WIP - Marble Tower

[Ian down london way]

Hors-d'œuvre

Well, the last WIP I posted here was a year ago - dang that's embarrassing. It was for a powered kinetic sculpture, which (thank you everyone) seemed to generate quite a few responses.

So, I'm motivated to post another, as it evolves.

Sponsored (well prompted) by my daughters who think it was very unfair that I had made only a single 'Marble Chest', when there were two of them, I'm going to tackle an item called a Marble Tower.

Its similar, in many ways, to my Marble Chest. The plans come from the same place (Forest Street Plans). Here is the Marble Chest that I made:

... for which these are the plans: http://www.foreststreetdesigns.com/Marble_Chest_Plan.html

The new project, is similar on content, but not in format. Its called a Marble Tower. The plans are here:
http://www.foreststreetdesigns.com/Bell_Tower_Marble_Machine_Plan.html

So, bought the plans by internet/mail, and they arrived from the USA very quickly. Standard problem of there being no option for our size (well, the rest of the world size paper, so photocopying and scanning is tricky / clippy.

Anyway, from a plans perspective, these are the initial drawings you are given in the pack:

So, the first thing is the base.
I've still got rescued oak from my kitchen of a few years ago. I salvaged the door panels and the door edges. The panels are only 15mm, and the plans call for 7/8" (grrr, so much prefer metric) (aka 19mm), so I decided to layer the oak onto some ply. More to the point, the width of the base is wider than my thicknesser.

Adding to the problem was that the plans call for a routed edge all the way around. Now, I've never been good at getting neat edges when routing end grain, so I decided that the best option was to put some oak lipping all the way around, so that I'd be routing along the grain.

So, the base is to be constructed from sections, to create an interesting look, and then oak applied around the outside, like a picture frame.

So, here it is:

And here is my home made router table (complete with car jack) :

And here is the finished base with some matching feet (although not yet attached):

Right - I think that will do for my first posting.

And good luck with the storm - its really picking up outside now!

 

[RossJarvis]

And good luck with the storm - its really picking up outside now!

Storm, there's a storm?

The first one looks really great, good luck with this one. If I nag, will you make me one too? I love those things, hope your daughters do too.

 

[Ian down london way]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/

 

[RossJarvis]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/

Oh, that storm. As long as it doesn't start before I go to the pub It's best not to get worried.

 

[morfa]

Looks really interesting. Love to see how it turns out.

 

[MMUK]

Looks good but 7/8" is approx 22mm, 3/4" is 19mm ish

 

[Ian down london way]

Hum - that might explain a slight problem I have had, which is in the next instalment. I'll post this weekend.

 

[Ian down london way]

Starters

Next part of the project are the uprights and the top part of the structure.

I decided to make the uprights out of Ash. the plan called for screwing the uprights to the base. Clearly screwing into the end grain wasn't going to be strong, so I decided to insert cross grain through the uprights, and for aesthetic reasons, I decided to set them in all four faces. I tried turning some darker wood, but couldn't get a satisfactory fit, so in the end I used some commercial circular cross section hardwood doweling from (gulps) B&Q. Not the greatest of visual contrast, but the effect is not bad.

The top of the uprights are used to support an upper floor, so I added the dowels at both ends of the uprights.
The uprights are screwed into place through the base, but those steel screws are hidden by the feet.

At the top of the uprights, there is a frame with 45 degree corner joints - nicely complementing the base, I think.
I used a biscuit jointer to cut the slots into the four top sections, and having visited the D&M show a few weeks ago, used an ideal tool to hold it all together - a belt clamp I think its called.

And here is the top being screwed into place. having shaped the top layer on my upside down home-made router table.

The next section is to build the top, which is attached above the layer just attached.

I made a template from the plans, and cut some maple for the nice curvy bits which support the central turned piece.

However, having cut and sanded down all four curves...

I discovered they didn't leave enough space in the middle, where they met, for the size of turned crown indicated in the plan.

After much measuring (and not an insignificant amount of cursing) I realized I'd made the base slightly too small - I've no idea how - just about 1 cm, but this made the crown too small by a major amount. The picture shows a square cross section block the correct side from the plans, but it pushes out the four maple pieces till the overlap the edge of the top floor. GRRRR

So, it was either reshape the existing maple (risking the aesthetic), alter their angle (tricky), throw them away and create new ones (wasteful) or or make a smaller crown - which what I thought I'd try doing.

