could use some help with a gear wall.

[knight_toolworks]

I have a customer on a budget that wants to make a wall of gears for for some kind of group home. I know I can make the gears and wall for something they can afford but they may need some design idea's and i have never made any gears. I was thinking of gears that can be placed on a pegboard so you can arrange them ( i have played way too may iPhone games doing such. here is a drawing of what they are looking at. I was thinking what to use as the pegs and hubs? they need to be easy to put in and move around. I am thinking of baltic birch plywood for the parts.
http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=28024&stc=1

[guitarwes]

Why don't you make the hole in the gear just a touch larger than the peg board holes and put a dowel thru the hole so it fits in the pegboard securely enough where you could spin the gear but loose enough where you could remove the gears a reposition them? Then make different incremental size gears that you could move around that would interact with gears that are 2, 3, 4, 5 holes away from the base gear.

[knight_toolworks]

thats what I a thinking but putting pegs in a wooden board over and over will make them loose.

[Brian Harnett]

A easy and cheap program for gears is gear generator.

http://woodgears.ca/gear/

I have used it a lot it exports dxf.

A few things I have done with it


http://i.imgur.com/3iNMJUO.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/W42LVBJ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/r6BUKRK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/REGfE4L.jpg

[James M]

Brian,

What material did you cut the Sullivan Iron Works out of? I really like how you finished the back side as it looks like it is just out of the casting.

J

[Brian Harnett]

James, its pink insulation foam they are two separate gears. one I put minwax stain on and set it outside to dry the sun and minwax gave it the pitted look it was not planned but I like it. The one in better shape I used brown concrete pigment mixed with dissolved rust in cwf waterbased finish.

The pitting on the more intact one was done with careful use of a propane torch before the finish went on, I have them hanging on my shop for the last 3 years still look good.