An interesting commission from the AGO for a travelling exhibition. Examples of the AGO Ken Thompson collection of prayer beads can be found on-line.
The core of the prayer bead had been carved in miniature to depict scenes from the bible. I was commissioned to produce copies of the bead that the public could handle while the inside was being rapid prototyped.
01 – The original beads were turned from boxwood which is quite expensive. Because the beads would be handled (and likely broken) while out for public display we chose to work in hard maple The blanks ready for turning.
02 – Here you can see the plastic reproduction I was copying, , the original prototype I made (to figure out the process) and the real sections being turned in sequence. I was making three spheres.
03 – Beginning the hollowing process.
04 – Here you can see the marking out of the spheres, the pre-drilling and the cutting process started.
05 – The cutting was done on the scroll saw rotating the blank on an angle
06 – All the rough cutting complete.
07 – Back on the lathe re-turning the inside to finished dimensions.
08 – The half sphere is held against a jamb-fit chuck by a dowel nesting in the tail stock. The stopped detailing and cutting for the hinge is done with a small router set-up.
09 – The hinge sections rough cut. One man down.
10 – Cleaning up the handle and pin section.
11 – One by one in sequence.
12 – The sections all fit together ready for drilling of the hinge pins.
13 – All drilled out. You can see hinge pin before trimming. I used a hollow sleeve glued into the material to support the pin.
14 – The plastic version above and the open maple one below
15 – One of three completed spheres. Sometime later small diameter woven steel cable would be secured to the bottom so the sphere wouldn’t wander out on display.
