Ooooooh! I should probably add a little tiny gold ring. (See this is why I can never actually finish anything.) 
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AWESOME!
maybe you could fashion one of those dang fidget spinners inside? They’re on clearance all over the place 
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Oh my gosh, this is simply amazing! You can tell everyone else liked it too because it took forever to get to the bottom of the comments. This is really something else.
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I made it all the way to the end and they were closing so we never made it to the carousel. Everything else was still amazing though! The steampunk looking gun collection was the best!
I bet a couple ball bearings or a lazy susan would work.
Yep, got one on order. (Going to have to rethink the design to stick a center spinner in there.)
Going the lazy susan route or are you thinking something more like rollerblade bearings? Might be able rob a fidget spinner for those to test it out.
I’m going to try both. I have what I think is the smallest turntable bearing, and it works but it’s a bit bulky. I’ve got a couple of others on order to try, but they won’t be here till February.
If you have some bearings or small beads around, you could engrave a groove and have a little makeshift lazy Susan for now. I had to repair my kid’s sit n spin toy and that’s basically all it is. Marbles in a groove with some kind of toothpaste looking lubricant.
Cool project btw.
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In thinking about bearings how is it that you could not cut disks out of your smallest scrap and an eccentric hole to push (or lift) the poles up and down (another great place to use those thick bamboo barbecue skewers - I am getting a long list there) .
I would think that the Glowforge would be very good at engraving deep round raceway ruts at the various places you would want them and a series of parallel engraves perpendicular to a strip of wood might have the same effect as the living hinge cuts as long as you were not bending it multiple times.
It would be hard to avoid all metal in such a build but I would be trying.
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Magnets… place magnets in even spaces around the base, place repelling magnets to those on the bottom of the poles. Allow play so the magnets can push against eachother and make the poles with horsies go up and down as they pass. If you place them at a repelling angle as well it’ll help the spin and not add to the jump from spot to spot since they’d be repelling against eachother.
Dunno, might be a thought a bit more glowforgy than trying to make a wavy base for the poles to ride up and down.
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Actually tried that for the rotating part, and the magnets tended to jump to the farthest point away from the repelling magnets. (It was pretty funny actually, except for the cussing about having to dig all the magnets out.)
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I have been playing with an idea and have a phase one ready for the Laser I do not have yet. It is the same idea as a living hinge with a slightly different direction of geometry. this is a very simple band that (i hope) will make a six-inch diameter circle an inch high. if finished and a strong rubber band wrapped to hold it and wood glue painted on the engraved compression side before final bending, then the compression side will be compressed together. I considered other fancy latching at the ends but then this is a testsix x1 inch round.zip (1.7 KB) @Jules
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Actually, that’s not really a living hinge, but it looks like a technique that one of the guys discussed a while back, (think it was Paul), where removing enough of the material causes it to become flexible. It’s an alternative to a living hinge.
Let me see if I can find that experiment that he ran on it… (oh, yeah, I’m gooooood! ) 
I call it “kerfing”. (No idea if it has a real name or not.)
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Fantastic! Too bad there isn’t a way to put gears to use to make the horses go up and down. Great job!
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a simple example with a center post set to one side and the “horse lifter” coming out the other side { in red} or you could have both at the red point
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the big difference would be speed enough to not scorch the wood, but many more cuts and very narrow kerfs, as each cut would be less than one degree needed of bend you would be closing the kerfs and the small amount of glue would ideally make the back side sealed again. some of the more advanced ideas would be extremely strong and light if they would work. the big question would be getting 3/4 of the way through reliably without breaking through.
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If the carousel was spinning the horse could be made to go up and down by putting a wheel on the bottom of the horse post and having the wheel run on a humpy track. perhaps using a living hinge to create the curved humpy track for the wheel on the bottom of the horse to ride on. The approach might even work without a wheel if friction was low enough.
If the weight of the horse is too low for it to be pushed down by gravity a humpy slot approach could be used for the wheel or a peg to run in.
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