CNC Shark Forum

I know this is rather basic stuff compared to what a lot of you folks post here on the forum. Toys for the impossibly cute grandchildren. I got the incentive to create this from looking at a cheap plastic toy of gears that my grandson had. I thought wood would be better and by making them removable and with a gear with a crank they can do different set ups. I tried the gearmaker gadget from the Vectric site but in the end I used the gear maker program at http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html I liked the ability to add spokes, I think they have a nice visual movement when turned. Cut them out of baltic birch plywood.

Looks like fun.....Does itHAVE to go to the grand kids ???????
Nice work.

Great use for a Shark, lsvien! No need to downplay as "basic". I'd love to have the CRV file to cut a few myself. Any chance you could post it here? This is the "File Sharing" forum after all.

4dThinker you are correct as usual! I have often seen projects that I wanted to try only to have to ask or design the file. My apologies for not thinking of it and thank you for reminding me.

I ended up using the web site and output my design in to a jpg. Imported it into VCP and converted to vectors. For some reason the gear gadget doesn't seem to work for me. I keep getting an error.

Couple 3 different files for the gears. One plain with cut out spokes and two with different letters and numbers. The symbols I did in VCP with the standard tools. The spiral I used the spiral gadget and then sized. I also included a simple file I used to drill the holes for the axle pegs. They need to be pretty precise. Even with all my precautions it still took some tweaking of the gears. I would rotate them until I hit a spot of resistance and then take the gears off one by one until I could feel the change. File, rasp, and sandpaper the insides of the teeth until everything would rotate smoothly.

I started out using 2-sided carpet tape to hold them down on the spoil board but later went to tabs and screwed the baltic birch down on the spoil board. It's a lot of cutting pressure on the wood and the tape had mixed results.

To cut down on friction I picked up plastic washers from a big box store 1 1/2" dia. with a 1/4" hole in the middle. They slip over the axle pegs and with 1/4" dowels for the axles are tight enough they shouldn't come off too easily. Made a world of difference.

Plain acrylic paint for the numbers, letters, and symbols and then sanded off the excess. 3 coats of danish oil to finish.

Thank you for posting the files.
Cheers
Wolffie

lsvien

Great post I like it and think my grandson would also thanks for the grear idea.