A Better Way to Make a Steel Sphere for Firepits or Decoration

Hello Folks this is my first instructable... i tend to make things organically, so you arent going to get any measurements out of me... my apologies.

I made a sphere, out of metal, its pretty big and pretty cool... I had been thinking of how to do it without resorting to some other giant ball like i have seen in other tutorials... when I saw how brick layers make domes with a pivot... so i made a 360 degree pivot with an adjustable arm. I kinda over engineered it. I think you could accomplish something just as good with an upside down steel swivel caster on a post with the wheel removed... just take a look at the photo of what i made and throw it together... that's how i made it, no measurements... just kind of stuck it together with some crappy welds, old conduit, and other pieces of scrap metal... really fast.

Welder and safety equipment... a metal bender that can make a hoop... something you can use as a pivot.... like a spinning caster on a post... or the monstrosity in the picture of the first step, that i threw together in an hour... maybe some bricks... to rest the steel starting circle on.... a bunch of flat, relatively small, metal things you want to make the sphere out of. It can be anything, but keep in mind that only the inside diameter of the sphere will be flat.

Make a 360 degree pivot... honestly it does not need to be as complicated as mine... a spinning caster on a post will work.... you can do what i did in the pic, or remove the wheel from a caster and weld a tube to the axel thing left over.... add an arm with a flat piece on the end. It helps to make this adjustable like in the Pic... i drilled two holes added two nuts, put a bolt through them and welded on a little scrap steel... Essentially DIY wingnuts. this way I can move the bar in and out to adjust it. Make sure there is a wide Base so you can weight it down. The measurements don't really matter all that much. just make it solid. I welded a flat piece of scrap on the end of the arm to hold stuff to... this helps make the inside uniform... the larger the items you are welding together the larger you should make this part so it can hold those items 90 degrees to the center of the sphere.

Its probably a good idea to make it level and straight up... i used a cheap post level you can see in the pic.

The steel Hoop works as a starting point to weld to... and it looks good... drop it around the pivot and level/ hold it up with bricks or something... make sure your supporting hoop is stable.... you can even weld throw away support bars on the sides. Adjust the pivot arm so that it touches the circle all the way around and keep in mind that your sphere size will be determined by the length you adjust the pivot arm to. .. if you don't want to buy a metal bending tool to make it, you can just buy a steel hoop from somewhere... Old XMas wreaths are built on steel hoops (turn that trash into treasure) ... or you might be able to just clamp the first thing you start with, and go from there. It isn't necessary to start on a hoop, just easier, in my opinion

hold whatever you are making the sphere out of (in my case horse shoes) to the flat part of the pivot arm and tack it to the steel hoop starting point, you can use anything weldable... keep going around in a circle and adding to it, till you finish... the more connection points the stronger it will be... add some supports as you go... i just welded on a bunch of scrap rods and tried to make them vertical... make sure they are firmly pressing on the floor before welding..

lift it up and tear off the supports...

Congrats you made a Sphere!

You can also go crazy with the finish work like i do, but i'll let you make those steps yourselves... the finish work always takes the most time. P.S. if you want to do a firepit, its a good idea to make the steel hoop big enough to put the fire bowl through. So maybe buy or find the firebowl you want first, and measure the hoop you use off of that.