I started making these a few years ago after seeing some designs on the internet. There are some amazing creations and some people even make a living from building them.  I like art that has movement or does something. You can hang a picture on the wall and admire it but you can’t interact with it.  Since I didn’t have a welder I started with bamboo skewers and thin garden wire. I eventually bought a high powered 50 Watt Soldering iron so I can make wire ones. In summer 2009 I bought a 100 Watt soldering iron that is excellent.

You need a high power soldering iron to make metal Rolling Ball Sculptures because the track draws the heat away from the joint. With a low power soldering iron you don’t get a good join.

A welder is the ideal tool for metal rolling ball sculptures but they are expensive and take up a lot of space so I don’t have one… yet!

“Rolling Ball Sculptures” is the fancy name given instead of “marble runs”. I can why people prefer to call them this since “marble runs” doesn’t quite do them justice. It does mean that people searching on the internet might miss what they are looking for if they don’t know what most people call them.

Every so often I get emails asking me to do commissions. This is not something I am able to do at this point in time. Maybe in the future! If you want to buy a Rolling Ball Sculpture I have linked to some websites that sell them.