This was created as a gift and as a fun project in my spare time. I was looking for the right material or object to make the pokeball out of and realized that it would turn out pretty good if I can somehow manage to make it out of a round coconut.

What you'll need is the following:

- one round coconut (as round as you can find it, a lot of different shapes out there)

- a small hinge

- Dremel tool or something similar

- a small knife

- white and red color (optional)

Step 1: Marking the Lines

The first step is to mark the lines of where you're planning to make the cuts to separate the coconut in two halves. Before you do the marking, it's useful to sand down the surface of the coconut to remove any of the hairs that it has. This makes it a lot easier to draw the lines and makes the surface easier to handle.

The main line around the coconut was drawn using a ruler and a marker. There was no precise science involved here and I was just trying to maintain a straight line from one end to the other. I'm sure that you'll have some better suggestions on how to do this, but it turned out great in this case.

For the small circle in the front, I've used a large bottle cap I had laying around and just marked around it with a pen.

NOTE: Try to follow the natural lines on the coconut surface to get a final nice symmetrical look.

Step 2: Cutting

NOTE: Before starting any work with the Dremel/cutter/any machine, please wear your safety goggles and a pair of working gloves!

After marking out the lines, it's time for the Dremel. I've used the cutting wheel that came with my Dremel 4000 and it did the job perfectly.

NOTE: You only need to cut the hard shell of the coconut so don't cut to deep in the coconut. Stop when you can feel the cutting wheel moving easily or when you can see the white meat of the coconut under the cut. Cutting any further will make an opening for the water that is inside to get all over your electric equipment.

You can start by cutting the main line around the coconut, just to get the feel for the hardness of the shell and how much force you should use (it's also easier to cut a straight line then a curved one :) ). After that, continue cutting the curved line to form the front face of the pokeball. Bare in mind, you only need to cut the UPPER half of the small circle in the front. See the pictures for different angles of the cuts.

Step 3: Separate and Clean the Shell

After you've finished your cuts successfully, it time to separate the two halves. For this step I used a regular butter knife (any knife would do) and just pressed between the halves and through the meat of the coconut. Do this around the whole cut line and separate the two halves.

NOTE: It's better to do this in your kitchen sink or a large bowl to stop the coconut water going everywhere.

After separating the two halves, you can use the same knife to remove the coconut meat from the shell (ply it off).

The last picture in this step shows the test fit of the two shells after they've been cleaned off.

Step 4: Channel Forming and Sanding

This step involves sanding around the cut lines to form the recognizable black lines of the pokeball. For this I've used my Dremel fitted with the drum sanding bit.

To make all the lines the same width, I've used the guiding attachment that came with the kit, positioned it to the width I wanted and started sanding. The sanding as usual takes some time, but do it carefully and you'll get great results in the end. Have a look at the pictures in this step for how the sanding turned out.

NOTE: Be careful not to sand down too much material or the shell might break!

After the sanding is finished, place the small hinge in the back of the shell. Try to center it and see if all the cut lines align well. If not, sand down any potential bumps and make the two halves of the shell fit as much as possible.

NOTE: At this point the pokeball looks pretty good and you can stop right here. If you like it without the colors, just finish it by gluing the hinge and keeping it as is. If not, on to the next step.

Step 5: Paint and Finishing

The paint scheme for the pokeball is pretty simple and consist of just white and red color (visible in the pictures above).

Unfortunately, I forgot to take more detailed pictures of the painting process, but I've took the two halves apart and used marking tape to tape of all the sections (in this case the "black" pokeball lines) that won't get any color. After that, I've started painting the two parts separately, applying three layers of color in the end.

NOTE: Because of the moisture in the paint, the coconut shells misaligned in the end and a little sanding was needed to get them to fit perfectly.

After the paint has dried, glue on the back hinge and clean of the pokeball.

The end result is a nice looking pokeball which you can use for storing candy, small stuff or something else, or just use it as a decoration.

Hope you like this project, it was a fun one to make :)

All the best