Looking For Used Large Bevel Gears for Kinetic Sculpture

Look in your local phone book for industrial equipment salvage, and when you find a place, and assuming that you are in Calgary you will find a place, call them up and ask for a cooling tower gear box. Big bevel gears in there...

Cooling tower service company might also have some sitting out back rusting. An oil refinery is bound to have some in their bone yard.

Try a truck slavage yard. The hogs head of a dump truck should have the gears you need.

I suggest that you rethink your requirements.
If you obtain one set of gears, it doesn't matter whether or not there are broken teeth, you then require Elastosil M4503 — a product of Wacker chemicals -- who are international — or its equivalent, which is a moulding medium.
Simple to use, providing accurate castings and one mould will do multiple casts.

Casting medium Vinyl ester Resin, SPV 6016, or its equivalent. Product of Fiber Glass International plus some chopped glass fibre for added strength.

I cast all my original models — working mechanical design models — in this medium. This ought to work out as a far cheaper proposition than buying multiple sets of gears.

Head up north to the oil sands. They are hauling massive amounts of oil sand in huge dump trucks. Find the truck shop. Offer to haul their worn out gears away. Take the money and gears that they give you, head back to Calgary and start sculpting.

try both truck wreckers and earth moving machinery wreckers. they wil probably give you worn out gearsets. bulldozer drives (from the rear axle housing) are a good bet.

Youmight be able to get flame cut blanks from gear manufactures at a good price. no point in them grinding them, so it'd be much cheaper. Offer to put their name on them and they may give them as part of their advertising budget!

I guess you meant 15" to 20", not what you actually wrote!

The best place to search is a scrap yard, and if you are clever enough, you will make a contract with them to show their name also on the finished piece, giving them credit for supplying parts (for free of course!)

I have an old Falk gearbox that may have a set of gears in it. I also may have some replacement gears I can part with. At this point I do not know if I truly have bevel gears but I will check and let you know. Are you talking about a ring gear and pinion setup that will run or just plain bevel gears of any type? Could you elaborate on you project any or is it a secret till its finished?

pipewelder

If what you need is a ring & pinion set, you might try looking at single-batch concrete or mortar mixers; the kind with revolving drums used them until someone figured out how to cheapen them by punching slots into a flange on the drum. Newer mortar mixers have a different mechanism, too, and there is no longer a rotating drum on most. See if you can find used small concrete mixers through Craigslist or other sources. Tool rental places may be a good source, especially at season's end, and may be part of a chain or franchise operation that can find multiples.

Several have suggested finding the gears from large trucks but I doubt that will bear fruit. This size and type of gear is what you'd find in a large gear box.

With that, try equipment salvage rather than vehicle salvage.

Travis

Hello, I did a quick check and found that the gears I have would be in the 6"-10" range and I would only have one or two of these extra. Most of the gear boxes I have are 10 hp to 40 hp and would not have that large of a gear. When I was looking around my shop "lay-down" area I did find a couple of large sprockets that would be over 20" diameter and was wondering if sprocket/chain drive would be any use?

pipewelder

Welcome aboard! Suggest you pay attention to the previous replies regarding donations for a plaque crediting the supporters. Not many equipment salvage yards or mining operations get to brag about being "patrons of the arts"! I'll bet they'd bite on that like fleas on a hound dog!

If its just the 90 degree motion conversion you need then make some peg gears in plywood and dowel it would work fine and a lot lighter. Even a disk to disk friction drive would do with rubber tyre for improved friction. I do like the idea of casting in resin as well.

Yeah, I'd wondered about that...it can look really nice if you want it to be part of the sculpture.
Dunno about the longevity.
Old fashioned windmills/watermills (don't ya love 'em?) had wooden gears with individually made teeth (Oak?).

Del

Wow! I didn't know what to expect when I posted my question, being brand new to CR4. I much appreciate all the ideas and am checking them all out! I am thinking about other applications for the resin suggestion. I like the idea about the pegs. I first started asking for parts in exchange for advertising, but I was surprised that no one was interested.

The kinetic sculpture is fairly heavy. The motion has to change direction 90 degrees within each frame. And there was a typo - I meant to say 15" - 20" in diameter. The sculpture uses skins from a 1940's Massey Harris tractor. I will post pictures here when its done. I will be updating my blog with the information as the sculpture progresses, hopefully this coming week - so there is no info posted yet. It can be found at sandhurstsculpture@blogspot.ca

Thanks again!

Geoff

Sorry, the blog is at www.sandhurstsculpture.blogspot.com

Cheers,

Geoff

I suggest you look up Timkin Gears. (Check Spelling) I have found that the shape of gears is affected by the forces so that conical gears represent mature transfer tech not usually known to artists who find out that there were watches designed to work independently of gravity.

Nice work, I particlarly like the Bass .
Here are 2 of mine...Mr Deer (on the left) is now installed at the Gibberd Garden on permanent loan, he's Oak with Yew antlers. a bit more rustic than your work.


Del

They are cool! Sometimes I don't know when to stop and I lose something in the sculpture by adding too much detail. Being rustic is beautiful and has an emotional connection. It takes skill to know the moment to stop and let the work speak. Thank you for sharing and I'd love to see more.

