Marble run

[Pegu 17]

I collected a few off cuts of brass, aluminium, stainless and wood and made this marble run for my grandson. There's also a few lengths of copper plumbing pipe split length ways for some of the runs. He's a bit young to be trusted with the metal workings at the moment so I built it inside the perspex case for his protection. He loves it.

Fred

[craftdancer2]

Fred, you have an extremely lucky grandson!!! I'm not surprised he loves it - it's the sort of thing many people could sit and play with/watch for hours. You are a very clever chap

[3dDave]

I love it myself Fred 😂😂..brilliant👍🏻
Dave

[Pegu 17]

Fred, you have an extremely lucky grandson!!! I'm not surprised he loves it - it's the sort of thing many people could sit and play with/watch for hours. You are a very clever chap

Thanks Linda, but I'm the lucky one. I made it last summer but have not been able to give it to him until now so I have spent many hours playing with it myself.

I love it myself Fred 😂😂..brilliant👍🏻
Dave

Thanks Dave- it's a lot of fun.

[craftdancer2]

Thanks Linda, but I'm the lucky one. I made it last summer but have not been able to give it to him until now so I have spent many hours playing with it myself.

ROFLMAO! Nice one

[webtrekker]

Just .......... AMAZING! Lovely workmanship, and a great idea that's been very well thought out.

[webtrekker]

Pegu 17 Here's a little something I made that might interest you, seeing as you are very hands-on and also that you use perspex in your projects.

A couple of years ago I made myself an (admittedly, rather rough!) acrylic bending machine for 2 to 3mm acrylic sheet. It uses a nichrome wire held taught beween two springs connected to a low voltage supply to provide the heat required for bending.

At the time, I was making and selling Tide Clocks, with a clear acrylic stand (bent with my machine), a dye-subbed aluminium face, and a tide clock movement. They came out very nice and I sold quite a few but the price of the movements increased too much to make them viable any more.

naut_clock1.jpg

naut_clock2.jpg

As you can see below, only 4.34 Amps of current is drawn from a low voltage of 12.8 Volts, making the machine very safe to operate (apart from burnt fingers for the over-zealous!).

HWAB_real1.jpg

HWAB_real2.jpg

I purposely made the wire interchangeable (unlike all of the youtube videos of similar machines) so that if a wire ever burned out , or snapped, then I could swap it out for a new one in seconds. I used the brass 'ball ends' that are fitted to guitar strings on the ends of the wire so that it would easily slip over the springs. Here's a rendered mockup of my design showing how the wire is attached to the springs ...

HWAB_4.jpg

Apart from the clock stands I made my grandkids some phone and tablet stands but have yet to use the machine to its full potential (ie. easily sidetracked by other projects!!!).

[Pegu 17]

Pegu 17 Here's a little something I made that might interest you, seeing as you are very hands-on and also that you use perspex in your projects.......................................... ..............

Hi. Yes that does look interesting. I have often thought of something along those lines but as yet have not had a project that would need it but I will bear your creation in mind when the time comes.

It does remind me of a crude method of cutting polystyrene I have used where I simply fasten a piece of thin copper wire between two sticks and connect to a battery. Works well but not very sophisticated (or possibly not very safe) but alright in small doses.

Fred.