The sort of things I would like to build are like the ones in this video

I am hoping to be able to build mechanical toys (such as these shown in the linked video) with my Glowforge.

Also creating small buildings (complete cities hopefully) for model railroads eventually.

Anybody else have similar aspirations?

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Those are very cool!
Another similarly inspiring person is Brad Litwin:
http://www.bradlitwin.com/

He makes a line of laser cut toys he calls mechanicards:

And has lots of videos about them on youtube.

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Welcome to the forum? Have you been browsing up to now and just now joining or are you totally new to the community?
Here’s a thread that links what you link:

http://www.lisaboyer.com/Claytonsite/Claytonsite1.htm
more clock work, but mechanical

I have tried making some of these clocks by hand and they are just insane. It is definitely on my list of things to build! His Swoopy clock is gorgeous.

I did a MDF prototype of his Simplicity. I’ll try to dig up the video later. Great plans , and the clock prototype moved well. I hope the GF will let me finish it.

Mildly similar: I am designing an expansion for a local school. Plan to laser cut a miniature to scale of the current and new grounds.

There are these toys called automata or automatons where moving a crank moves a bunch of characters or parts within a “scene”.

Like this simple one

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How did you cut your MDF out? Did you do it with
CNC or by hand?

I did it with a CNC. His plans call for parts 1/8, 1/4 ,3/8 , and 1/2 inch. So that was easy with scraps. The hold downs and jigs were fun. I have a video and pics I need to dig up.

I have tried hand cutting gears for a clock once. After many many manyanu hours on my band saw and drill press, it didn’t even pretend to work.

You probably already know that you can do it with a lathe or a mill and a fly cutter…even a manual one, but it sure isn’t easy!

Sorry @nunzioc, if your refering to me, I was an will be working with wood. So a lather is possible, but would need an indexer and the cutter. As wood machines go, that isnt overly common, available, but not common. Ill dig up some stuff I did for it later.

Here is a horrid video of my clock prototype from Clayton Boyer. It will be real one one day…

It sits in the showroom of the company I work for as a discussion piece .

It will one day be made with gears like this:

That’s walnut center with jatoba for inlay and teeth. The walnut is cut in 15 degree wedges to help with expansion. I plan to finish this when I get my GF. The hold downs were crazy…

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The whole clock is cool, but that right there is one amazing gear!
Nice work!

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