How do you get decorative gears to spin?

[Captain MacMorrigan]

I know there is a lot of animosity towards the gluing of gears onto things to make them "Steampunk." What I am interested in is, not gluing, but attaching them in such a way that they can actually still turn.  This way you could at least have fun twirling them, and might even be able to get something useful out of it.  How would you all suggest I go about affixing them so they can still turn.  I'm figuring I need an axle on which to spin, something to hold it in place, and something to hold the gear to the axle.  Beyond that though, I really don't know.  Does anyone here have suggestions on how to accomplish this?  Things to use, ways to attach, etc.?

[lilibat]

You can kind of see the gears in the window on the first one, the second has them exposed which causes need for readjustment often. The gears turn when you turn their knob on both.



The gears on this necklace turn.

The way I do it it getting a stable base like this wood or a stiff filigree and I use brass machine screws, washers, very small tube pieces and nuts to mount the gears in such a way that they will interlock and turn each other. It takes a while and the more gears you use, the harder it is to keep them aligned and plaing nice with each other. It is possible though!

[sidecar_jon]

http://www.kinektdesign.com/products.php

those spin...and are cool .. and are purely decorative..

[JingleJoe]

I know there is a lot of animosity towards the gluing of gears onto things to make them "Steampunk." What I am interested in is, not gluing, but attaching them in such a way that they can actually still turn. 

Above: How decorative gears should be. A suspension of disbelief can be acheived in this way

I'd say make two brass plates held together with bolts that have small holes in into which the axles of the gears fit.

[Captain MacMorrigan]

Thanks all for the tips.  I will definitely see if I can implement them.

[Narsil]

For non load bearing gears which don't need a high degree of accuracy in their running but want to be as exposed as possible  the easiest solution is to use a bolt with a sleeve as a spacer. The sleeve should be a short length of tube with an internal diameter the same nominal size at the bolt diameter (slightly larger is ok but it needs to be smaller than the bolt head) and with an external diameter which gives a good sliding fit with the hole in the centre of the gear. The length of the spacer needs to be slightly longer than the depth of the central boss of the gear. This arrangement allows the gear to spin freely on the sleeve while the bolt can be properly tightened.

If you just put a bolt through the gear without the sleeve it will clamp the gear when you tighten it and it won't spin. If you just lave the bolt slack, which seems the obvious solution, then the whole thing will be too loose and flop about.

If the gear has an integral axle then you need to use a different arrangement which supports the axle at both ends which gets a bit more complex and depends in its detailed execution on exactly what sort of structure the whole thing is attached to.