How to Carve a Ball in a Cage Out of Wood

Hi, today I will show you how to carve a free moving ball in a cage out of a single piece of wood.

I love this project because everybody you show it to wonders how you managed to get the wooden ball inside the cage without breaking it. And they will be amazed when you tell them that it is made from one piece. Because of that I think this is a perfect wood carving project for advanced beginners, intermediates and professionals.

It takes some time to complete but it definitely pays of.

What you will need:

1. a piece of wood that will fit the desired dimensions of your finished cage, I recommend using a soft wood like basswood, especially if you are a beginner, it doesn't need to be square
2. a small sharp wood carving knife

(3.) not necessary but still useful: a larger knife, a chip carving knife, a small Victorinox knife and a honing strop to keep your knives sharp

For demonstration purposes I used the small wood carving knife for 99% of this project.

CAUTION: These knives are no toys, handle them carefully. Keep your knives sharp: Dull knives require more force to cut through the wood, so there is a greater chance of you slipping and cutting yourself. Be prepared in case you cut yourself: Keep something to treat the wound close to where you are carving.

Start by drawing the outline of your square cylinder on to the endgrain of the wood to help getting it perfectly square.

Then begin carving away material, leaving a part on one side in the original shape of the piece of wood as a base for the cage to stand on.

Keep removing material until you are left with a square cylinder, as shown in the picture

Draw two lines around the circumference of the cylinder. These lines mark the top end and the bottom end of your cage.

Then draw lines for the "corner bars" of the cage. They should all have the same width. Pay attention, not to make them too thin and keep in mind that you will remove some of their width later when smoothing them out and making them look clean.

Now mark the top and bottom of the ball in the middle of the cage. The distance between those two lines should be the same as the width of the square cylinder, in my case 20mm.

Finally mark the spaces that need to be removed with an "X" as shown in the picture.

Score along the lines of the "X"-marked rectangles, making sure to cut straight down into the wood, as shown in the first two pictures.

Then begin removing the wood inside of all marked rectangles, like shown in the following pictures, until the four "corner bars" are separated from the support columns in the center of the cage.

Continue whittling down the central support columns, as shown in the last couple of pictures, but do not remove them yet.

Now score along the remaining "corner bar" lines, separating them from the future ball.

Then start carving the central cube into a round cylinder first (shown in the first four pictures), before taking of the edges around its top and bottom, like shown in the following pictures.

While shaping the ball keep cutting away at the central support columns, making them and more more narrow.

Here you can be creative and add your own personal touch by shaping the top however you like.

If you need to make deep cuts (like I did here), you should make them now, while the support columns are still there. This way you don't risk breaking the corner bars of the cage.

Keep shaping the ball and removing more and more material of the support columns, until the ball is relatively round and only attached to the four corner bars and not to the support columns.

Now you can remove the rest of the support columns.

First smooth out the top and bottom of the cage, as shown in the first picture.

Then separate the ball from the cage and start smoothing out and cleaning the rough looking parts of the cage bars.

Hold the ball through the cage bars with your thumb and index finger and carve, as shown in the picture.

Remove the last bumps and edges from the ball until it can smoothly roll in the cage.

Clean up the outside of the base and the cage by carefully removing a thin layer of wood, as shown in the first picture. At this point it is helpful to wear latex gloves, in order to keep the wood clean.

Finally, if not done so already, make the finishing cuts to the top of the cage.

Congratulations, you are done!