My First Plywood Gears

For More: http://onesheetwind.com/projects/

I cut these gears using scraps from the wind turbines I've been cutting. I've been wanting to make some wooden gears and recently found the gear template generator at http://woodgears.ca/

I'll post some still shots of the template and the process on my site. These gears are not very good for two reasons.

The first is that this is the wrong material. This 3-ply 3/8 inch plywood sheathing is warped a bit, and continues to warp until it's screwed to something. It's also just three thin plys of a light wood so it shatters a lot around the edges or small holes when you work it.

The second is that I failed to follow some good cutting advice at the site with the template generator. I started without drilling any holes, and then decided to drill one large hole between each of the teeth. This large bit and light wood didn't go so well together, and so the holes were very messy. I definitely recommend that you drill two small holes between the teeth instead of one large one.

This was still fun, and you need some practice to do well cutting this stuff, I think. I'm sure I'll waste a few pieces of wood before I can create nice, efficient gear sets. If I was using a scroll saw, it would be easier, too. The band saw blade is a little wide for this.

So now I have four gears, I could probably sand them and mount them and have them work well enough for some wind powered yard art!

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• wood
• gears
• plywood
• machine
• part
• cutting