Wild Gears Version 5! And so much more

This announcement has been more than a year in the making and there is a lot of different things to cover here.

Things to be excited about in this huge announcement include:

  1)  Version 5 update for all gear sets
  2)  New gear sets (several)
  3)  Updated shipping prices, options, and timelines
  4)  Updated discounts for EU and UK sales
  5)  VAT and Shipping details for EU and UK sales
  6)  Price Changes
  7)  Version 5 launch special offer!
  8)  Timeline (when will all this happen?)

The updated v.5 Compact gear set!

  0) Preamble

    This upgrade has been in the works for a year. Between researching machines, and learning how to make everything work perfectly this has been a huge undertaking and I am so excited to be able to finally share this news!
For the last 6-8 months I've been holding off on other announcements because I was always 'so close' to being ready to launch v.5.  So there are a lot of details and some new gear sets to tell you about.

  1)  ​What is being updated in Wild Gears Version 5?

    All Wild Gears gear sets are getting a major update!  Previously all the markings on the gear sets were done with laser engraving. This made nice crisp frosted white letters and marks.  But now the engraving will be replaced with crisp black lettering which is much easier to see and read.  This upgrade is made possible by a new UV printer.  A UV printer is like a big inkjet printer that prints with UV nail gel.  This means that the lettering is printed directly onto the gear set acrylic and is bonded on very securely.
    In addition to switching from engraved letter to printed letters I am adding many small improvements like counting marks at 90 degrees and 45 degrees where useful, standardizing the look of the counting marks (currently some sets have dots and some have dashes), re-working lettering where needed, and making other minor tweaks for improved legibility.

​  2) New Gear Sets (several)

    Over the last many months I have made several new gear sets.  I would normally have announced them a couple at a time over the end of the summer and the start of winter.  But I didn't want to announce new gear sets and then 2 months later announce an upgraded version of them.  So there are a few here all at once.  To prevent this page from becoming truly unwieldy each new gear set will be given a short description, and a link to the product page where there will be pictures and more details.  There will be a slideshow of the gear sets below the list

1. Doodle Kit (for making post-it sized art):  A gear set designed for making art on post-it notes.  Small, portable, has an innovative backing plate system
2. Backing plate for Small gear sets (and modification to small gear sets to support backing plate):  by including small notches at the corners of gear sets you can use neoprene rings (like a small robust rubber band) to hold a backing plate and frame together, making a solid platform for drawing with.
3. Paisley 2 and Support Gears for Paisley 2:  Expanding on the Paisley gear set this adds more bendy shapes and some new twists.  The support gears is a half page add-on that includes some gears that work well with (are simple fractions of) the paisley gear tooth counts.
4. Paisley Mutants:  A collection of larger, weird shapes, that grew out of pushing the limits of paisley design.
5. Rose Window 360 gear:  A 360 tooth gear with long rows of pen holes, a collection of non-circular cutouts, and speed holes to make the whole thing lighter and easier to use.
6. Special Big gears: 330, 350, 378:  3 large gears; excellent if you want to explore truly immense scales with your art.  You'll probably want a mammoth gear set to use these with.
7. Jellybeans A & B, a set of extreme ovals:  these fun friends explore the limits of an oval gear to the extreme.  They are in sets of two identical gears to make space for more pen hole density than can fit on just one gear.
8. Mandala Track for large hoops:  This gear set expands the Mandala gear set concept of the cartridges in a rail system and makes it into a system that can be used inside any hoop in the Enormous Hoops or Mammoth Hoops gear set.
9. Large Drops gear set:  A larger sequel to the Small Drops gear set.  This is one that I've been wanting to make ever since I made the first small drops gears.  This one is not designed yet.  I will work on it in June so this is a pre-announcement

    I wish that I had more polished, finished, gear set photos to share of many of these new gear sets.  But I cannot make them look their best in full version 5 glory until I get the upgrade for my machines (Mid April).

  3)  Updated shipping prices, options, and timelines

     I have found better shipping rates to most places. These improved shipping rates have been implemented on the Wild Gears shop for some weeks or months now.
  Over the fall and winter of 2025 there were shipping disruptions with Canada Post strikes. This forced me to explore other options. Ultimately I found one that worked well for Canada, the United States, Europe, and the UK. It isn't quite as fast as shipping with Canada Post, but it has allowed me to offer significantly improved shipping rates to most destinations. I still offer express shipping with Canada Post too for when you need fast, guaranteed, delivery times.  Additionally, I still use Canada Post for other shipping destinations that my new shipping options can't reach.

See the three tables below for shipping rate details for Canada, USA, and Europe & UK shipping rates and details.
Note:  for these shipping calculations large gear sets are 0.6 kg and small, and adjunct, gear sets are 0.15 kg.

