Big Metal Ball!

I haven't been posting for a while as I've been working a lot in college, making a larger "egg" in the form of a metal sphere. It's about the size of a very large beachball. I'm using the metal workshop facility at ECA to do the cutting and welding.  I started by making a ball-shaped inner frame (from steel rod bent and welded into position) and then I cut eight organically shaped plates out of sheet steel (using a plama cutter - loved using this!)

Here are some of the pieces, once I had bent them roughly into the shapes I wanted.

My general idea is to hammer, shape and texture the plates so as to achieve an organic look and feel to the final ball, loosely based on an ink drawing of fallen chestnuts which I did last autumn.

The above small maquette illustrates my original idea, although the finished ball will look a bit different (less overlap between the plates, and a hollow interioir which I may or may not fit something into).

So how far have I got? Well I have textured/distressed some of the plates by bashing with hammers and nails, and I rusted two of the plates to a lovely orange colour in my back garden using sandpaper and a vinegar/salt mix (amazing how quickily the rust appeared, almost instant). Yesterday I also coloured two of the plates using the oxyacetalene torch to make oil-like patterns and dots on them. I have also now welded five of the plates on to the ball. (I did do six but then decided one didn't look right so I had to saw it off, aargh. Sod's law that was the one I'd actually managed to do a decent welding job on...)

More pictures of the developing ball to follow soon...