Glueing up the Cog

The first piece of material cut to build the Pirate Ship was the Wooden Cog. I consider this huge Gear the heart of the Pirate Ship, it seemed a really good place to start the project off. There was a bit of math and a few books used to design the Cog. You might be able to call this type of gear a “internal lantern pinion”.

I after designing the Cog I made a model to see if all the curves where correct. In the video you can see the model where the white nubs would represent the Wheel.

The blanks for the Wheel were cut out on a CNC router table. In the final Cog there would be 9 pieces of 1/2″ plywood with two 1/4″ pieces of Aluminium on the outside.

The process of gluing the Plywood was tricky, in one half 6 sheet of plywood have to be glued together while keeping everything in perfect alignment, and within a 8 minute working time before the glue starts to set.

This video explains more:

We worked fast and got the two halves of the Cog glued together.

A hole or recess was routed into the Cog so that the Drive Plate which will be attached to the Drive Shaft is attached inside the middle of the Cog.

Last the Aluminium plates were attached to the outside.

I still need to file the teeth for an exact fit and drill the holes to mount it to the drive shaft. I am also playing with the idea of etched copper side plates partially covering the aluminium…so many good ideas….so little time.