Wild Gears Spring Collection!

New gear sets are finally here!

There are a lot of new gear sets to talk about and I'm super excited to share them all with you today. 

The Spring Collection includes:

1. Double Dense Gear Sets
2. The Shapes Hoops Gear Set which is non-circular gears with gears cutout for multi gear systems
3. Two variations on the Enormous Gear Set
4. Mandala Maker and Modular Oblong gear sets
5. Can I Order?
   
6. Other News
   

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Double Dense Gear Sets

There are two large gear sets and one adjunct gear set from this project.  They can each be purchased separately but will also be sold as a bundle at a discount

Double Dense gears have 4 lines of pen holes instead of two and can make designs with tighter spacing between each element.

In the coming weeks I will be taking proper product photos of all these gear sets and making full product pages for them.  So for now these are pictures of the prototypes as they come off the laser cutter honeycomb.

Link to the shop listing
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Shapes Hoops Gear Set

This is a large gear set that packs a lot of non-circular gears full of smaller gears.  Due to the repetition of many of the gear sizes these cutouts are given non-circular pen holes for an sub-theme and expires different ways to and a non-circular element to the final design.

There are repetitions of each shape in this gear set.  The frame is divided into three pieces.  In the two smaller ones at the top the cutouts are given enough space for the frame to be solid and can be used for making the art, they also contain one example of each of the shapes in the lower portion.  The larger lower frame is more fragile and designed to be discarded, or at least is likely to break with much handling and is there for shipping the gear securely.

Link to the shop listing

Variations on the Enormous Gear Set

In designing early gear sets like the Full Page Gear Set I tried to put as much diversity and variety into it as possible.  But this meant that there was just a bit of everything in it so if there is any one element like prime factors or powers of two that you want to dive super deeply into it only has a bit of that for you to focus on.

With a bunch of the new more complicated techniques that have arisen for complex design composition, using the Nested Oblong Gear Set or the Stationary center gear technique as two examples,  there has been a desire for a more focused set of gears looking at factors of two and three.

​The Doubling Enormous Gear Set is that exploration.

It provides lots of nested gears in cascading powers of two or three.  This design is almost finished, I'm just polishing the last of the fine details; like filling in the 45 gears.  It will be done in the next days

The other new variation on enormous gears is the Modified Enormous Gear Set which starts from 288 and explores similar themes and adds two thicker hoops around the outside

To support these themes I've also made an adjunct gear set.

Link to the shop listing

Modular Gear Set: Mandala Maker

The idea behind this gear set comes from the desire to make radial positioning of hoops easier.  Before the Mandala Maker Gear Set If you wanted to make a big design where your hoops are at different distances and degrees from a center point it was very hard and imprecise.  Now there is a gear set for this.  You can step a rack gear system around a central gear; controlling degrees of rotation and distance from the center point.

This is a modular gear set that makes an oblong frame with an arc segment at each end that can mesh with a 120 or 96 gear.  The rest of the gear set are a set of 'cartridge' pieces that are toothed on the top and bottom and have a centered gear cutout.  This means that the whole oblong can rotate in steps around the 120 or 96 gear and that each cartridge can move incrementally one tooth at a time.  There are approximately 10,000 positions for each of the cartridges.

Link to the shop listing

Modular Gear Set: Modular Oblongs

Working on the Mandala Maker I realized that I could make a much more general purpose modular set that could make an oblong, like in the Nested Oblong Gear Set, of any length that could pinch any hoop.  Oblong pieces for any size of hoop! Very exciting, but also very fiddly; the precision required to hold the hoops securely but not too snugly was very tight.

This gear set has two main parts.  The linear gear pieces, which make up the toothed top and bottom of the oblong, and the spacer pieces as well as the right angle corners which have no teeth.  The spacer pieces are 10-15 mm with the 10 and 11 mm ones going up by 0.25 mm increments.  The idea is to use the rack pieces to build most of the length of the sides and then fill in the last bit of distance with a few spacer pieces so that the hoop fits perfectly in the oblong that is created.

You'll notice that there are some 96/120 pieces that look like the end caps from the mandala maker gear set.  These are included so that whatever oblong is created can be stepped around a gear too if desired.  I tried for a long time to find a way to bring these two gear sets together into one cohesive piece but I concluded that there is room for them both.  The Mandala maker is easier to put together and use and has a lot of options available.  The modular oblong gear set is a lot more fiddly to setup.  It requires trial and error and takes a few minutes to fit the oblong to the hoop.  That being said, it is hugely adjustable and can do far more.

Link to the shop listing

Can I Order?

Wild Gears is still operating.  I don't have any employees, its just me, so there is no risk of workplace crowding.

I've enhance my handling and safety procedures based on my best understanding of good practices.  

Postal systems are still delivering so I'll continue to do my job and make art tools and toys for people.

If you have any questions at all please comment or email me at [email protected]
I know that there has been a lot of new gear sets without a lot of specific words about any of them.

Other News

New Material
Wild Gears are now made from 100% recycled clear acrylic.  My acrylic supplier started carrying it and it works really well so I'm happy to say that Wild Gears is now a greener product.  Hurrah!

New Discount tier:
If you order 6 large gear sets or more you can use the code "BUNDLE25" for 25% off the entire order.

Whole Shebang:
The one of every gear set bundle has been updated to include all the new spring 2020 collection gear sets.  Its price has been increased but only partially.  In mid March the price will be re-assessed .

Discount For Everyone:
Are you buying something?  Do you want $20 off?  Use the code "HomeFun" at checkout.  This blog post has more details.


Thank-you for your time and attention.  Your interest in Wild Gears means so much to me.

Cheers,
​Aaron