Looking for a gear (LIke with teeth)

Hi guys, I'm in another wierd situation and I find when I'm stuck in wierd situations it's best to turn to CPF /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I am doing an Arts and Crafts project at school. Actually it's for Math. We're making wind chimes. I was thinking I'd make something that lit up but then in the shower I decited I'd rather make something with a gear theme instead! Only problem is where the heck do you get a gear? I looked around on eBay a little and can resort to that if it comes down to that, but I thought I'd try here first.

I need 3 gears. One larger one (4-6" Diameter) and 2 smaller ones. The large one goes at the top and the chimes hang off it, 1 smaller one will be the clapper and 1 will be the wind catch.

Does somebody out there have connections to a machine shop that might be able to provide me with an irregular gear or 3? Something that looks decent but doesn't meet manufacturing tolerencies...

Any other suggestions of how to source one??

Junk yard - transmission gears? (If I still had my old MG tranny you could have the gears out of it ... )

Dissect a rear cassette off an old ten-speed?
Tranny gears are rather heavy. (At least for a wind chime. It might take quite a gust to even get it moving)

Thrift stores for cheap tape players that have smaller gears. Hobby shops for clock making kits that have gears. Boat salvage yards for bigger gears from cranes, winches, jacking gear, etc.

Mike

If it's for a chime, and going to ring, it'll have to be at least 2.5 inches in diameter, and METAL.

Unless you want it to tinkle.

Saaby: For the purest tone, it'll have to be a one piece gear, or else SOLIDLY constructed.

Clockmakers, Ten Speed Bikes, bikeshops, junkyards.

LOL I come up with some of my best ideas in the shower. Only place I can't hear the kiddies screaming, and these days it's one of the few places I'm warm from my nose to my toes, however briefly.

Anyhow, getting to your request... I've got a bunch of used but clean mountain bike gears (front & rear). I don't know if something that flat is what you had in mind or not. PM me for more info if you want. They'd be easy to ship in a padded mailer. Hmmm. Maybe that'd take too long. Maybe PhilAlex's suggestion of a local bike shop would be better. The offer's still open if you want some from me, though.

All you could want:

http://sciplus.com/category.cfm?subsection=19&category=178


Enjoy,

Eric

I'd say a junk yard or a bike shop. Look for gears that are NOT cast. If we had more time (say 4-5 weeks) I'd ask a friend who is an executive at Stock Drive Products - they sell all sorts of gears. Of course you could buy new from Stock Drive (516 area code) or Boston Gear /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

It's not the gears themselves that will chime, copper pipe will be hung from the larger gear and then 1 smaller gear will hit the pipe and 1 will (hopefully) catch wind and swing the whole operation around. A 10 speed gear would probably work *perfect* for the wind catch but the others need to be thicker.

Thing about clock gears is I immagine they're all too small or plastic.



Binky and KC2IXE, watch out...INCOMING!

So I umm...like still need gears

Hey bud, the last I heard was "INCOMING" and then nothing. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif So there! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

So... was there a PM asking me to send out a gear that I must have missed? There's no envelope blinking for me up above. Did you decide to check a local bike shop instead? Do you even want a gear that's thin like that?

OK with me whatever you want. If you want I can try tonight to PM you a photo of what I've got. (The only thing that would get in the way would be family, which has so far today not been trivial) Sounds like a good idea. My dad has one or two mobiles hanging in house by some famous mobile maker from the '60s. Mobiles are cool. Chimes are cool as long as they're not too loud. Putting the two together sounds like a good idea if that's what you're getting at by having the whole thing swing around.

The biggest gear I have is, I think, a 42-tooth. It's aluminum and has some steel ramps & pins on one side (for smoother shifting) that I can't remove. They're not very big. The smallest is 11-tooth from a rear cogset. They're about maybe 42tooth = 7" and 11tooth = 1.5" but that's from memory not measuring them.

binky, I eMailed you, boingo{numbersremoved}@yahoo.com

I don't like PM at all and would much rather you just email me [mail][email protected][/mail] if that doesn't work I can turn PM on.

This isn't real urgent. We're finishing them tomorrow and I'll just have a block of wood to hang from and a bolt to smack the chimes for now, but we can make them nicer later and get them re-graded, so no real rush.

My bad! I'm so sorry!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

(I've emailed you back)

It was in among the zillions of buy.com, Apple eNews, RedHat blahblah, Dell FileWatch, UPromise posts, and men's member-lengthening spam. I hadn't sorted through things in that account for a few days and I was expecting PM. I apologize.

HUGE Cheers to binky. Here's a pic of the finished product. I started arranging the gears and decited that instead of just a basic 3 gear design it'd be cooool to stack them in mid-air and use them all, so with that I give you GearChimez®. I won't be mass producing these, it's hard to get everything to hang straight and level! These took me about 6 hours and LOTS and LOTS of fishing line.



I'll try and get a sound capture of them...uhh...after I get them back from school.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif He's obviously a man of many talents.

That's beautiful Ryan!!!

I'm happy to help. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif