The frame has no glue and is held together with 600 M3 bolts. Each face plate is a coaster that is held to the frame with magnets embedded below the veneer. The designs are all inspired by a trip through Europe that my wife and I were lucky enough to take with our dogs before the pandemic; each plate is a different stop on our trip (plus one for each of the three pups). The back of each coaster has the name of the city or town (also in marquetry). I am still learning about marquetry and creating these designs taught me a lot. There are loads of chips, scratches, and other learning things… but still fun to do. No banana handy for scale; each coaster is approximately 10.4 by 12.5 cm (4” wide * 5” high). The whole thing is about 40cm (16”) high.
The final hexacontahedron is made of
452 birch ply pieces in the frame
60 birch ply coaster plates
300 Magnets (five magnets in each plate)
1500 pieces of veneer. Approximately.
600 8mm steel M3 bolts
600 M3 nuts
300 sticky rubber feet (for the coasters)
so… about 3800 parts.
It took me a while to work out how to have the coasters removable… though I think I would be hard pressed to ever have an occasion that required all 60 to be in use at once.
The internal workings are a thing of beauty by themselves, and could easily be displayed that way, but having the ability to swap or move the plates around is fantastic. Perhaps one day I’ll put this much work into anything that I do
Having the sphere (with all of our trip’s stops) sitting on the counter the last few days has brought back a lot of great travel memories for us too. Hopefully we can all travel in safety again one day in the not too distant future.