  4)  Updated discounts for EU and UK sales

    There is a new Wild Gears discount code “EU149” that improves on Bundle15. This code is good for 3 large gear sets and will set their combined price to less than €150. This is about a 21% discount (depending of € to CAD conversion rates that day).   See the next section for more details on why this change is being made.

See this blog post for some details and an example of the coupon code and VAT collection in effect.

  5)  VAT and Shipping details for EU and UK sales

EU VAT:
    The Wild Gears shop is now setup to collect VAT.  This will make it so that your packages can be delivered directly to you without any customs fees for delivery.  This will also help prevent the unpleasant surprise of fees charged to collect VAT.  This is one improvement that I've wanted to make for years and has finally become practical for me to implement.  VAT will be calculated at checkout.
UK VAT:
    Currently I am unable to register to collect VAT for sales to the UK.  I am looking into this, but for now and the coming months it will remain that way.  Orders under £39 are not assessed for any fees, and orders under £135 are assessed for less fees and VAT, and orders over £135 will be most heavily charged at customs.
 
    DDP price threshold: (sounds boring, is important and quick)
    Currently, the VAT collection in place only works for orders (shipments) with a total pre-VAT price of €150 or less. Orders above that price will not pay VAT at checkout but will still have to pay VAT and collection fees before delivery of the package.  For this reason it is recommended that you place multiple orders below the €150 threshold.  If you place multiple orders like this you can use the coupon code "SecondOrderFreeShipping" to get free shipping on any order you place as long as you have already placed one order today.

    The previous way discounts and free shipping were structured accidentally encourage purchases that were just a bit over €150 (or £135 for the UK). So I have re-worked the shipping and bundle15 discount to have a better sub €150 (or £135 for the UK) option.   That re-work was the "EU149" coupon code

Why does it work like this? Shipments above €150 are a different category for import/customs and need different systems in place to declare and collect and pay the taxes and fees properly. Unfortunately the shipping solutions that I currently use cannot support the DDP (over €150) options, and I am a small company and I don't ship nearly enough to get a usable rate from any major courier (like FedEx) that would handle the DDP paperwork.

What if I want to buy more than €150 of gear sets? You still can, and you even have a couple of options. You can place one large order and I'll ship that out, but there will be the VAT and fees for VAT collection from the post office / customs. OR, you can place multiple orders, each €150 or less and all the VAT will be collected automatically during payment and each order will be shipped separately.  Is that allowed?  Yes, this is explicitly allowed in the rules about these shipments.
But then am I paying extra shipping :-( ?  No!  You can use the coupon code "SecondOrderFreeShipping" to get free shipping on any order you place as long as you have already placed one order today.

   6)  Price Changes

    Most gear set prices will stay the same. Some of the large gear set bundles; those listings with multiple large gear sets, like the Kitchen Sink gear set, or the Double Dense gear set, will see a price increase. This is because when I priced them I built a discount into the bundle, but then they are also candidates for the Bundle15, Bundle25, and EU149 discount codes. This effectively double discounts those gear sets.

Prices will be updated mid June 2026.

    I've managed to not raise Wild Gears prices for more than a decade. Eventually the day will come when I must change the base price of a small gear set (CAD$49) or a large gear set (CAD$99). That day is not today, and I will continue to do everything I can to keep these gear sets the same price.  The adjunct gear sets might change in price a bit this summer; I don't know yet, its complicated.

​  7)  Version 5 launch special offer!

    I want to celebrate this major update.  I want to celebrate all the wonderful Wild Gears artists and dedicated fans that make any of this possible.  I want to encourage you to share about Wild Gears with anyone you think might be interested.
    To that end I want to offer a free gear set to everyone that orders anything. I can't do this all the time, and I can only do this if there are enough sales.  So here's the deal. For the next month, when you place an order you can opt into the Free Gear Set! and I will give you a free gear set with your order.

Free Gear Set Details: For this one month period ending June 2nd you get a free adjunct gear set!
If there are more sales I can upgrade the free gear set!  If there are:

• 100 sales then it is a free small gear set instead
• 200 sales and it is a free large gear set instead; if you've ordered at least one large gear set
  • *** Because of shipping, and the size of large gear sets, and some other factors I can only offer the free large gear set if you have ordered a large gear set***

I am not great at marketing, and internet advertising is expensive and not my specialty.  So instead of wasting good money on bad adds I will put that part of the budget towards celebrating you and putting more gears into your hands.  Please, take a minute and share this wild gears launch and offer with a friend, or your book club, or your niche discord channel.

Limit 1 free gear set per customer.

  8)  Timeline (when will all this happen?)

Version 5 gear sets will start shipping on or before the 3rd week of May.
One upgrade is needed for my laser cutter before I can make the large UV Printed gear sets to the quality and speed that I require. That upgrade is paid for, and the delivery and installation is scheduled for early May.  Shipping of large gear sets will commence the week after that. In all likelihood production of large gear sets will start the very next day, but I'll build in a 1 week buffer for surprises.