Spirals are a great way to break up the straight track, and to perform several
necessary functions. A spiral is just one piece of wire bent up into one
continuous circle. I start bending the spiral from the inside, or bottom. I bend
the entire spiral, then reshape it if necessary, to make the spirals even when
looking at it from the top or bottom. Then starting at the bottom and working up
I add spacers to keep the track in place. These are the trickiest parts of making
the spiral. If the spacing is off too much it can be seen, and the ball may
even drop out of it's path. Work around the spiral one spacer at a time.
Leave the wire at the top and bottom a little long, if you need to bend
it a certain direction, this extra length will be needed. To make things much
simpler, I would also suggest that you add the track pieces leading into and out
of the spiral on your workbench, before you attach the spiral to your sculpture.
This way you can turn the spiral any direction to make your welds, and it is
much easier to work with. I use 1/8" wire for my track, with thicker
wire for supports.
This flat spiral serves to slow the marble down. The marble rolls in fast, and spins around
against the guard rail. When it slows, the marble starts to follow the wire spiral to the
center. The track gets narrower as it gets closer to the center. The ball is actually
gaining speed because the circle is getting smaller, this makes the ball skip to another
track away from the center. The ball continues to roll, more slowly this time, and will
fall through this time without centrifugal force pulling the marble away from the center.
This spiral is tall and skinny. The marble rushes through
these spirals very quickly. This size of spiral is achieved
by bending the wire around a piece of pipe.
This pictures shows several spirals attached together. They
are all different kinds of spirals. Flat, medium, and tall. The
marbles in this picture are 5/8" (standard small) marbles.
I don't use this size marble anymore because it was too
hard to keep the marble on the track, and it was too
hard to see the marbles rolling from a distance.
Here is a single spiral. This spiral gets the track down and back to
the lift in a fun, fast way. Since the spiral is sideways from top
to bottom, the ball needs to be going fast to enter the spiral
and not drop out.
This is the finished spiral, before welding into place just about where it is now.
Here it is installed, welded into place with all 4 tracks emptying into it.
With a marble
The spiral supports before adding wire.
Here's the pieces of wire I will use.
It is important to weld as you go. Here are some welds as I am getting started.
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