I'll stop this post, so I can add more pictures to the next one (there is a limit per post).

... TO BE CONTINUED TONIGHT ...

 

[Ian down london way]

Coronation

I've been collecting relatively small pieces of fruit wood from friends over the years (I used to make wooden spoon awards and ebay them at £12 each), so I tried turning one of those (pear tree I think), and it looks ok.

I also had, however, some really nice looking spalded beach. I had little idea what to do with it, so I though I'd give that a try too.

Having started to turn it, trying to get the same shape, it looked even better, but turned (ha) out to be too weak, even with the liberal application of super glue to try to keep it cutting nicely.

Shame.

So, back to using my fruit wood top.
So, next job, turn the underside, into which will be set the 4 curved maple arms

Having turned it, I then started chopping out slots to take neatly the curved maple arms. Had to be done by hand, with a Japanese saw and chisel - Got to love those laminated blades - I've only got the one, on the left below (confiscated and carried by the flight crew after I thoughtlessly tried to carry it in my hand luggage on a plane from Tokyo - many many years ago, but still my favorite).

I cut out opposite sides first. Then, major Doh moment, realized that when i started to mark out the other two, that I was going to remove entirely the curved edges. Clearly it was a no-thinking day, as it was obvious, in retrospect that was going to happen, and the 4 maple arms come together to form a square, so the corners had to be detached.

Oh well.

Slice off the edges - wast of 2 hours cutting the slots - and screw the arms in, and, well, it looks ok.

In order to attach the top crown to the assembly, I screwed a steel screw into a pilot hole drilled into the lower turned piece, and then sliced the head off with a dremal cutter and then was able to screw that into a pilot hole drilled into the top fruit wood crown.

Final job, to attached the 4 maple curved pieces to the top of the structure. This was done with a screw fairly close to each of the uprights (so I couldn't plug the holes) - so I've used brass screws which don't detract too much from the overall looks.

Apart from snapping the head off the screws more than once (even with pilot holes and using a steel screw first, the brass screws have such alot of friction, its very easy to snap them - although I finally solved that by waxing the brass screw threads, which lets them screw into place much easier).

Then stuck in the cut off corners, to tidy up the top. I'll plug the screw holes up there later, when I'm sure its really finished.

So, the basic framework is done.
And at least the cat likes it.

 

[Ian down london way]

Supporting the inner man

This stage is the completion of the supporting structure.
Quite straight forward, except that there is lots of end grain that the designer seems to like to screw into, so lots of dowels to fit to enable the screws to bite.

So, here are a few pictures showing the decorative parts being cut and attached:

These are the completed decorative parts for the top.

They are simply stuck to the underside of the top frame, non-structural.

The internals which support all the bits and bobs, I'm making out of Ash.

These are the 6 end supports, screwed to the side frames. The end supports are quite complex, with plugs to hold the screws, countersunk holes, and routed bottom edge. I made 7 as one didn't like the router table which took off one of the poky out corners.

The internal supports are half height, again with dowels in to accept the end screws.

And here it is, with all the internal supports in place - side view.

Now, it starts building up from the bottom upwards, so its the marble pump next.

 

[blackrodd]

Many thanks. Brilliant W I P! Look forward to the next episode
Regards Rodders

 

[RossJarvis]

It's looking very good so far. I like the whole way you are dealing with this, learning and over-coming difficulties. You may not think it at the moment, but it'll be a b****y marvellous job when you're finished.

 

[Ian down london way]

Onwards

Next job is the marble 'pump' which is mounted at the base of the structure.

Here is what it looks like on the plans.

The aim of the pump is that by turning the handle, you push a row of marbles up a clear acrylic tube, to eject a marble at a time out the top, to start the path down through the structure.

But boy, has this been tricky to get right.

I made the reciprocating part first. Picked a few scraps of nice wood I had laying around, using hardwood doweling for the cylinder sections (can't be bothered to turn my own).

Seemed to be ok.

There is also what appears to be a springy catch thingy, visible on the plans, which when made looks like this:

For the acrylic tubing that starts at the bottom, and aims marbles to a bell right at the top, I chose some flexible acrylic tubing which you can get for carrying fluids for ponds pumps and the like. I chose the inner diameter to be a few mm larger than the marbles I selected (which are all between 15mm and 16mm across - and yes, that was me measuring them in the toy shop before buying them).

