Grand Prize Winner 2007

Art Ball

by Tom Stewart

Judges Notes:
Tom Stewart's artistic puzzle ball is immediately pleasing to the eye, but the more you examine it, the more you are left wondering how he made it. Tom's design and woodworking skills are apparent in the clean cuts and the smooth curves of the ball. The hollow sphere is made from numerous puzzle pieces, which each piece having a unique profile. To form the sphere, all of the individually-cut pieces must be perfectly shaped – inside and out. The combination of excellence in design and craftsmanship makes the Art Ball a winning entry. Tom's project shows ambition to stretch design and cutting boundaries for all scroll sawyers.

Tom Stewart took one look at the logo of Wikipedia (a globe made up of puzzle pieces) and knew he wanted to create a similar design in wood.

"I couldn't figure out how to curve the pieces of wood" Tom said. "I thought and thought about it, and kept rejecting ideas on how to curve it. Then I woke up one morning with the idea to use a grinder to curve the wood. After talking to a machinist, I realized that removing that much material would put too much torque on the grinder. Then an engineering friend suggested a router, and I had my solution."

The Lima, OH native determined the size of the pieces using a large exercise ball as a reference. The ball helped him determine the scale and symmetry of the puzzle pieces. Tom then built a machine that held the router while he curved a series of 4"-square pieces. The machine had to be adjustable to accommodate both the outside and inside curve of the pieces.

Most of the stock started out as rough-sawn lumber. Tom estimates three to four hours was spent on each piece, planning, shaping, cutting, and sanding. He used walnut, maple, cherry, and oak for the puzzle pieces and rotated the grain 90° for each piece to add strength to the design.

Tom cut each of the 130 pieces individually. "No two piece are alike," Tom said. "I had to cut each piece with the table tilted to an exact angle based on a point in the center of the sphere."

The difficult part about cutting was finding a blade tension that cut all four woods the same way. The exactness of the sphere depended on being able to cut identical angles on all of the pieces.

"It's been a life experience," Tom said. "I've got pieces everywhere in the house that go with this overall project."

The Art Ball is part of a much larger project Tom designed. It includes several other scrolled pieces, all of which will rotate using wooden gears. The entire project will be on display at Art Space Lima. Tentative plans to have the project on display at the SAW Expo in Ohio are also in the works.

Grand Prize Winner 2007

Art Ball

by Tom Stewart

The grand prize winner received a prize package worth more than $1,600 from these sponsors:

Prizes Include: