Alright folks, gather ’round. Today’s project? Fixing a beat-up volleyball my kid left out in the rain for weeks. Looked like a flat pancake. Figured I could give it some life with some old timber scraps I had laying around the shed.

First things first, I grabbed the sad volleyball. Felt practically empty! Poked it, squeezed it, confirmed it was definitely dead. Needed a core again. Had this chunk of pine left over from building the garden bench last summer – seemed decent enough.

Step two: hacking wood. Pulled out the old hand saw. Didn’t bother measuring precisely, just eyeballed a piece that looked roughly bigger than the ball’s bladder. Sawn off a rough block. Took a hammer and a wood chisel and started just… whacking away. Chipping off chunks, trying to get it kinda spherical. Made a huge mess on the garage floor. Sawdust everywhere! My neighbor saw me out the window looking mad, probably.

Shaping took forever. Went from a square block to a weird lumpy thing to… something that vaguely resembled a sphere. Used coarse sandpaper, then finer stuff, rubbing that wood down until it was pretty smooth. Still not perfect, but hey, it’s hidden inside, right?

Then, the messy part. I needed to get the wood core inside the old ball cover. Cut a small slit in the rubber bladder carefully with a utility knife. Emptied out the last bits of crumbled foam. Felt gross. Now, stuffing that solid pine sphere back in… that was a fight! Wood didn’t want to go through the slit. Greased it up a little with some leftover beeswax, pushed and squeezed and grunted. Finally popped in. Victory!

Sealing the deal: Slit still gaping open. Mixed up some epoxy resin I had for some old chairs. Slathered that stuff all over the slit on the inside, pressed it shut tight. Held it closed with duct tape while the epoxy cured. Looked messy as heck. After it dried hard, checked the seam – felt solid.

Final inflate: Pumped air into the valve. Held my breath… and it stayed up! Took pressure. The timber inside made it heavier than a normal ball, no kidding. Kicked it against the garage door a few times. No explosions. Success!

Lessons learned?

• Eyeballing measurements leads to a lot of extra sanding.
• Pine is cheap, but heavy.
• Wood glue? More like wood ooze everywhere.
• Duct tape solves most immediate holding problems.

Was it perfect? Nah. Worth the hassle? Probably not. Will my kid actually use it? Maybe once. But seeing that flat, sad ball now bounce again? Yeah, that felt pretty darn good. Sometimes you just gotta fix stuff with what you’ve got, even if it means stuffing wood inside a volleyball.