So, a length of that, and I have to drill a hole into it, to allow marbles to pass into it, near the pump. I had to put doweling into the tube to drill the plastic decently.

The plan also calls for a slot to be cut for a about 6cm along from the hole. Humm, getting rather floppy.
You can also see there the feeder which directs marbles to the hole.

(breaking there to allow more pictures)

 

[Ian down london way]

So here is the view of the floppy tube with the feeder in place. Humm. sort of works, but it needs additional supports along the tube.

You can just about see how the tube isn't really well formed around this area, and is collapsing somewhat.

Anyway, It just about worked, although lots of friction as the pump's ramming shaft tries to move in the tube.

So, onto the bends.

I tried bending the flexible tube (hey, that's why I bought the flexible tube!), and it bends, but the internal shape collapses - no way is a marble going to go through it.

Plan B : Having observed that when the tube collapses internally, it actually squashes out sideways, I thought that I should try to keep it a circle on the outside. So I create some wooden collars placed along the length of the tube. Works great, except now the tube won't bend - the collars keep it rigid - who'd have thought !
(well, pretty obvious in retrospect, but what can you do).

So, plan C, don't bend the tubes, but turn the marbles using wooden stuff.

I tried a few different concepts of turning the marbles. One simple wedge design:

but that took a lot of pressure to push marbles through that, and it tended to jam.

mark II uses ply to make outer curves. Much better, and quite aesthetic too:

However it still suffers from bunching up of the marbles, and jamming, so I need to make the tracks more complete, outside edge, inside edge, top and bottom (4-way). Hence the Mk III.

So, I recon I can do the corners, but the bottom really isn't working well, the pump keeps jamming.

Eventually, I did what I really hate to do, and looked at the plans. Oh damn - it says to use the RIGID tubing, then heat it in the oven and bend it. Well, that's rather embarrassing. Must be the engineer in me, I just hate to admit failure and read the instructions.

So, back to the internet, and buy a couple of different sized rigid acrylic tubing. Make some molds for the lower curved section.

After many attempts, and lots of overheating (VERY wobbly tubes) I worked out that you can re-shape the plastic, when its soft, by pushing a drilled wooden collar along its length, which puts it back into a circular shape.

So, seems to be working now.

Move from temporary test area, onto the real structure, and I have a new milestone

 

[RossJarvis]

I've been watching this for months now, it's coming along nicely. I can feel for you with all the experimenting and learning going on. Remember the old engineer's motto RTFB, which translates nearly to "read the instructions first"
Good luck and I can't wait to see it finished.

 

[Ian down london way]

Regulo 5 for 2 minutes

So, next stage is to try to channel the marbles up to the top, so that they fall onto a high up bell.
The plans make it look easy, but...

So, straight length of acrylic up, and then a curved bit at the top, with some cutting, to open up the tube.

The plans show the top should look like this:

So, I bought three lengths of acrylic. One got used for the bottom (well, I wasted half, as I never managed to get it round enough). One for the upright, and the last part for the top.

However, fearless now in the art of bending acrylic, I prepared the oven.

I probably should come clean and admit that, well, I've not got the greatest of track records for ovens.

Last valentines day, after making a huge effort with chocolates with breakfast, leaving choc (spot the theme) hidden throughout the house, and sending texts each hour to keep her-in-doors happy, I bought supper from somewhere that didn't sell 'just a nice supper, but an M&S nice supper" - ops - name dropping.

Anyway, all was well with the starters and I preheated the oven for the mains, but then encountered this:

Well, clearly there had been a troll with a cold hiding out in my oven.

Or maybe the oven had melted - humm, felt less likely.

Eventually worked out that we were missing one of our plastic chopping boards, and hey, guess what, they seem to be made out of cold-hot-glue.

Took 3 weeks of scraping to avoid shelling out for £45 a shelf.
Mind you, I got a new blow torch out of it, so it wasn't all bad.

Anyway, I appear to have been forgiven, but I'm a little more careful these days, so I used a t-towel under the tube, and that sitting on a tray.

So, 2 minutes at regulo 5 (well, 180 deg C) is what the instructions call for (and no, i don't normally read instructions - after all, I are an engineer!

Anyway, One game of Riddle stones on FB led to another and another then "OH CRAP!!!" (wow - the program automatically changed the word I have typed in there - how interesting !)

The result was this:

Well, bang goes my last tube of 22mm acrylic tubing.

Fortunately, when I bought the 22mm tubing, I also bought three lengths of 24mm. the postage was so high, I thought I might as well.

