One Shaft = Two Chutes

Had a happy little surprise yesterday when I went to the shop to pick up my cut driveshaft and they told me it was only going to be twenty bucks! That was nice. Now I can spend the saved fifteen to twenty dollars from the estimate on the termite exterminator I just found out I'm going to need. I guess it's a good thing I started this project, because it got me back down in the back area of the basement where the damage is located. Wow - somehow I've summoned gratitude involving a termite problem. Weird.

Moving on to happier things, here is a shot of the cut drive shaft.



Isn't it cool?! Look at my new long, straight rolling ball chutes! In the right chute you can see a piece of the inner balance tube still laying there. It had two bands of rubber around it securing it tightly within the shaft. The shop did a decent, if not exacting, job getting it sawed down for me. I knew this would be the case, that they were only using a bandsaw and the cut would not be exactly true, but I think the results will be fine for my purposes. So far, so good.

Later in the evening I attacked a not-so-fun portion of the project, the cleaning up of the axle shafts. They need cleaning in the literal sense of getting all the rust and dirt off of them, but they also need cleaning in the visual sense. There are two brackets on each tube that need to be cut off. One bracket is a coil spring pad. No biggie, three welds with my recprocating saw and we're done:



The other bracket, which you can see part of in the photo...not so easy. I looked at it closely last night, and my thought was, "Why did I decide this would be a good idea?" The bracket has a lengthy and substantial mounting point. It's going to take a lot more than three straight cuts to get it removed. If this were a shop job, there would be no sense in persuing it. It's going to be labor intensive, and in man-hours it would cost a lot more to strip it down than it would to just find something else. However, I want to use it just because I want to, so you get to follow along in future posts while I bang, cut, and chisel at it until it's removed. Maybe it's time for a cutting wheel. After the bracket is removed the whole thing will need cleaning with a wire wheel and degreaser (It's loaded with differential fluid inside the tubes - smells awesome.). Fun stuff!

Shafted

Friday I stopped in at the welding shop down the street from where I work. As mentioned previously, I have a driveshaft out of an old Dodge Dart that should make for a couple of nice U-channels for the sculpture once it is cut in half lengthwise. They said they could do the job for probably fifteen bucks, which sounded fine to me. They also advised that it would save me a few bucks to cut off the ends of the shaft myself beforehand, which I knew wouldn't be a problem.

Last night I headed out to the garage, sawzall in one hand, camera in the other. I didn't figure there'd be much to photograph, but I know sometimes I find the unexpected in a project, so why not?



Here we have the dismembered front yoke for the drive shaft. I cut it close to the weld, so close, in fact, that I ended up cutting into some of the weld itself, slowing the job down a bit. Not really a problem overall, however, and I was pleased with the relatively quick job (as well as all the noise and smoke I was able to make with the sawzall). I was pleased, that is, until I looked at the drive shaft and saw this:



What? What is that? There's another shaft in my shaft?? Why is that made like that? I didn't know they made 'em that way! Shoot. Now how am I gonna - how is that going to affect cutting the shaft in two?

I looked at the shaft some more and it appears the second tube is held in place with a surrounding piece of rubber. I'm guessing it's a sort of elastic damper, but if you know any better, please feel free to enlighten me. This may surprise you, but I've never cut a driveshaft up before, so I've got a bit to learn.

In spite of the weirdness, I needed to carry on. It was growing late. I picked up the sawzall and went at the other end of the tube.



Here's a view down the shaft from the rear of things. Inside you can see the light ring where the inner tube is fixed at the far end of the shaft. I believe it's only about twelve to eighteen inches long. It's pretty stout stuff - about the thickness of water pipe.

I tried to think of a way to remove the inner tube, but my brain was pretty tired and nothing came to me. I put the shaft in the car and shut the lights out in the garage for the evening. I can only do so much thinking for one day, and my time was up.

Today I took the whittled-down shaft to the shop. Not great news. Apparently, it's not going to cost me fifteen bucks, but thirty-five or forty. I guess that inner tube adds to the labor involved. He said, "Well, do you want us to do it?" I said, "I need it done, and this is the only way I know how, so yeah."

