Faux Tesla Coil Halloween Project Part 2

I started my artistic rendition of the Tesla coil by wrapping copper wire around the metal stand.  The metal spheres on the tops of the pillars could have stood alone as accurate representations of a Tesla coil spheres.  However, they did not have the stage presence of the toroid shape that is being used in large Tesla coils today.  I decided that the thing to do would be to exaggerate the size of the spheres in order to draw more attention to them. 

My next move was to decide what size the spheres ought to be.  That was a rather hard decision to be making at this point.  The stand that is the base of the coil is not an ideal height.  If I kept it at that height, I will be working with really small figures as I move on to the detail of the piece.  If I wanted everything else to be on a larger scale I had to figure how to raise the height of the piece.  Once I figured that part out, I figured the size the spheres should be in relation to that height.  Of course, once the spheres became larger, the pillars looked too spindly.  I’ve determined the fix for that also, but I’ll blog more about it later as I apply that fix. 

Coils look spindly in relation to spheres.

I also had to determine what I was going to use to make the spheres.  There were a number of options, but some worked better than others.   I started with foil, but I could not keep the size consistent between the two spheres.  My next thought was Styrofoam balls, but I could not find them in the size I wanted.  Plus, they came in a bag of a dozen and I only needed two.  I kept going through options most of which were too big or too small.  It finally occurred to me that I had something at home that was the right size if I could just make it work over the existing sphere.  At home I had some medium sized glass Christmas ornaments.  The size was right for the project, but the neck of the glass ball would not fit over the sphere.  That was something I could work with though.

I determined the diameter of the metal sphere on the stand by using a pair of calipers.  I marked the measurement on the Christmas ball.  I covered the glass ornament with masking tape everywhere other than the area marked off as the opening.  Then I used a pair of pliers to break off the neck of the Christmas ornament.  Once the glass was out, I added more masking tape around the area of the broken off glass so that the glass was completely taped.

The glass globe was still quite fragile, so I covered it with about an eighth inch layer of paper clay.  After the globe was covered, I checked to make sure that I could still get it over sphere at the top of the pillar.  I had to make a couple of adjustments, but eventually I was able to produce a sphere that I could fit over top of the existing sphere.  Of course the diameter of the opening is wider that what was up there in order to slip it on.  So now I had to tape and glue the sphere to keep it in place.   It took some patience, but eventually I had the spheres set where I wanted them.  They still seemed a little wobbly up there, so I covered the sphere and pillar with a layer of paper maché.  Now they are quite firmly attached.

Once I was satisfied that the spheres were firmly in place, I gave them two coats of silver metallic craft paint.  I will put a coat of sealer on the spheres at this point.  There will be more detail added later, but I want to make sure that this segment of the project is well sealed now because it may be more difficult to do it later.

The biggest challenge of the project is not to make a representation of a Tesla coil.  The biggest challenge is to be able to blend this into the theme of Halloween.  That will come later in the project.

Next blog:  Other pieces of the diorama.