Video: Wild Gears Gear 120 in Ring 210
Here’s another Wild Gears video I made last week in the direct sunlight. This one is speeded up 4 times and matched with a reggae beat.
The holes in Wild Gears are usually lined up in rows. This gear has two rows of small holes, and they alternate, so that if you use both rows, you’ll get a pretty dense design. (Spirograph holes, in comparison, are arranged in a spiral pattern, and make an even denser design if you use them all.)
With the holes in a line, you don’t have to line up the gears every time you change holes – if you’re drawing something like this. However, if you’re drawing a sequence of colors, you have to keep in mind that half of the holes are in the other row.
Ring 210 is in the frame of the Full Page Gear Set, and the circular gear 120 came from the Plentiful Gear Set. There are other combinations of gears that will give a 7-pointed star. The Expanded Table of Points is good for finding them – unless you want to do the math.
Really Nice Demo
The design is looking much more similar to a beautiful thread work on a cloth.
Thanks. I actually embroidered some spirograph designs on my clothes when I was a teenager (in the 1970s).
Do you still have them?!!!
That was a very long time ago. No. They succumbed to (a) theft, (b) rot and (c) fire. Things happen.
I’m really enjoying your site and I’m inspired to get some Wild Gears. Thanks so much for producing these videos and sharing them with us!
Thanks so much for the feedback!
I’m using the Full Page set of Wild Gears and so far find it totally confusing. The patterns created are so unpredictable. While this adds an adventurous element, it also means that I can’t ‘design’ patterns in the way I do with Spirograph, with the point charts which came with the Spiro kits and the ones on this site. I just don’t know how many points a wheel within a ring will create, and then there’s the wheels within wheels within rings!
I’m sure it’ll all become clear, but some kind of basic chart would have been helpful.
I made some charts of points which you can find here: https://spirographicart.com/expanded-table-points-drawing-hypotrochoids-epitrochoids/ – but they don’t have pictures.
The thing is that when you’re not limited to 144/96 and 150/105, there are so many possibilities that the charts get pretty big.
Not everyone’s brain works the same way. I’m a natural improviser, whether I’m cooking, gardening, playing music or spirographing. Others prefer to work with recipes or make a firm plan before they start. I found it fun to discover the possibilities long before I made a chart. I tend to draw the pattern with an outer hole, then decide what to do with it on the fly – line up the other holes or make a pinwheel, play with colors, look for another wheel that makes the same number of points. I’m thinking I should write a post about that.
It did take me a little while to get comfortable with Wild Gears, however, I must admit – to feel them out.
If you want to make yourself a spreadsheet chart for the gears in your set, the formula is here: https://spirographicart.com/2014/07/07/calculating-points-in-spirograph-pattern/
Wild Gears is an experimental thing as opposed to a highly developed and refined and mass-produced product like Spirograph is. Keep experimenting!
Not gonna believe it: I’m only 9 years old and my mom decided to buy the Full Page Gear Set as a Christmas gift!
Wow, lucky you! I’m a mother myself, and I’d say that one of the important parts of the job is to see what your kids get excited about, and nurture that by giving them the opportunities to explore those things deeper. (As long as they’re good things, LOL.) So kudos to your mom!
Heather you are female?!
Yes. Sometimes I talk with a low voice I guess, so it wouldn’t be clear from the videos. But I can sing high, too! Soprano.