So, once the ranting has stopped, and the laughing too (grrr), I tried with the thicker tubing. Interestingly this bends in a very different way, kinking. Maybe its more about how the heat penetrates the plastic in a different way. Whatever it was, I had to heat it quite a bit more, to allow it to bend and that caused all sorts of problems.

Definite need to make it round again. So, my patented (I wish) hole in some ply comes into play.

And that seemed to do the trick - first time !
Probably helped, in retrospect, by the inner diameter being larger, so it was more tollerent of not being quite circular, whilst still letting the marbles through.

And after some fettling (hum, red squiggly line - that's not in the dictionary!) at the top, I managed to get it fitted.

Which, after an aesthetic holder is fitted (third version), looked rather nice.

After some practice runs, I realise that the tubes tend to come apart at the bottom, so the last part of this section is a bracer at the base, which works nicely, but I will have to plug the screw holes later.

You can also see too many steel screws, but I'll replace them with brass when I'm sure I don't need to remove the parts too many more times.

And so ended the cookery lesson.

This is what it looks like so far:

I'm back in the swing, and looking forward to catching the marbles as they bounce off the bell at the top (which apparently is a rare Chinese bell, bought on ebay from China, for about £7 for a set of them).

Bye for now.

 

[rspsteve]

Going well Ian...keep the updates coming please .

Steve

 

[Ian down london way]

The Splitter

Now comes the first of the internal parts.

So, first is a device to allow marbles to go down two paths, with alternate marbles taking a different route.
The plans give the details of a flat area surrounded by a raised wall. To make the grain look good, I like to cut it out of one piece of wood, with a scroll saw, and then stick the central piece back in when its pushed down a little. To make it work well I need to make the cut on a slight slant, but more on that later.

Here is what it looks like:

Once the centre section is pushed down and glued back in place, the underside looks like this.

I can then take off the underside, using a thickensser. A little bit of a brute force machine, but it is able to take off very thin sections.

Anyway, the end result is pretty aesthetic. To actually route the marble down two paths, needs a T-shaped piece that will move over as the marble goes past.

The first one, which is made from zebra wood, just didn't quite work. the pointy bit of the flipper didn't go across far enough before the marble went down the hole, so the next marble would get stuck.

I made another one, and tweaked the shape somewhat. Only a very subtle difference makes a big change to how it works. Here are the first two I made.

And this is the final version.

So far so good. However I do have to get the marble into the tray, and when the marble bounces off the bell at the top, it goes in all sorts of directions.

The plans call for a catcher. I made what the plans showed, but it didn't have a large enough catchment area, so I had to extend the top, to make it wider. Pretty simple woodwork, then mounted onto the splitter.

(continued in next post to allow for more pictures)

 

[Ian down london way]

The left hand route

Moving onto the left hand route. The next bit is a spiral path that is supposed to strike some bells.
First, the spiral. I made this in a similar way to the splitter. Again, I needed to cut the spiral out in a wedge shape so it would glue back in.

To make it a wedge, I raise the false table I used on my scroll saw, guessing at the tilt.

Then I drill the exit hole and cut out the entire spiral, but always keeping the thin part which needs to drop, on the left of the blade, so that there is a consistent wedge.

Again, I use the thicknesser to remove the excess on the underside.

Now the surprisingly tricky bit to attache bells that should sound as the marble runs down. The plan's design looks like this:

First problem is that the bells stop the marble if they strike the far side. No good. I have to work out a way to adjust the height of the bell really accurately. I couldn't tie the supporting thread to an accurate length. I ended up choosing to route the thread through a hole drilled through a screw, that way by adjusting the screw I can raise and lower the bell.

Turns out that this really isn't good enough to reliably let the marbles strike but then move past the bell. I tried taking a video of a marble moving down the track and was able to look at it in slow motion (the wonders of a new iphone), and decided it would be better let let the ball strike a bell on the outer edge of the corner, where it would simply deflect around the curve, without the need to get past the bell, as such. The end result is this altered setup:

And here you can see what I had to achieve with regard to accurate adjustment of the height of the bell:

When connected by a trough to the splitter, it is looking good, and also works well !

More in a couple of weeks, I hope.

 

[blackrodd]

Just caught up on the last two posts, Really fascinating, Mechanics and wood work together.
I just love you're ingenuity and problem solving!
Looking foreward to the next posting please. Regards Rodders