Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 21, 1994 TAG: 9412220016
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RAPPS MILL LENGTH: Long
The ball distributor is connected to the tracks. The tracks are connected to the auger. The auger is connected to the clumper dumper. The clumper dumper is connected to the ...
...oh, forget it.
You have to see John Schofield's ball machine to believe it - or to understand it.
Even then, you probably won't comprehend it.
Not completely.
There's just so much there to see and hear and watch.
Then there is its inventor. To understand why and how John Schofield built such a mesmerizing contraption is to understand much about the man himself, and about the ingenious spirit that makes mankind such an odd and interesting beast.
Or maybe it doesn't. How many people can honestly understand why someone, anyone, would build such a thing?
But there it sits in a ramshackle workshop on Schofield's farm in the Rapps Mill section of Rockbridge County between Buchanan and Lexington; a colossal cornucopia of twisted steel and motorized gears, bicycle chains and billiard balls; infinitely complex, yet remarkably simple; and bonded by the imagination.
Some would call it art.
Others would say it's just a big toy.
Schofield won't commit either way. "That's for the world to judge," he says.
His own introduction into the world of ball machines dates back to 1988 when he spotted a story in Smithsonian magazine about George Rhoads, a New York artist who builds audiokinetic sculptures.
The sculptures - or ball machines - employ an assortment of mechanisms to send balls around an elaborate, interconnected metal tracking system.
The result: utter, spellbound fascination. That's why Rhoads' ball machines can be found in airports, shopping malls and museums all across northeast America and Canada; in public places, where people can watch and watch and watch.
Schofield read the story and was immediately fascinated. A visit to one of the sculptures at Boston's Logan International Airport hooked him. "I couldn't be torn away from it," he says.
He wanted his own.
Building things has always come naturally to Schofield, 44. As a kid in the Philadelphia suburbs, he made his own arrows - but not just any arrows. His arrows sported real bird features along the shaft and stone or metal arrowheads that he chiseled or flattened into points.
"I was always building stuff like that."
As an adult, Schofield channeled this passion into building musical instruments. He is renowned in bluegrass circles for his handcrafted mandolins.
Of course, mandolins are one thing. Room-sized ball machines are a different animal altogether, as different as metal from wood.
Fortunately for Schofield, he had an arc welder.But he didn't get started right away. First, he had to hit total "mandolin burnout." Plus, he knew his history. He knew what a ball machine would mean. Complete tunnel vision.
"It's the way I do everything I do," he says. "In a frenzied flurry of activity."
It has been that way for Schofield since his days sharpening arrowheads or when he took up banjo playing at age 11 and practiced obsessively with every spare moment he could find. Or when he switched to the fiddle at 20 and did the same thing. Or when he started making mandolins. "It's just something you really have to grit your teeth about and say if you're doing it, you're doing it," he says.
A year ago, he finally got started, and sure enough, he stayed true to his nature. "From December through May, it consumed every moment of my life," he says.
At least it came pretty close. Schofield does manage to maintain a job as an environmental engineer for the state health department in Lexington. He also is married with four children and plays in a bluegrass band, Wild Grass.
He found the switch from woodworking to metalwork easy. Everything with woodworking and with making instruments has to be so precise, he says. "Welding is just so forgiving. You can get monkeys to make things."
For ideas, he borrowed heavily from Rhoads. "He's the inventor. He deserves the accolades," Schofield says.
"I am a mimic."
Essentially, Schofield's ball machine works like a miniature roller coaster, where the billiard balls are lifted by a motorized chain device from the bottom of the machine to the top. Once there, the balls drop onto a series of tracks, and simple gravity does the rest.
On the way down, the balls encounter a variety of obstacles and track variations and noise makers, which collectively account for why ball machines are so entertaining. Many of these elements Schofield copied from Rhoads.
There is the clumper dumper, a hinged, seesaw-like device that collects a specified number of balls and then dumps them all together onto another series of tracks below.
There is the auger or helix, which is like an oversized corkscrew that the balls ride down in a wild spinning spiral. There is the ball elevator and the trampoline that bounces balls freely into the air before they land on an old trash can lid turned upside-down.
The trash can lid is only one of the hodgepodge of items Schofield incorporated into his machine.
The trampoline is made from a spare part off a heavy-equipment loader. He used lots of saw blades, which make great noise makers when slammed into by billiard balls. He also used a metal mixing bowl from the kitchen, a set of skateboard wheels, a bathroom fan, a soup can, a pair of wood blocks from a drum kit, a homemade xylophone, homemade chimes, chain from a hay baler, bungee cord, a fire bell and a timing gear from a Chevrolet.
Unlike Rhoads, Schofield confesses that no real order or design went into building his ball machine. "As far as layout, I had no plan," he says.
It was strictly a piecemeal process. He built a clumper dumper. He built a mill wheel. He built a trampoline. That left him puzzling over how to connect everything. Nothing came easy.
Schofield built dozens of pieces that didn't work, scrapped them and tried again. "The way it evolved to this was by trial and error."
As a result, the finished product turned out far from perfect, he says. Mainly, his machine is too cramped, making it difficult to work on. Schofield's machine also runs too fast compared to Rhoads' more tranquil creations.
"They're real real peaceful," he says. "This one can only run about 10 minutes before there are balls all over the room."
That's a slight exaggeration, but it is true that a ball machine isn't just any piece of art. It's art with moving parts.
"If you want zero maintenance, you buy an oil painting," Schofield says. "You don't buy a ball machine."
In fact, he wants to sell his. But not because of the maintenance. He just wants the space.
To build another ball machine.
He wants to try one using bowling balls. Maybe one that plays Dixie.
"This is a ball machine, OK. The next one is going to be a grand ball machine, the mega ball machine," he explains.
Meanwhile, Schofield would love to see his ball machine displayed in a public place, like the Roanoke Regional Airport or Center in the Square.
When contacted about the ball machine, spokesmen for the airport, the Art Museum of Western Virginia and the Science Museum of Western Virginia all expressed interest, but they said cost, as always, would be an issue.
Schofield shrugs. "How much do you think something like this should cost?"
Then he cites the "Aurora" sculpture by Albert Paley outside the airport, which cost $50,000. Sculptures like Paley's are fine, he says, but a ball machine, now, that's entertainment.
"You feel sorry for these people whose flights have been delayed. Then they can say, 'It wasn't so bad. I had this strange thing I watched.'"
by CNB