On 16-Apr-12 22:58, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:05:26 +0100, Chris Hogg wrote:

I doubt if tennis balls would either, but if you drill the holes a bit
undersize and individually for the size of cane, the elasticity in a
tennis ball might allow them to be forced in and gripped.

Drilling holes in something soft an elastic would be fun. I think
you'd be better off just making a slit or perhaps a slit cross and
poking the cane in. Self adjusting to the cane diameter.

But I think they wouldn't be rigid, and the whole structure would wobble
about all over the place.

Triangles don't wobble, at least no where near as much as rectangular
shapes do. Simply putting a diagonal across a rectangle will greatly
increase the rigidity.

This sounds like a job for Buckminster Fuller.

I think, however, that you will struggle to achieve sufficient rigidity
with tennis balls. Lashing, as suggested earlier in the thread, would
be a better bet. I have also made some pretty rigid joints in cane
based structures by drilling ~1/8" holes through the ends and fixing
them with galvanised fencing wire passed through and twisted round.

--
Dona F