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Step 2Step One... The basic Circle
Here we go, the first step is to start laying out your cups. I use wooden clothes pins to keep the cups in position as we make our first "base" circle of cups. In comparison to the standard sparkle balls that use 12 cups for the base circle, we are going to use 30 - 10 ounce cups to start with.
Using the (and by now HOT) soldering Iron, reach into the opening of the cup, and push the hot tip through the side near the bottom of one cup and through the adjacent cups side. This in effect melts a small piece of each up cup together, creating what we would like to call a plastic weld joint. Now move the hot tip up and do another weld closer to the clothes pin. Now you should have two welded areas on your cup, and two cups welded together. Continue around the circle, welding the cups to each other, until you've done all thirty cups for the base circle.
When to put the holes in the bottom of your cup for your Christmas Lights to come through is up to you. Some people (using the hot Soldering Iron) will stack 4 or 5 cups and then push through all at once. I find this makes the holes too large in the first one or two cups, as the proximity of the hot Iron causes the opening to keep expanding. I prefer to just build a circle of cups, and then melt my holes, build the next circle, and melt. It is another option for your assistant(s) to put the holes in a half circle while you complete the other half. Notice the picture of the soldering iron, as it has a 'step' where the hot tip is narrow (like a pencil) and then gets wider (like a sharpie). Push (gently) on the cup allowing (not forcing) the hot tip to go through the bottom, up to the stepped area, then go ahead and push that through as well. this gives you a hole large enough to insert a single light easily. If you are thinking two or more lights in the hole, then make the hole larger still. I have heard of the option of putting multiple holes in the bottom of the cup, for the additional lights (if so desired). I have not tried that, as I think the more the holes, the less the structural integrity of the cup. And I build mine to last a long - long time, not just one season.
(EDIT: I found while making my latest sparkleball, that if you make a keyhole shaped opening in the BOTTOM of the cup with your soldering iron that it is easeir to insert the additional one or two lights, and greatly reduces the potential of cracking your plastic cup! See Below for what a keyhole opening looks like)
The next row of cups (@ least with Godzilla) was NOT rocket science. You weld one cup on top of the base row, and using your clothes pins, start building our second row. After you get the cups all lined up all the way around, THEN start welding them to each other, and to the base row. Any place they touch, you should provide a weld. Do NOT force the connections, but if they touch, you weld; its that simple.
There WILL be gaps between your cups, it is inevitable. Not to worry, for when your light (aka sparkleball) is hung outside and turned on at dusk or in the dark NO one will know!
Using the (and by now HOT) soldering Iron, reach into the opening of the cup, and push the hot tip through the side near the bottom of one cup and through the adjacent cups side. This in effect melts a small piece of each up cup together, creating what we would like to call a plastic weld joint. Now move the hot tip up and do another weld closer to the clothes pin. Now you should have two welded areas on your cup, and two cups welded together. Continue around the circle, welding the cups to each other, until you've done all thirty cups for the base circle.
When to put the holes in the bottom of your cup for your Christmas Lights to come through is up to you. Some people (using the hot Soldering Iron) will stack 4 or 5 cups and then push through all at once. I find this makes the holes too large in the first one or two cups, as the proximity of the hot Iron causes the opening to keep expanding. I prefer to just build a circle of cups, and then melt my holes, build the next circle, and melt. It is another option for your assistant(s) to put the holes in a half circle while you complete the other half. Notice the picture of the soldering iron, as it has a 'step' where the hot tip is narrow (like a pencil) and then gets wider (like a sharpie). Push (gently) on the cup allowing (not forcing) the hot tip to go through the bottom, up to the stepped area, then go ahead and push that through as well. this gives you a hole large enough to insert a single light easily. If you are thinking two or more lights in the hole, then make the hole larger still. I have heard of the option of putting multiple holes in the bottom of the cup, for the additional lights (if so desired). I have not tried that, as I think the more the holes, the less the structural integrity of the cup. And I build mine to last a long - long time, not just one season.
(EDIT: I found while making my latest sparkleball, that if you make a keyhole shaped opening in the BOTTOM of the cup with your soldering iron that it is easeir to insert the additional one or two lights, and greatly reduces the potential of cracking your plastic cup! See Below for what a keyhole opening looks like)
The next row of cups (@ least with Godzilla) was NOT rocket science. You weld one cup on top of the base row, and using your clothes pins, start building our second row. After you get the cups all lined up all the way around, THEN start welding them to each other, and to the base row. Any place they touch, you should provide a weld. Do NOT force the connections, but if they touch, you weld; its that simple.
There WILL be gaps between your cups, it is inevitable. Not to worry, for when your light (aka sparkleball) is hung outside and turned on at dusk or in the dark NO one will know!
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Nov 23, 2009. 8:15 PM
rabbit3
says:
rabbit3
says:
i used large paper clips to hold the cups
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