Making the Balls & Lanes
I took some time lapses along the way because I thought it would be cool to see how the work accumulated over time. I didn't record every step, but it's enough to get a taste of all the work that went into it. It's a good thing I didn't take timelapses of all the learning, preparation, planning, sourcing material, and cleaning steps because the video would be at least 10 times as long and 100 times more boring. Both the balls and lanes are about 80% of the standard size.
Making the Lanes
The lanes are 7.3ft wide x 6in deep and 50ft long. They're built with ~50 4*6 pressure treated timbers, staked and screwed together. The curve of the lane was screeded with a template and tamped by hand more times than I care to count. The lanes sit on a foundation of ~6 tons of gravel. They have a 2% grade toward the road for drainage.
Making the Balls
The balls are 7in x 4in wide. They're made of 5 layers of hardwood Maple, turned using a duplicator lathe, laser etched, and finished using hardwax oil. They have a 4mm recess on one side (to create a slightly favored side).
If you haven't already noticed, they resemble cheese wheels.
About the Balls
There are 24 balls across the two lanes, and each set of balls features 12 unique bird designs. The fronts of the balls also have 3 different designs for added variety. The laser etching are of birds are all commonly found in Ohio, same with the foliage.
Rococo Influence
The most common questions about the balls are about the laser-etched artwork.
When I conceived of adorning the balls with etchings, I scoured the internet for designs for purchase and eventually settled on a set from an artist on Etsy. I'd worked with the designs for a few months when Kathleen (one of the Silos owners) asked me "how do you know it's not AI art?" Once she asked, I couldn't unsee the flaws in the original designs (legs that turned into branches, missing legs, etc) and came to terms with the fact I'd purchased AI junk. I figured I could make better, or at least more relevant, AI junk myself.
If you haven't noticed, I enjoy a good rabbit-hole, and while frozen out of my garage shop, I spent a week studying European art history of the 1700s-1900s and trends in Belgium at the time. Around 1890, when Belgians first immigrated in mass to the United States, an artistic movement called Art Nouveau (a precursor to Arts & Crafts) emerged from Brussels, Belgium, and spread across the continent. But, I didn't like the style, so I chose to rewind another century to the tail end of the Rococo era.
The Rococo era was characterized by the first wave of mass-produced European art. The French had just discovered how to make high-quality fabric prints, and the European middle class went completely overboard with consumption. Some examples of this era include a room wallpapered in prints, chairs covered in it, and a bedspread made of it. It's garish and fantastic at the same time.
I had originally purchased chinoiserie style prints (a French imitation of Chinese art) from the same era. Still, they felt like an odd fit for a Belgian game. Instead, I used a toile de Jouy print style. This print style is named after the suburb of Paris where the French first discovered how to manufacture the high-quality prints of the Rococo era. While not Belgian, the style would have still been popular in the country in the 1800s.
I hated using AI art, but it felt fitting of the Rococo era that I was emulating. What could be more garish than completely covering months of craftsmanship with laser-etched AI art?
It's terribly beautiful.
Reflecting on building the Lanes
Frankly, building these lanes was a foolish endeavor. When I first conceptualized the task, I told myself that I could knock out the lanes in a few good weekends and the balls in under a month. Every old man that I asked for advice rolled their eyes at me and said some variation of "that's a LOT of work, you'll be working on it for a long time."
Turns out there's some wisdom in conventional wisdom. In reality, this project spanned almost 8 months. It certainly didn't help that I had no idea what I was doing. Or that I did most of the work in little 2-hour windows after my toddler went to bed. Or that I did most of the wood turning in my unheated garage in December, January, and February. Or that... you get the point.
Was it foolish? Yes. Was it fun? Absolutely.