Sunday, February 05, 2006

starter gear

Well, I didn't meet my goal of having my first ice gear made by the end of the weekend, but I came close. I am more than halfway through cutting my first wooden gear, but it has been more challenging than I thought. The trouble is that my gear tooth cutter requires a gear as part of the mechanism to move the gear blank you are cutting, so I have a chicken/egg problem. I had supposed that I could carefully use a plain wooden disc instead of a gear, but I gave up on that idea after a couple failed attempts.

I ended up printing a paper template, pasting it to the wooden blank, and manually positioning each of several cuts per tooth. This method is slow but fairly precise, and I am able to duplicate each cut across every tooth by manually advancing the chain along the sprockets. One edge of each tooth has been finished, and I have started on the other side. I think this will result in a usable starter gear, but, if all else fails, I can always have someone make one for me.

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