Tulsa man's rubber band ball hobby

Many of us have hobbies. We knit, we garden, we fish, lots of things. <br/><br/>News on 6 reporter Rick Wells found a south Tulsa man who has spent 17 years making a big ball out of rubber bands. To

Friday, April 14th 2006, 10:08 am

By: News On 6

Many of us have hobbies. We knit, we garden, we fish, lots of things.

News on 6 reporter Rick Wells found a south Tulsa man who has spent 17 years making a big ball out of rubber bands. To actually call that a hobby is probably a stretch.

Jimmy Leach and his dog Choc are playing ball in the garage. Some ball, it's made of wound rubber bands. Jimmy's been working on this off and on for 17 years. â€œGotta try to avoid everything." Yeah, especially the car. The insurance company wouldn't understand. Car got hit by a big ball of rubber bands.

So I asked how many rubber bands are on the ball and he pulls out a log sheet to show me. "Right now, it has 856,000 rubber bands on it."

First he ties a hundred rubber bands together, and then he winds them around the ball. "These hundred rubber bands don't take hardly any time at all to put on." Says he spends much more time tying them together than actually putting them on.

So how big is this ball as rubber band balls go? "It's in the top three in the world." And there is a Guinness Book of World Records biggest rubber band ball. I found a reference to it on the Internet. Says it weighs 3,120 pounds. Well, this one weighs almost that so I guess there is going to be a weigh off one day.

This is some project. It outlasted his first marriage. "I got $6,000-$7,000 invested in it." So it's been expensive, but his wife Sarah who drove up while we were talking, likes it. "I have not problem with it at all, I think it's great." He could be out fishing.

Jimmy's goal is 1-million rubber bands. When he gets to a million he figures he'll have a shot at having the biggest rubber band ball in the world.