convert into a button, and mount reasonably easily.
View attachment 725890
The above picture shows three different options I considered. All are similar in function, but they use different materials. I ended up going with the middle row, as it seemed like it was the easiest to work with, the parts fit together the best, and I liked the look of the chromed brass ring.

I found a spring similar in size to the copper tube, and tightened it up by heating the spring, and wrapping it tightly around the tube.
View attachment 725891

After fitting the brass ring into the pokeball, I assembled everything to see how it looked:
View attachment 725889

I was pleased with the proportions, and decided to continue on.

Looking good! Can't wait to see how it turns out

 

[WireFox]

Great progress so far, inspiring build so far.

 

[lizander]

I recently rediscovered this project, and may pick it up again. I remember starting this project waay back in 2014 as a gift to a girlfriend, then shelving it when that didn't pan out. It's a little amusing to check back in with this project after all this time. I did some work on this project in 2017, and the replica progressed a little bit, and actually looks like a pokeball now.

Here it is in its current condition:

Originally I had wanted to make a functional metal push button, but my fabrication abilities simply were not capable of that.

I might have the process documented, but I mounted the chromed plumbing fixture into its place with polystyrene, and some more Apoxie Sculpt. It's not as low profile as I had originally wanted, so I doubt this pokeball will be modeled inside as originally intended.

Anyways, the pokeball has survived the last few years pretty well. There is some patchwork, and general putty work to be done, but I could paint this after a few hours work, and be pretty happy with it. At the same time, my design skills have improved quite a bit over the years, and it might be more fun to make a higher quality pokeball with what I have learned, and some modern techniques.

Who knows what will happen?

 

[NCHammer]

It's probably the epoxy colour but it reminds me of the Pokeball from Pokelantis:

Still a great build regardless of where you go with it!