Supplies:
- Rear bicycle wheel cogs. If you don’t have tools to remove the cogs take it to your local bicycle store
- 2 pieces of 1/8” Acrylic Plexiglas; color of your choice. I found two 12" x 12" orange sheets on ebay for a decent price.
- Wire for fastening down small cogs
- Various sizes of bolts, nuts, and washers
Instructions:
- Clean up your gear cogs and separate them as much as you can. I cleaned off what I could and let them soak in dish soap for a while.
- Begin arranging the cogs on a sheet of acrylic. I placed mine in a pattern for all the gears to mesh.
- Mark
holes where you need to drill. Some cogs may have holes in them that are
large enough for a small bolt. Take advantage of this. It looks cool. Buy shallow bolts and corresponding nuts to fasten these cogs. Some smaller cogs are trickier. I had to drill tiny holes to run wire through in order to fasten them to the acrylic. Mark your holes and determine drill bit sizes for your bolts and wire. Do not drill yet!
- Place a scrap piece of wood under your acrylic. Running your drill in reverse will prevent you from cracking the acrylic. Drill the marked holes for the corresponding bolt sizes. It will take longer but could save you money.
- Next,
drill 4 large holes in the corners of each piece of acrylic. I ran large long bolts through the corners and spaced the second acrylic sheet behind to give it more prominence. In the 2nd sheet of acrylic I also drilled a hole near the top in the center. This allows it to be hung on the wall.
- Assembly
– Assemble the cogs on the front acrylic. Next, run the large bolts with
washers through the front sheet. Then run extra nuts to create the desired
spacing between the two sheets. Finally place the second acrylic sheet
onto the bolts and fasten another set of nuts behind it. You can also add
a small LED light inside to make it glow!
