I think I posted this elsewhere, but I’ll post it here too. I made some big gears, with a laser cutter at the library. The biggest gear is 36 inches across, and is made of 30 different pieces. The whole thing is mounted on a 4’ x 8’ piece of mdf.
It’s very satisfying to turn one gear and see them all turn.
I used sketchup with a gear plug-in to design my gears. It was a lot of fun to do! I’m hoping to make more once the GF arrives.
Kinetic art–love it!
Wow. Those are incredible!
Lovely, somehow I missed seeing this earlier.
Me too, my wife really wants me to design some now lol
I actually just put them up on the wall in my house a couple of weeks ago. Here’s a video of them in action.
There is a small flaw right now. As you turn them, one of the “nuts” holding them to the wall gets tighter on one of the biggest gear, and it makes it harder and harder to turn. You have to then turn them in the other direction to loosen it.
I have to find a way of fixing that nut in place so the gear is always loose, but held in place.
Okay, that’s wonderful. It’s great to see the kids play with it! Thanks for posting!
Very cool!
Perhaps a self locking nut, or a dab of “Locktite”. I have used a center punch to “dot” the threads on a fastener I wanted to stay.
strip the bolt at that spot? Or use a cotter-pin and washer instead of nut?
Thanks for the suggestions.
They are not traditional bolts and nuts, they are actually plumbing hardware, and the “nut” is some type of cap.
I don’t want to do anything permanent, because I may have to move them elsewhere. I may have to figure out how to drill a hole in the cap so I can use some sort of cotter-pin.
Have you tried teflon tape yet? You may have to adjust how many wraps to get it to stay where you want.
I’m sure I could suggest a great alternative or solution but I can’t quite envision what I’m working with.
Fit a ball bearing into the gear hole…should reduce overall friction and should prevent any nuts from getting tight or lose.
best I can think of is to double nut it unless its a pipe cap then in that case a cross drill and pin and a dab of lube on the face that touches the gear
Oooooh!
I want one for my kids. 
I think I’ll design some and put up in our family room.
Safe to assume not cut on a laser?(unless really big bed). Very kewl to have in the house - what a conversation piece and the gears are so ornate (as opposed to simple toothed circles). Nice job
Actually, they were all cut on a laser with a bed size of 12x24 (slightly bigger than GF).
The largest gear is made of 28 pieces that were glued together.
All of those gears could be cut on a glowforge.
One of the things that’s hard to wrap one’s brain around (at least for me) is the notion that it’s possible to cut mating pieces out with a laser, allowing for kerf, and have them just. fit. If I cut something by hand, I’m lucky to get within 1mm (at least on the initial pass). If I 3D-print something, maybe a quarter of that (allowing for surface texture, rounding of corners and warpage). I’m looking forward to being able to design stuff where multiple parts fit reliably.
Same here - after struggling with this K40, seems like kerf is always too wide…(Granted it’s user error most likely, which is why I want the GF;s user-friendly interface so badly)
Kerf will be nothing compared to my clumsy measurements and technique when using saws. 
