Thread: What do design engineers do in their spare time?-(Besides Hotrods)

Tweet

They build other mechanical gadgets!!! I wanted a little project for my new lathe, and something to amuse my grand daughter. I have a small spring fed stream in my back yard, and I have always been interested in waterwheels, so---I found a bronze bushing, an aluminum plate, and a 3/4" stainless steel bolt in my junk bin. I bought 10 foot of 1/4" aluminum round rod, and went to the dollar store and bought 8 cheap stainless steel soup ladles. Voila!!!--A waterwheel is born. It turns slowly, because the stream is running on a very gentle slope, but it does run consistently.---Brian

Nice. I always wanted to build an iron kinetic sculpture for my back yard. If you ever watched Northern Exposure, Chris the radio guy used to make them. My favorite was one they called Aurora Borealis in the first season, on the last episode. I figure, some point soon, to be taking welding lessons and will maybe create some sculpture after that. Nice project, I bet your grand daughter loves it!

Brian here is a photo of it, poor quality, but best I could find.