Like many of us, Robert grew up with Spirograph. He’s is also involved in woodworking and wood turning. He has been putting together a pin router system that will cut spirograph designs into many kinds of wood projects.

(If the only kind of router you know is the box that delivers your internet, then you need to understand that there is also a woodworking power tool called a router.)

Carpenters use routers to shape the edges of boards. Routers can be hand held or mounted in a table, allowing you to move the wood rather than the machine.

A pin router adds a simple guiding system to the router table. The pin, aligned with the router bit, enables you to quickly and accurately copy complex patterns and shapes from a template into a piece of wood. Guitar makers and small shop furniture makers use pin routers for accurate, repeated cuts. (Learn more about them here if you’re interested.)

Enter Spirograph, and Robert Roehrig’s pin router.

He found that the die-cast metal Spirograph (which I reviewed here) is able to do things that plastic pieces are too flimsy for. (Plus, it looks cool.)

You can see that he has screwed the ring to a “sled” which he can move freely with his hands. A piece of wood is attached to the underside of the sled with double-sided tape. As he moves the sled, the wood is engraved by the router bit. The pin, visible on the top, is aligned with the router bit. Because he can’t see what’s happening, he has to trust that every movement of the sled is transferred to the wood.

When he inserts the pin in a pen hole in the Spirograph wheel, and he slowly moves the sled around while keeping the gears engaged, the router bit carves out a spirograph pattern in the wood below.

“It’s like doing Spirograph in reverse,” he says.

This next photo shows the router bit beneath the table. You can see how it lines up with the pin on top.

Here (above) it looks like he has put another piece of plastic on top of the ring that keeps the inside wheel from jumping out – a hazard familiar to anyone who has used a Spirograph.

Finally, here are some little Square Bottles he turned, sporting medallions made with the spirograph unit.

I hope to hear more from Robert about his explorations. I’ll continue to share them here.

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I had a basketball, which I set in a suitably sized (crystal!) bowl to hold it steady, and proceeded to attach a Wild Gears ring (84 teeth on the inside) with putty and drew a pattern (Wild Gear 36 teeth). And to my surprise, it worked quite nicely.

I wasn’t intending to do it more than once, so I made a video of the whole experiment, which is below.

My basketball will never be the same. I used a black Sakura Micron 05 pen, which is permanent, archival and waterproof. Although I used some Wild Gears, I think Spirograph parts should also work.

Now that I think about it, though, the guy who asked the question was a wood turner. A basketball is spherically symmetrical and convex, so this might work on the convex side of a shallow turned bowl, but drawing on the inside of the bowl probably wouldn’t work as the inside ring teeth would be off the surface. An epitrochoid (drawing on the outside of the ring) might be possible, however, on a concave surface.

I don’t see it working on a spindle shape with cylindrical symmetry.

Here’s the video. Let us know if you try anything like this.

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This is my response for how to use up the little ‘not much use for’ acrylic left over bits when unpacking Wild Gears.

it’s my first rain stick and I am quite happy with it. The acrylic pieces work really well, much lighter than seeds/pebbles.

I will make another one and will use more internal sticks and hopefully the acrylic will fall much slower.

A rainstick is an Australian Aboriginal percussion instrument that sounds like rain when you turn it one way or the other. Traditionally, it’s made from a dried cactus stick, with the thorns removed, turned around and pounded into the stick. The seeds, beans or pebbles inside knock against the thorns as they fall, making a tinkling sound.

Shop Wild Gears at this link.

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Watercolour paper stretches when wet, so needs to be taped down on a flat surface like a board. A better tape than what I’m using (beige masking tape or green painter’s tape) is gummed paper tape. You can buy artist’s tape or, apparently, the tape used by butchers. I need to get some, and perfect my stretching skills.

There are many other watercolour techniques to explore for creating beautiful backgrounds. Just do a search on YouTube.

Shop Wild Gears at this link.

Meanwhile, here are some videos of pieces that I’ve done:

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Then the fun began. I have to say I was surprised at how much I got into it. At first I wanted to give each “square” (never really square) a different colour from its neighbour as in a patchwork quilt. Then my sister Pam visited. She found a human-like figure in one of the designs, and brought it out with her colour choices and thickened some lines….

Well, duh! She showed me that you can take this much farther, if you have a true artist’s eye. Colour outside the lines!

Anyway, here are some examples that I’ve done. If you find this inspiring, you can buy my colouring pages right here. Give me encouragement and I’ll make more!

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You can buy very nice blank cards and envelopes, pre-cut and folded, and draw designs on them. I found the Strathmore brand in an art supply shop, and I’ve seen them in office supply stores as well, or you can find Strathmore cards and envelopes on Amazon.

There are many different sizes of cards and a variety of paper types to choose from. Some have a textured surface, some are made of recycled fibers, some have “deckled” edges where the fibres hang out as if they were torn, as you can see in the photos. They all work. There are different colours too, from white to black. Some gel pens will mark on black.

I used metallic gel pens for most of these cards. They’re from an inexpensive set of gel pens I got on Amazon, though you could get them anywhere.

I added a matching design on the front and/or back of each envelope as well, making sure to leave room for the address. It was hard to draw over the deckle on the flap of the envelope, although it looks nice.

I’ve been pleased to use my cards for birthdays and thank-you’s, and they would also be suitable for sympathy cards. Even for Christmas, especially using stars. Here is an old video of mine on how to make a 5-pointed star with Spirograph. (That video now has 108,000 views and 525 likes. Wow, just wow.)

Shop Wild Gears at this link.

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Dhaval noted that Spirograph (or Wild Gears) would be a great tool for creating rangoli patterns. Looking at the examples below, don’t you agree?

If anyone makes a Spirograph rangoli, please take a picture and share it with us!

Read more about rangoli here [Wikipedia]. Dhaval’s Art Blog is here.

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It’s 39 pages of vintage goodness, including many patterns you can make with the non-super Spirograph. Plus it has ideas for taking them further into artistic creations of your own.

Many of the designs are familiar, but there are some that I don’t remember from any English-language manuals. Perhaps they were part of some of the earlier Denys Fisher versions out of England.

Even if you don’t read any of the languages, illustrations and the color-coded text can guide you in creating the designs yourself.

A particular charm is that the patterns are obviously hand-drawn, complete with misalignments and splotches.

Apparently Spirograph was distributed in Europe by Meccano France S.A., as shown by the trademark at the bottom of the document.

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I’d never heard of edible markers, but apparently they exist. And Amber Spiegel, a cookie artist in Beacon NY is not afraid to use them with Spirograph!

Here is her video. You can learn more on her website at SweetAmbs.com where she has lots of tutorials about decorating the most gorgeous cookies you’ve ever seen.

If you try making Spirograph cookies and are even halfway successful, take a picture of the best ones, and tell us what worked for you and what didn’t. If I get a few photos I’ll make a post about it.

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Ariella Zwillinger in art class with her latest spiro montage

I don’t think many of the “tots” who ever used the old Spirotot toy – a basic version of Spirograph designed for smaller children – ever made patterns like this. It requires mastery not typical of 5-year-olds.

Ariella Zwillinger from Maryland, who sent photos of a Spirograph collage she made last winter, has produced another Spirograph masterpiece, this one made using a vintage Spirotot that was in her basement.

You can see how she carefully cut out the patterns and arranged them overlapping slightly in a grid formation. They’re all about the same size, and each is drawn with at least a couple of similar colors. The patterns make it look like there are more than two colors involved.

Another awesome job by Ariella. I hope this inspires you to do more with Spirograph!

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