Cheers,
You are soooo right on the 'knowing when to stop'. Sometimes the quick sketch of an idea turns out to be the best version. With the two Deer the little one made of old twisted Oak fencing was just done on the fly for Mrs Cat's birthday... and I think it's the better of the two.
I'm only just getting into sculpture, but there's some of my artwork posted as a blog here.

Del

I like the one in your Avatar too.
It's slightly redolent of some pierced Tsuba I've seen (Japanese sword hand guards).

What tools/skills did you employ?

Tell us more or do a blog I'm sure we'd love to see some of the engineering skills that go into your work. (or add some biography and liks into your profile...I've put loads of my stuff into mine and it forms a usefull reference...[assuming you want to see a Chinese Repeating Crossbow])

Del

Hi Del,

Those drawings are amazing and I loved the subjects too. I am fascinated with rusted old cars, old machinery and buildings. You are very talented and capture your subject matter in a way that tells their story. Very moving.

To answer your question, in the early eighties I was custom bending pipe for exhaust systems and have been using an oxy acetylene torch since then. I am fascinated with melting metal and striving to control the opportunities that exist between the molten state and solid.

I've taken a couple of metalsmithing courses, and am mostly self taught through metal smithing books and videos. I'm using forging and also raising and sinking techniques. With the owl and the yellow bellied sap sucker on my blog, I formed the metal and then built up layers of weld and then carved it back using grinders.

With the bass fish, I carved a styrofoam form, then got a pattern from it by layering with tin foil and duct tape, then transferred the pattern to the sheet metal ,allowing some extra in certain areas for overlapping, then I would sink the metal using various hammers in depressions in a tree stump. Then the metal is planished, using metal stakes that I have carved in the same form as the fish. Then lightly sanded and some pieces brought to a polish.

I fastened it with rivets.

I'm happy to share my techniques, so if there is something particular you are curious about, I can post pictures of the process or send them to you directly.

I am also open to learning new techniques - so if you have something that you find works for you, I'd be glad to hear about it.

I am just learning how to navigate this site, so I will see how I can post the pictures I have of making a formed fish. I have done these for talks with students at high schools, so I have the pictures of the process ready. I will try to get them up in the next week. I am much better with a torch than a computer as the plastic melts when I get near it!

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm looking forward to checking out all the links you have. Cheers, Geoff

Cheers...I look forward to seeing the pics.
Molten metal is very ... can't think of a good enough word..powerful, elemental?
I remeber going to a steel works as a school kid...brilliant...white hot railway lines snaking out from the machines...brill'.

I've not got much in the way of facilities here...a pillar drill a crappy ark welder...so I tend to go for the wood option.

Del

What a great website, what fantastic art objects, totally brilliant, I will certainly watch your work from now on.

If you are getting paid what they are really worth, you will become a rich man indeed.

Reading your life story you appear to have a few regrets, please forget those regrets completely:-

AS WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO YOU MADE YOU AS YOU ARE TODAY AND GAVE YOU SOMETHING EXTRA IN YOUR FANTASTIC SKILLS!!!!!!!

"Je ne rien pas!" = no regrets!!!

Wishing you well in all that you do, regards, Andy Germany.....

Thank you, That is really good advice. It makes me look at life a little differently. Geoff

We may supply it to you. Please contact with us. Henryzhang1@hotmail.com

Wow, very nice website! Those are truly well done sculptures. I have fooled around with metal sculpture from time to time. Although it is nothing like yours I can see the many hours you put into each one. Most of my stuff is a hand hammered blacksmith and welding combo. A few years ago I started to build a glass studio/hot-shop and learn how to blow glass. Now I am tinkering with S/S metal, copper and glass combos. What I do is intertwined in my other work though and has to wait till the paying jobs are complete. I salute you for going into your art full time and I think you will be very successful. I always wanted to but was scared the bills would overcome me while I did. The lost wax castings are particular nice and the owl is awesome indeed. Thanks for sharing. The sprockets I have may be the trick you need, I am sure you could use them with a peg type set up on the other side. The problem is that they are heavy (200-300 lbs min.) and the shipping would be high I am sure. Also I do not know if you sculpture is heavy enough to support the sprocket's weight. If you don't find what you need soon let me know and I may be able to help.

pipewelder

Thank you for the offer of gears, but I think that the shipping will be too high for the budget. I am headed to an auction tomorrow. I viewed some that might work. They are semi truck differentials. I've never been to an auction so it should be interesting. If they don't work, I probably will use the peg idea and build it from scratch.

I know what you mean about the bills overcoming. Luckily my wife has been handling the paperwork for me. It is scary and I put it off until age 40. I am starting to feel my age, and we figured if I didn't do it now, I may not get the chance later. You only live once.

The pieces that look like they are lost wax casted are actually built up welds that has been carved with grinders. I would like to try some bronze casting of my work, but I haven't had the opportunity yet.

I have wanted to work with a glass artist to combine the metal and glass. I would love to see what you come up with combining the two.

Thanks again!

Geoff

Built up welds? now that is interesting I would have sworn they were cast. That makes them even nicer in my book! I am gonna have to try that when/if I have time

pipewelder

Awesome work - thanks for sharing, the link is now bookmarked so I can revisit easily! A painter friend of mine once remarked that the most important brushstroke he made on any painting was the last one, and it was the most difficult one to determine, out of all of them, which one it was. True of all art, even writing.