Photos of recent exploits

As I mentioned, here are some pics of things I have been getting on with. I will shelve this project for another day and return to it. I am thinking a rack and pinion gearing system might be a good mechanism to try. If I can't get it to work at least it'll be good experience. 

Close up of the mechanism with the main pin wheel gear

Reverse view

My initial mechanism with pin wheels on half of the gear. It nearly worked but if I turned the wheel too fast, the centre wheel would have built up some inertia and would continue moving around. I wanted it to turn exactly 180 degrees each time. 

A new mechanism I was trying. There would be an offset cam which which push the lever up and down. The lever would have a rod sticking up out of the end of it which would lift the friction wheel up, disengaging it from the main drive friction wheel. This model also nearly worked but didn't quite make it. 

A close up of the "newer" mechanism

A present for my friend

The hearts for the cupid model

My friends present. I scrapped this configuration

I decided to make a makeshift sanding table to lay parts on to get a perfect 90 degree angle. It requires a bit of work

With the sanding attachment

This is a luthier clamp I made out of mdf and pine (I'm going to build my own guitar, amateur guitar maker blog to follow). It's not the best example but all of the videos I saw on Youtube involved them being made out of mahogany and I am too poor for that. I might try plywood but I think that would probably snap easily.

Another view of the clamp

For my friend's present I decided to try using papier mache. This is the plasticine mould

Newspaper layer

Finished

The re-done mechanism. Hopefully this will work out better. I have a few other bits to attach.  

Sorry it's a bit of a dull one. I'll try harder next time.