More Gearing Up, and more to come.

by John

This was 4 days ago.
Today. Re the gears on the right, bottom row…. one was machined from bar stock, the other was cast, had the outer ring removed, and a new ring soldered on, then the teeth were cut. Can you pick which is which? And all of the round gears have spent 3 hours in the gemstone tumbler to remove sharp edges. The tumbling has reduced the surface oxidation on the large gear castings, but some more time required to totally remove it.
CNC milling the spokes in one of the intermediate gears. Neat job, but the internal corners with fillets are not really kosher. This gear is barely visible in the finished model.

And the gears with ratchets attached need 2 mates. I tried to make them yesterday, but we had a wild day with thunderstorms and high winds, and my machines were playing up. I might get back to them today. (the ratchets can be seen in the header photo).

In country Victoria we are out of level 3 lockdown! Hooray! Still can’t see family from Melbourne, and minor restrictions on visiting local friends, and need to wear masks when out and about. But things are on the improve. I doubt that we have seen the last of the virus however.