I hope all my "cheap" ideas for this sculpture don't turn out being this expensive!

Rolling Ball Sculpture - Kinetic Art

The first time in recent memory when I was presented with a large scale piece of rolling ball kinetic art was at the Indianapolis Children's Museum. They have a pretty killer setup in there (really need to find out who the artist is) that I first saw when I went with my nieces three or so years ago. I could have watched it all day.

I don't know what has tripped my brain lately, but this sort of artwork has been on my mind. I have some parts from the Chevelle that we're not using and won't need, plus the other automotive gack that gearheads accumulate like the crap magnets that we are. A few weeks ago I finally cut up the old ten bolt rear end out of the Chevelle after letting it sit out on the back stoop for a couple of years. For a very long time I had planned on using those tubes for a sculpture like the one I'd seen at the Children's Museum.

Thing is, I didn't know what I was talking about. I mean, I had no name for it, no frame of reference. I kept telling people, "I'm going to use this stuff to make one of those ball things like I saw at the Children's Museum." Fortunately for me, I have some cool friends, and my buddy Jay kept talking to me about it. A couple of nights ago out of nowhere he sends me some Youtube links like this:



Is this stuff incredible or WHAT??!!! The guy's name is Eddie Boes, and he does incredible work. He's an engineer, and he brings together his engineering skills and some pretty fantastic creative abilities to make these outstanding moving sculptures utilizing rolling balls.

After viewing this and following up on his web site info, I was off and running. I looked through his entire web site, sent him some geeky fanatical-sounding email, and then whipped through a bunch of other sites on the net looking for more info. I found out that what I'd been talking about is called "kinetic art," and that the style I was specifically interested in is called "rolling ball sculpture," or RBS. I found a bunch of other sites with creations made from a number of different materials including wood, plastic, metal, and even Legos!

After work I had dinner with Jay and I ended up talking about my idea some more. He offered some other thoughts, and with all that in mind I decided to do some real world research and see what I had and what I was going to need.

I need: a set of billiard balls. I can get some used off of Ebay for between fifteen and thirty bucks. I may try and score some used ones near to home, or even new ones, as half the price of a cheap set of billiards is the shipping charges. There's no getting around that they're plain heavy.

What I have: good junk! I wandered out to the garage with a tape measure, note pad, and pen. Check out what I found.



My Chevelle ten bolt axle tubes. These were a given for the project, and the pieces that really, um, started the ball rolling? (Sorry.)



A cheesy old front motorcycle fender off of my Triumph chopper (oh, I miss her sometimes...sniff) that would make a pretty good turn for the sculpture. I'll have to remove some bracketry, same as with the axle tubes.



These are brake drums off of the same rear end. I may use them. I'm not decided on these at all yet. They do make a wonderful noise when they're hit, though, and that's a good thing!



The coup de grace! I forgot all about having this thing! It's the drive shaft out of a '71 Dart Swinger four door that my buddy got from his grandpa when we were in high school. After he wore it out he turned it over to my younger brother, who pulled the motor. This thing has nearly four feet of tubing to it - that's eight feet if cut in two pieces lengthwise. Plenty of material!

Regulation billiards measure 2 1/4" inches. The axle tubes are 2 1/2", the driveshaft 3", and the fender a generous 4 1/2". I'll have no problem using any of these.

Currently I guess some immediate problems are that I don't know how to weld for crap. The tubes are cast iron, which I guess requires brazing, but I want to use them anyway somehow. The rest of the stuff is mild steel (well, not the drums - cast iron again), so those pieces should be okay for general welding purposes...although that fender is chromed. Hmmm...

I need more spare parts. I need welding knowledge and practice. Uh...I need a welder (a real one, as my buzzbox is crap). I need a few more tools. I need some space. I need to start planning a specific design (all I know now is that it will have a chain lift). I want it to have sound elements to it, too. It's going to make noise in some way or other, probably in more way than one.

Stay tuned. I think it's going to be an interesting summer...