Inside a 120-tooth ring, I used a gear with 96 teeth, which has an off-center hole with 40 teeth. (I don’t remember which set this came from.)

Then I drew the pattern six times with six different small gears inside the 40 ring to see the patterns.

Looking at the math of it

Each time I got a 5-lobed pattern. That’s the basic geometry of the 120-96 gear combination, 5 loops or points, as you can see in the table here.

But there’s a lot of variation in how that 5-lobed pattern is expressed, according to which small gear is used.

Small gears used are: 32 (navy blue ink), 26 (pink). 34 (purple), 18 (green), 30 (red), 16 (turquoise).

Using the same table, looking at the number of points each gear would give in a 40-tooth ring, we see that:

• Gears 18, 26 and 34 all give 20 points
• Gears 32 and 16 give 5 points
• Gear 30 gives 4 points.

Now the differences in pattern density make sense. The three 20 point patterns (pink, purple and green) look different depending on the physical size of the gear.

The other three looser patterns make more sense if you try to count the points or loops within each lobe. Some of the points are hidden in the inner part of the pattern, so they’re hard to make out. But they’re there. You may get an idea from watching the video.

So the overall geometry of a wheel-within-a-wheel pattern depends on the larger gear/ring pair, and the density depends on the inner, smaller gear/ring pair.

Here’s the video, filmed on a sunny summer day in direct sunlight. The glass-topped patio table gives a nice flat surface for this work.

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I do know, however, that if your small gear isn’t much smaller than the hole in the larger gear you’re using, you get loops. This pattern has lots of loops, as it uses a #40 gear in a #45 hole. The larger wheel is 140 and the large ring is 180. All except the 40 are in Wild Gears’ Full Page Gear Set. The 40 came from the Plentiful Gear Set.

It’s fun to watch the pattern emerge, so I made a video of it (below). I messed it up 5 times before I gave up and used the blooper anyway. I tried again without the camera running and got it perfect the first time. Go figure.

The first time I discovered this combination of gears, I found the pattern interesting and coloured it. So I made it in black as a colouring page, and here are some results. A couple are done by an Australian correspondant, Suze.

In case you’d like to try colouring it yourself, you can buy the colouring page as an instant printable. Send me your pictures and I’ll add them to the gallery.

In the video, I’m using a Micron 05 pen (.45mm). This is a pricier pen than most that I use, but I wanted some archival ink to create more serious artwork with my Wild Gears and Spirograph. Christmas is coming, after all.

Colouring page available here.

Shop Wild Gears at this link.

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These designs use gear #40 inside the #64 hole which is asymmetrically located in a bigger gear #126, and the whole is rotating inside ring #180. It gives a bilaterally symetrical pattern.

After drawing the pattern with a sequence of holes to create a ribbon-like effect (a common technique in many Spirograph/Wild Gears designs), I did the same in a different colour, starting at a point 90° away on the big ring #180.

I actually counted the teeth to find the exact spot, though I don’t show the counting in the video (180 teeth ÷ 4 = 45 teeth) and made a little mark with the pen.

I made a blooper in the second video, but decided to keep going, as I was working outside and was gradually losing my light. The direct sunlight you see in the first video had gone. A cricket started to sing as the afternoon waned and you can hear it in the second video.

These videos are real-time and all you hear is the sound of the pen and gears moving. Good for people who like relaxing videos and those who get off on ASMR (soft noises that create a pleasurable response).

I used cheap gel pens for these, the kind you can buy at a dollar store, although I got mine on Amazon when I was buying something else. There’s a link on this page to the ones I got; there are many other sets with even more pens – hundreds even. I don’t think brand name matters. They’re probably all made in China in the same factory or factories, and just given the label of the wholesaler. They work with Spirograph too, even the vintage sets (mostly) which have smaller holes.

Which colour combination do you like better? In the first, I used black for the first and last line of each ribbon, which outlines the shapes and reveals interesting patterns including a circle in the middle. In the second, I used the same colour throughout the whole ribbon.

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She created a thread on a forum dedicated to fountain pens, showing some of the art she has produced using fountain pens and mixing zentangle components with Wild Gears patterns. She also shows photos showing how her Wild Gears have totally invaded her living space.

I love how the soft colors and washes soften the geometric patterns, and the hand-drawn components fill the spaces.

She also offers some tips on using Wild Gears which you might find helpful whether or not you’re using fountain pens.

Read her thread at this link.

She’s also on Instagram as @pinkinkfountainpen where you can find more of her work.

Thanks Samantha, and I’m so sorry it took me a year to dig your email out of my To Do box!

Shop Wild Gears at this link.

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Maybe you have to watch a video to get what I’m saying, so here is another one below.

I’ve written previously about this process, so check out my previous posts here and here.

In this video, the first pattern uses gear 45 in hole 60 in gear 135 inside ring 180. For the second pattern, I kept the same setup, and just changed the small gear to 32.

It’s a quiet video with no talking, just the sound of the felt pens and gears moving on the paper, made especially for those who get a pleasurable feeling when listening to quiet sounds (ASMR), and for those who love the relaxing effect of watching patterns unfold in pretty colors.

Shop Wild Gears at this link.

The post Wild Gears Video: Two Wheel-Within-a-Wheel Patterns appeared first on SpiroGraphicArt.

For more examples, see this older post.

To buy Wild Gears, which are laser-cut on demand, click here to go the Wild Gears site.

The post New Wild Gears Video: Wheel-Within-a-Wheel appeared first on SpiroGraphicArt.

Wheel 24 in inner ring 60 inside wheel 135 in ring 180

Here’s a “wild” thing that Wild Gears can do: make designs with a wheel inside an off-center hole in a larger wheel going around inside a ring.

This picture shows little wheel 24 inside hole 60 which is in larger wheel 135 also going around inside ring 180.

This particular combination of wheels and rings gave a surprisingly few number of points, which I drew with several holes.

To see how this looks in action, watch Aaron Bleakley (Wild Gears’ inventor)’s video below, using Outer Ring size: 210, Outer Gear size: 126, Inner Ring Size: 64 and Inner Gear Size:35

Below the video, you’ll find a gallery of patterns that I’ve created with different combinations. They don’t all work well, so I’m only showing the better or more interesting ones.

Shop Wild Gears here

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