March 3, 2006

Surprise boules

One of our Canadian friends spending the winter in S. Florida brought us some "boules". He had bought them at a flea market. They looked all right on the outside, but they weren't rolling very straight... So he decided to give them a good whack with a big hammer, and look what he found. He brought them to us as a souvenir when he came for - you guessed it right - a new set of real boules.


They're macro pics, so by clicking on them you get a close-up.
I swear we're not making this up!

We wondered why a factory would go through the hassle of forming a glued sort of sandball, sticking a threaded rod through it, and then cast the metal around it.
Well, sand casting is a traditional, though quite labor intensive foundry method. No need for welding.
But the most likely explanation is that sand is a lot cheaper than steel, especially since steel prices have almost tripled over the last 3 years.

2 comments:

Baby Nubbins said...

Hmmm those look like the boules Joe Zajac uses over at that Michigan Petanque Club of his... KIDDING!

It just goes to show you, that you get what you pay for. When you buy boules for $20 - you're going to be buying Sand!

Anonymous said...

Okay DPC, Just don't tell anyone that I got that sand from Miami Beach at the PAO open! That was a secret trip, and now you've found me out! My boules are rigged and ready for action... ;-)

Joe
MPC!!!