Vintage Base Ball Association | Links / Homemade Lemon Peel

by Billy Pollifrone

Introduction

Having been in the business of making lemon peel base balls, I can say that it is a rewarding process. With prices for commercially made ones as little as 7 USD, it's not something that a single person is going to sit down in their spare time and be able to compete, but it does make for good interaction with spectators. Describing what is in the ball certainly works, but having them be able to see the inside of the ball, or having 4 at the various stages or having them do a couple stitches goes much more than the former. Another interesting activity is to have a workshop where kids get to make their own lemon peel ball and then later get to use it in a game. In this article I will give instructions that will show how to make your own lemon peel ball.

Parts List

Leather (3 or 4 weight)
Rubber (strips or bands)
Waxed Linen or Embroidery Floss
Butcher's Twine (thin as possible such as 3 ply)

Create a pattern

The first step is to produce a pattern. I use image editing software to produce a pattern so I can adjust the size depending on the size of ball desired. Here is a sample pattern that I used previously to make a ball with a circumference of 10 inches.

click to enlarge

The size of the ball you require based on the rules you use could be differ from the pattern I have provided. It is easier change the size than you may think if you recall Pythagorean's Theorem (a squared + b squared = c squared.) If we treat the tip of one peel to the tip of the peel opposite it, we have the hypotenuse of a right triangle. This means for this pattern having 9.9 inches, each side will be 7.1 inches. If I want to have a 9.5 circumference ball, it would then figure that I'd resize the pattern to print to 6.7 inches for each side instead. Using this formula, we could have a pattern of any size, even as small as a Massachusetts town ball. I recommend printing to card stock as we'll be using it to mark where the holes will need to be.

Make the rubber core

The core is required to be made of india rubber. This would have been done in strips which were made into a ball. Do to economic constraints (I don't want my ball to require hundreds of dollars in parts) I've substituted rubber bands. As you can see in the photo, I've simply made a rubber band ball like from elementary school days.

click to enlarge

The weight of this core should be approximately one-third of the weight of the ball. The weight of the leather and string may vary, so you will have to adjust as necessary to fall within the range that the rules call for. Keep in mind that the tightness of the strips or bands affects the distance the ball will travel and you'll probably find that you determine how to best match this to your needs by trial and error.