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.

The post Carving Spirograph Patterns into Wood with a Pin Router appeared first on SpiroGraphicArt.

Rose Engine with Wild Gears

A reader, Steve White, has been experimenting with using Spirograph pieces and just recently, Wild Gears, on a machine called a Rose Engine.  A Rose Engine is a kind of lathe that can produce spirograph-like patterns in metal and other materials. The Rose Engine has shaped disks called rosettes that create the pattern. The results are pretty amazing, with patterns that you probably couldn’t produce any other way.  Here is a video of Steve explaining some ways he has integrated Spirograph pieces:

Aaron Bleackley, creator of Wild Gears, programmed a 1.000-inch hole in the middle of some of the Wild Gears so that they mount on Steve’s machine, and he’s starting to experiment with them.

This photo shows a small square Wild Gear mounted with a large wheel with 135 teeth to produce the pattern shown.

“This is the spring that pushes the head stock of the rose engine forward against the smaller gear. A big gear on the spindle is fixed in place, and as I hand crank the spindle, the large gear messes with a small gear. That creates the pattern on the paper.”

Showing his setup for previewing the pattern on paper to be drawn by the lathe.

“I had to make a holder for the gears that fit my Rose engine. Now they are in order and easy to find. Also right next to my machine. ” ~ Steve White

At this stage, Steve said, “For now large gears are on the spindle and another goes around the outside edge [epitrochoids]. But with new tooling I could come up with a way to run a gear on the inside [hypotrochoids].”

A day later, he had found a way to run the gears on the inside.

“Now I can use wild gears inside and out. Cool shit is about to take place. This was my first try.” ~ Steve White

One more day and he had produced this design cut in plexiglass.

Design cut in plexiglass by Steve White on his Rose Engine

Steve’s YouTube channel has lots of tutorials about using the Rose Engine: https://www.youtube.com/user/swhitefrog/videos

We’ve had a bit of discussion about Steve White’s Rose Engine in the comments on this page, but it would be better to have them continue here in the comments below. You can ask him questions about it and hopefully he’ll reply – and you can also leave comments on his YouTube channel under the videos.

Steve White lives in St. Louis MO, if anyone lives close and wants to collaborate or explore.

The post The Rose Engine appeared first on SpiroGraphicArt.