August 2019 Newsletter

Hello,
Lots of big Wild Gears news today!
1) New Gear Set Announcement: Nested Oblong Gear Set
2) Improved Gear Set Lettering
3) Improved Doughnut Pieces
4) Faster Order Delivery
5) Full/Plentiful Hoops Gear Set
6) Version 3 overstock sale
7) Request For Feedback


1) The Nested Oblong Gear Set:
This exciting new gear set is designed to explore complex compound designs.  New straight gear segments allows for the creations of parallel rack gears.  Using a hoop in the rack system gives precise control over positioning and re-positioning pieces.  This gear set has an unparalleled number of ways to adjust and control the shape and position of your designs. These new degrees of freedom make creating new compound designs that were previously impossible.  It is hard to describe but easy to show this gear set in action.  Please take 90 seconds and check out this video on YouTube.  (seriously, check out this video.  It is beautiful)
In the video a hoop is being used in the large oblong.  In the hoop is a gear with an off-center cutout and in the cutout is a small gear.  Repeating the simple design that the system makes while moving the hoop and the starting point of the small gear creates a piece of art with a sensation of movement and depth.

For more excellent pictures of Wild Gears art made with the Nested Oblong Gear Set you can check out the work of my collaborator on this gear set, Jeddy Grant, at:
YouTube: @Jeddy Grant
Instagram: @spirocat_works
Patreon
Reddit: /Inksphere/
the r/spirograph subreddit is also a great place to see and post beautiful art.


The Nested Oblong Gear Set is not a stand alone gear set.  It is designed to be used with other Wild Gears Gear Sets for best effect.  It is strongly recommended that you have the Full Page Gear Set as the 210/180 hoop is very useful to have.




2) Improved Gear Set Lettering:
Gear Sets now have frosted engraved letters!  They are very legible now.  This change is the most obvious impact of Wild Gears now being produced in house.  New material selection and more laser cutter control allow for new exciting changes; like the improved lettering.  The lettering has been re-done on all the gear sets.  A variety of other small improvements are also being made to tweak the designs, such as adjusting pen hole placement where it has made pieces fragile.

These two photos show the contrast between the new lettering (the frosted white bold lettering) and the hairline lettering.

3) Improved Doughnut Pieces:
The plastic doughnuts that make parallel lines possible are wonderful and used to be very hard to tell the sizes apart; they are sized in 1 mm increments.  Now the doughnut pieces are colour coded!  Each size increment on the medium sized ones (6mm diameter) have there own colour code.  For the larger doughnut pieces (9 mm diameter) they repeat the colour code twice.  The colours are:

• Clear 1.5 mm and 5 mm
• Opaque White 2 mm and 6 mm
• Fluorescent Green 3 mm and 7 mm
• Fluorescent Orange 4 mm and 8 mm
  

The smallest hole used to be 1 mm but that has been widened to 1.5 mm to accommodate a wider range of fine tip pens.  Additionally all the 1mm holes on the encyclopedic gear set have been increased to 1.5 mm to improve usability.
All new gear sets will have these new colourful doughnut pieces included as default.
Additional cards of doughnut pieces will be available for replacement or supplementation of doughnut piece supply

4) Faster Order Delivery:
Most orders will now be shipped they day they are placed.  Doing in house manufacturing means that a stock of inventory can be maintained.  Previously orders took 5 days to make before they shipped.  Large orders or during particularly busy times orders may take 2-3 days to ship.


5) Full&Plentiful Hoops Gear Set:
In the Full & Plentiful Hoops Gear Set the large shapes of the Full Page and Plentiful Gear Sets have been packed onto one gear set sheet as sets of hoops.  This is designed to make them more portable and easy to handle, as well as giving some new hoop combinations.

This gear set cuts the large sheet into 4 smaller frames making it much easier to handle each part.  The 210/160 hoop also gives more possibilities for using the large oblong in the Nested Oblong Gear Set.


6) Version 3 overstock sale:
There are some remaining gear sets from v3 that are for sale for half off or better.  Quantities are limited.  There are also a couple of v.4 gear sets that have minor imperfections listed too.  Act now before they run out.


7) Request for feedback and suggestions:
If you have any parts that have broken or other things about Wild Gears that haven't worked well for you, I'd like to hear about it.  Send your emails to [email protected].  I'd also like to hear about what you really love about Wild Gears.  
If you have an idea for a new theme or idea that you'd like to explore that needs gears that don't exist yet I'd love to chat with you about your idea and dream.  If I have the time I'll sometimes design new gear sets based on requests and suggestions.


Thank-you for your enthusiasm for Wild Gears and for taking the time to read this email,
Aaron Bleackley