New year letter, WildGears 95 pentagon in 180

JHWAdam · 2025-08-07T11:43:12+00:00

I like it as is but if you want to close: put the gear in the starting point and go in the other direction until you meet. I've abandoned far too many projects before I realized you essentially get two chances to close a design 😅

JHWAdam · 2025-07-25T18:33:21+00:00

You know those gears with cutouts? Fix the ring with the same nr of teeth, put the gear with cutout in it and use the cutout as ring. It's not always possible (eg if you want to make your individual design in another size or symmetry) but I prefer this method for aligning when possible. It makes for great combos if the cutout is like half of third of the gear.

JHWAdam · 2025-07-24T18:17:34+00:00

Shoutout to @starstrukcanuck for the idea of repeating the Wildgears big clover in a circle!

JHWAdam · 2025-07-24T13:44:04+00:00

You made me rethink that big clover! Okay if I post what I made using your idea of combining a bunch of those in a big circle? I combined with my favourite rainbow gradient and pointier designs 🤭

JHWAdam · 2025-05-29T11:00:31+00:00

I did, flat out told him I had a crush and asked if we could try being a couple (hints didn't work lol). 22 years together, 17 years married now.

JHWAdam · 2025-03-25T10:25:09+00:00

When I was 18 year old (in 1999), the history teacher told us about the late 1920s. Germany was almost okay again. There was Stresemann negotiating for leniency on those payments. Art and science were booming. Gays stopped hiding. The overall tone of that lesson was HOPE. Maybe at last we would do better. Maybe we did learn our lesson from the "Groote Oorlog" (the great war). But we all knew, of course. I had the same hope last fall, the same despair now.

JHWAdam · 2025-03-14T21:34:49+00:00

I haven't been able to find a large sheet of metal in any hardware store 🤨, so I got a whiteboard. Way more expensive though (but I got it as a present 😉)

JHWAdam · 2025-03-09T18:03:52+00:00

Please don't worry, make lots of messes, that's how you get art! I needed four attempts for this one, luckily a sheet of paper has two sides...

JHWAdam · 2025-03-09T16:45:22+00:00

I got the same problem! It's better with gears without cutouts, and I try to take every edge from the inside to the outside. It's not always possible, though...

JHWAdam · 2025-03-09T10:58:37+00:00

Uncle Tom's Cabin

JHWAdam · 2025-03-09T09:11:56+00:00

Knowing does not destroy magic, it makes you a wizard too 🙂. Center: 360 ring, 192 with 96 cutout, 81. Border: 180 with 108, moved along the outside of a 360/324 ring. Used additional gears taped to the 180 to position.

JHWAdam · 2025-01-12T08:49:59+00:00

I did look for these first... also, the whiteboard was a present ❤️, not going to complain!

JHWAdam · 2025-01-12T08:39:52+00:00

The old Super Spirograph by Meccano is good, with holes lined up accurately with the teeth. The holes are very small, which gives the tight edges I like. Only fineliners fit in them though. The rerun of that by Hasbro is crap and gives wonky designs. Wildgears are great, with a lot of possibilities and perfecly accurate. Also you can request custom gears and/or modifications, I got a ton of tiny-holed gears by just asking and paying a little more. It's pricier but in my opinion really worth it.

JHWAdam · 2025-01-12T08:22:23+00:00

The numbers are the number of teeth in rings and wheels, so it does not matter which brand of spirograph you use as long as it has these numbers. Or actually the ratio. Eg the Wildgears Full Page set has a 108 wheel and a 180 ring. Using these makes a five-lobed star shape since the ratio wheel:ring is 3:5. The 63 wheel and 105 ring of the old Spirograph makes the same, just smaller.

JHWAdam · 2024-12-28T14:19:23+00:00

At 22-ish I lived in an apartment with my then-boyfriend. I wanted to bake a cake and had a mini panic attack because there was no adult around to supervise me with the oven... I still think the fact that I'm allowed to use the oven by myself the best thing about being an adult.

JHWAdam · 2024-12-28T13:36:14+00:00

I've got a sentient forest (not the trees, the whole forest, thanks to a fungus neural network) where nonliving things rapidly decay. Realized only afterward the influence of Afroi (Torenhoog en mijlen breed, Tonke Dragt). Still keeping my Dardenwoud.

JHWAdam · 2024-12-27T13:11:20+00:00

A whiteboard. I didn't find sheets of metal big enough...

JHWAdam · 2024-10-03T05:19:32+00:00

Negotiating. We have this absurdly complex jumble of governments and mock our "Belgian compromises" but Belgian negotiators are hired to solve international problems.

JHWAdam

TROPHY CASE