Puzzle Box 5 - The Clock completed

[Richo B]

Puzzle Box 5 - The Clock is finally completed. This is the last project that I started in North Carolina before moving to Knoxville. The oak of the bottom section was given to me by my friend Joe Scharle and the purple heart left over from the Parthenon puzzle cabinet project. This project took longer not only due to moving but also designing and building wooden gears and mechanisms. It doesn't feature as many mechanisms as I originally planned but the bottom line is storage capacity and this puzzle box will hold all the puzzles shown here, the ones in boxes were purchased last month. Adding to my ever growing collection which one day will exceed my tool collection. But they are smaller and take up less room.

Learning to make gears. These were all experiments and not the final gears used in the puzzle box. Though this is called a puzzle box it is the size of some of my puzzle cabinets.

 

[HITCH-]

Can you share how it works?

 

[Dee2]

Will you share a complete build article for the Resource forum, please?

 

[ErnieM]

Hey Richo - so good to hear from you. How about let us know how you're doing in Knoxville. We miss you up here - so does Morgans.

 

[Richo B]

Can you share how it works?

I will be posting a video on how it works and the construction in October on my YouTube channel Richo Woodworking. I've tried explaining it in these forums but a solve video works so much better. I'm currently in the process of sharing it with my testers which are average people to see their reaction to it.

I should note that this is a puzzle box which stores puzzles and not that I built an actual functioning clock. The clock is a simple quartz clock you can buy at a hobby store and does work (off a AA battery). The wooden gears I made are part of the mechanisms for operating the puzzle components.

 

[Richo B]

Will you share a complete build article for the Resource forum, please?

I've actually never been on the Resource forum. I'll have to check it out.

 

[Richo B]

Hey Richo - so good to hear from you. How about let us know how you're doing in Knoxville. We miss you up here - so does Morgans.

I'll certainly do that. I miss Morgans and all of you.

 

[woodlaker2]

Thanks for sharing your gear "experiments". Getting gears "right" for a project are difficult at best. Takes lots of effort and calculating correctly to get the "mesh" to operate properly.

 

[JNCarr]

Thanks for sharing.
Gears can be a little frustrating until one learns a few basic concepts.
I'll PM you a tutorial I gave to several in this forum a while back. It's a powerpoint and if you put it in presentation mode you can watch the animations.
I'd recommend using Mathius Wendell's free online generator to print the patterns (Making wooden gears out of plywood).
You can then scroll saw, band saw or cope the pattern.
He also has a downloadable version for something like $40 with a lot more features.

 

[Richo B]

Thanks for sharing.
Gears can be a little frustrating until one learns a few basic concepts.
I'll PM you a tutorial I gave to several in this forum a while back. It's a powerpoint and if you put it in presentation mode you can watch the animations.
I'd recommend using Mathius Wendell's free online generator to print the patterns (Making wooden gears out of plywood).
You can then scroll saw, band saw or cope the pattern.
He also has a downloadable version for something like $40 with a lot more features.

I've downloaded the pdf and will take a look at it. I should note that I work only with hand tools so a lot of the gear tutorials available, say on YouTube, don't work for me as I don't have a bandsaw, table saw or scroll saw. Using a compass, hand saws, files and rasps is how I made the gears that actually are inside the puzzle box. I've been watching one fellow in Columbia who did a whole series on making cogs and gears with hand tools. His channel PhilipStephens007 was very helpful to me throughout the process.

 

[JNCarr]

You can make quite accurate gears with only a hand drill and coping saw, using a pattern adhered to the stock.
PM with questions.

 

[pop-pop]

You can make quite accurate gears with only a hand drill and coping saw, using a pattern adhered to the stock.
PM with questions.

Seems like that technique has worked for qite a few centuries.

 

[Richo B]

You can make quite accurate gears with only a hand drill and coping saw, using a pattern adhered to the stock.
PM with questions.

I used geometry/lines for the gears that I made for the Puzzle Box. I tried gluing paper patterns to some of the stock but didn't have good results. Also I made my gears out of scrap tiger maple given to me by a friend. My gears are rather small so plywood didn't work as well as the maple.

 

[Richo B]

Thanks for sharing.
Gears can be a little frustrating until one learns a few basic concepts.
I'll PM you a tutorial I gave to several in this forum a while back. It's a powerpoint and if you put it in presentation mode you can watch the animations.
I'd recommend using Mathius Wendell's free online generator to print the patterns (Making wooden gears out of plywood).
You can then scroll saw, band saw or cope the pattern.
He also has a downloadable version for something like $40 with a lot more features.

I just looked at the PDF. Quite detailed and very helpful. Really wished I had seen this before but instead I learned the hard way as is often the case in life and woodworking. My gears have triangle pointed edges rather than the classical form you show. I picked a couple mechanisms out of the book 507 Mechanical Movements which you are probably familiar with. I found that as the best way to design some of the movements for the puzzle box. My creation is certainly not extensive since I'm not an engineer nor a mechanical type person. Just toying with some gears for one of my puzzle boxes. I may do more at some point. I really wanted to do some automation for the top but it became so complex and my gears weren't working out that I had to abandon the process and go with what I did instead. When a hobby project goes from challenging to unfun you really have to switch gears and go a different direction.

 

[bowman]

I tried gluing paper patterns to some of the stock but didn't have good results.

Just learned this via the scroll saw workshop. Use clear adhesive shelf liner on your wood and glue your patterns to the shelf liner.

 

[JNCarr]

The shape in the tutorial is an involute. But the teeth certainly dont need to be that shape - in fact watches traditionally use cycloidal gears due to their very low friction. At these velocities and torques, you can use almost any pointy tipped shape - the key is getting the pitch circle right as explained in the tutorial. If you want to build something closer to your original idea, just PM me and I'd be happy to design the gearset for you and send you printable images you can cut out with a drill and coping saw.

 

[Richo B]

Can you share how it works?

New video up shares how it works and some of the construction.