First, I cut out some acrylic the first couple days for a project that I love on Instructables, designed by Robives. Then I realized I didn’t have the right adhesive, so I delved through the forum and picked the adhesive that @smcgathyfay recommends:
That’s been sitting on the desk for a few days, so I decided to assemble today.
Rather than go to the hardware store for a dowel that isn’t acrylic, I stacked the little hole cutouts and glued them into dowels. Results: not incredible, but sort of functions.
This design was intended for wood, and several folks have had success with various acrylics. I think colored gears would provide interesting shapes and contrast. I’ll probably remake it in wood with dowels and enjoy smoother action.
Second thing I did: I looked up a box generator that was suggested here on the forums and made a box. I imported the generated pdf into Adobe Illustrator and drew a line for the lid to separate from the box.
Then, because my lid was flopping around, I added another piece on each side in the lid so it stays on.
There you have it. Simple easy work.
I learned a few things doing someone else’s design, and I think that’s a pretty good way to learn how to design for myself. Start with something that works, learn why it works, and go from there to develop my own stuff.
I thought about trying to make a dowel by stacking. You don’t seem thrilled by the result. Do you think it’s a feasible method with some tweaking of some sort?
That’s advice I plan to follow The boxes look great! I love that the box generator you found worked so well and that it was easy to cut off a top. Great thinking wrt adding that extra piece to keep the lid from flopping around. I plan to steal that idea shamelessly
The dowel pieces that I ended up with were not smooth for a few reasons:
1- The laser beam is in an hourglass shape and cuts at an angle, so each segment has a wide side and a narrow side. It’s subtle; but really shows up when making a dowel.
2- No jig to keep them in line.
3- Those are little tiny fiddly pieces, and I am a big clumsy “close enough” kind of person.
Additionally, gorilla tape gets a lot of weeding, but not all of it. So those are a lot of two-sided little bits.
Also in the assembly stage, having a dowel to line up the gears is definitely a best practice which I didn’t follow, so the shaft isn’t the only thing that isn’t smooth… my gears are also not precise.
As @hansepe pointed out, there are appropriate materials ready-made that I just didn’t go get for the project.
Bottom line: I certainly won’t say it can’t be done; but stacking holes is not the most efficient solution.
Hmm… Haven’t tried this, but might try cutting a tiny hole/circle in the center of each piece of “dowel,” through which a pin, wire, ??? could be inserted as a registration device. Could manually place top/bottom “caps” if desired. Doesn’t fix the hourglass issue, though.
Or pick up a piece of wooden dowel at local craft or big box store.
That is the correct answer, I think. The project had been sitting and staring at me, all cut out, for more than a week. It was just time to build it. I had already held it up for glue, and its primary purpose was to make something different than puzzles and plaques and “cool. it does flat stuff.” I wanted a nice acrylic sample to show off to friends and family. And to play with because I like toys.
As it is, I’ll probably remake it so it runs smooth and straight. It’ll be a better sample from wood with multi-color gears, I think. Edge-lit is maybe going to be the ideal sample piece for clear acrylic.
Still, learning is worth the time and materials sacrificed to the newly gained wisdom.
I ordered somewhere around 500 pins of various lengths from McMaster because I wasn’t thrilled with making my own. The box arrives today. I’ll have pictures to show off tonight!
Update.
I have made a few modifications to the file. Resized for 1/4" dowels since they are way cheaper than 6mm, and then a few little tweaks to make it work for me.
This is build 2.3 and is going to a birthday party for Wilson in about 10 minutes. I credited the designer and will do so on any future builds of this fantastic gear toy.
That turned out great! Gift-giving items is something I’m particularly excited for…we just had a cousin get married and I can’t count how many times over the weekend @Snowjax and I looked at each other with that, “we could totally laser that” smile!
The boxes look great! I love that the box generator you found worked so well and that it was easy to cut off a top. Great thinking wrt adding that extra piece to keep the lid from flopping around. I plan to steal that idea shamelessly 
