The Forbidden Egg

Wow, that's out of the box. If I had hair I'd want to brush it!

It is thought provoking. Did you use am indexer of some kind or just lay it out?

Hey Sam, thanks for the kind words! I didn’t use an indexer on this one. I laid out the pattern by hand, and then drilled holes afterward.

Way to climb out of the box Michael! I love this beauty; it’s impressive that it’s done so cleanly without a jig. How does it look/ sit w/o the base…just curious. I like how the base is sort of not there! Excellent effort!!

Thanks a lot @Russ Braun for the compliments!

I made the egg from some laminated offcuts, so I had some horizontal glue lines to give me a little help with the spacing of the rows. But, it was mostly just elbow grease and taking my time that made it work. I was also able to bend the wires a bit afterward to clean up the spacing a bit. Not perfect by any means, but good enough for what I was going for! You can kind of see how the columns stray a bit in the overhead shot below:



It sits pretty well without the base, but isn't super stable--though, it wouldn't roll very far. I wanted to make the base as discreet as possible, so I just went for thin, thin, thin. It took a few tries to find a wood that wouldn't warp. Here's a pic of the base sitting next to the egg:

Michael Anderson said:

Thanks a lot @Russ Braun for the compliments!

I made the egg from some laminated offcuts, so I had some horizontal glue lines to give me a little help with the spacing of the rows. But, it was mostly just elbow grease and taking my time that made it work. I was also able to bend the wires a bit afterward to clean up the spacing a bit. Not perfect by any means, but good enough for what I was going for! You can kind of see how the columns stray a bit in the overhead shot below:

It sits pretty well without the base, but isn't super stable--though, it wouldn't roll very far. I wanted to make the base as discreet as possible, so I just went for thin, thin, thin. It took a few tries to find a wood that wouldn't warp. Here's a pic of the base sitting next to the egg:

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Part of the fun is placing it anyway you want!! You can then spend hours straightening the wires, haha!!

How cool is that? A time consuming project - but worth it. I hope you had a stash of that copper wire hanging around because at today's prices .... My quick estimate - approx. 73' @ $1 per foot ....

Tom Gall said:

stash of that copper wire hanging around because at today's prices

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Thanks, Tom! Gosh, you’re not wrong—I had around 30 feet leftover from the same project that the maple came from, but I had to bit the bullet for the other 40ish feet. I think I managed to find a 50’ roll for $35 though, which was steep enough!

Michael Anderson said:

Thanks, Tom! Gosh, you’re not wrong—I had around 30 feet leftover from the same project that the maple came from, but I had to bit the bullet for the other 40ish feet. I think I managed to find a 50’ roll for $35 though, which was steep enough!

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Haha! I was guesstimating from the photo that the wire was the same as your base pin - which you said was 10 gauge. But your post on another site you said it was #14 - considerably cheaper that #10.

@Tom Gall, right you are. Somehow that detail got dropped in my description—added in. I can’t believe how expensive wire is now. When I was putting in the wiring for my lathe, I watched a video that was maybe a year old. The guy doing the video said he paid something outrageous for his 10-2 wire. When I went to the store, I had to pay 2x more than that! I felt bad for the salesman I was talking to about wire prices. All he could say was, yeah that’s where we’re at right now. I’m sure he has to entertain a ton of complaints!

Michael I love this original art piece. Everything works together perfectly, Very Well Done!!!