Garden Art Experiment-Part 2

Hemispheres taped together.

Today's post shows the next part of my experiment: to create a substrate for a gazing ball.  Sunday's post  showed the steps for making the form for the ball.  By comparison, today's post is rather short.

Covered with layers of dry wall tape.

Once the two hemispheres of the ball were taped together with masking tape, the whole area was covered over with paper strips painted with glue.  Every bit of the taped section was covered with three layers of paper painted with multipurpose white glue.  (Again a reminder: do not use school glue.  That glue is water soluble.)  Once the glue was dry, I began to cover the whole ball with two layers of self-adhesive alkali-resistant dry wall tape.  I suppose that this step could actually have been started before the glue was dry, but I found that I tended to brace the ball to keep it still while I was adding the dry wall tape.  I did not want to get glue all over me.

It was raining hard while I was busy gluing the hemispheres of the ball together.  If the glue had been dry, I would have been tempted to put the ball outside just to see how waterproof this ball actually was.   However, the glue wasn't there yet.  And, of course, if it had not worked, then I would have had to start over again to get back to the point that I am at now.  So, that may be an experiment for another day.  And perhaps I will do it with a smaller ball just to make for a quicker experiment.  And, it will be easier cleanup if the experiment fails.

2-2-2014

The dry wall tape is very thin.  By adding two layers, it created a slightly thicker area on which to lay the grout.  which is the next step in my process.  In theory, the grout will harden around the mesh giving it a little something to hold on to while it sets up.  Once the grout hardens, the ball should have a solid layer of cement around it.  This smooth hard surface will be the substrate on which to begin the process of decorating the gazing ball.

Unfortunately, it is raining again today so I am not going to be outside grouting the ball.  I'm glad it is not snowing.  I could do grout inside, but the downstairs work shop is taken up at the moment with my husband's project.  He is busy restoring the cider press.   By the way, if you have never grouted a ball, it is a bit of a mess.  When working with grout, make sure your work surface and floor are protected with plastic.  I'll have to check the package information on the cement to see if there are temperature restrictions on working with the grout.  If it is too cold, I expect I'll drag out a tarp and protection for my folding work bench and get to work in the middle of the downstairs workshop.  I expect to have the ball grouted by next blog post one way or the other.  Check back to see the results on Sunday.

My post was so long last Sunday that I forgot about posting my picture for the Field Project. (See December 2014 2013 posts for details.) So the field picture above is a picture I took at the usual time on Sunday morning.  Still not much difference in the field, other than that last weeks snow had melted.  I expect we will see more pictures of snow.  The extended forecast has more wintry mix and snow in it.