Fibonacci Gauge project

My good friend David asked if I could make some parts for a Fibonacci Gauage he found seraching the internet. His church is doing a summer family week. He is using this gauge for the kids to find the golden ratio in nature. It occurs frequently in plants and flowers.



This is from WOOD magazine #173. Found it here

Finding the binding posts took a little luck. I could not find binding posts so I thought I would try pop-rivets. My Google for pop rivets got me to Hanson Rivet and Supply. So Hanson had binding posts buried in their product lines. I was able to get exactly what I wanted.

The trick here is you need 1/8" thick x 1/2" wide strips of wood. I tried this on my band saw and was not happy.

So I then decided to use the table saw, with a 30 tooth glue line rip blade. Using my grippers it worked great. I used a zero clearance blank for dado blades on my SawStop. I removed the riving knife and just had a zero clearance for the blade. It worked GREAT. I had no trouble cutting this very small strips.



I got the 1/8" gripper leg from Peachtree Woodworking

After cutting LOTS of little pieces, I needed to put holes in them. LOTS of holes. So I used my Pinnacle drill press table to set up the repeated holes. This is not an exact process. Lots of trial and error. But I did suceed and it worked great. The really good bits from Lee Valley did a great job.



Next I needed to put points on 3 of the 4 pieces. I created a template and marked all of the pieces. Then used the 6" belt sander to grind away. It worked very well. I really appreciate my dust collection now.



Here is what I ended up with.



And it even looks like the picture.



The really cool part is that it works.



This was a fun few hours in the shop. It's really nice to have all of the tools to do a project that will be fun for the kids.

Here is the web album with a few more pictures

I saw that project in WOOD a while back and thought it was a neat one. Glad it worked for you - they came out great.

May I brag?
You also saw it here.
http://www.familywoodworking.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3885

Bartee,
Pretty cool... thanks for the tutorial...
I had to look and see if you were from a Yankee work shop and a good old Southern boy... your tutorial sounded like Norm Abrams for a minute there

Chuck,

Good ole southern boy....

Watched way too much of Norm.

And I seem to enjoy the sharing part.

They came out looking great, Bartee. I don't really use it often, but the Pinnacle fence and stop system on the drill pretty sure is handy sometimes. (Mine's the red version of the hardware in a homemade table.)

And just so you know, if you use the 1/4" Grrripper leg to cut 1/8" strips, you have a 1/8" Grrripper leg almost immediately. DAMHIKT. No harm, no foul...carbide cuts right through the plasticm but it probably voids the warranty.

And just so you know, if you use the 1/4" Grrripper leg to cut 1/8" strips, you have a 1/8" Grrripper leg almost immediately. DAMHIKT. No harm, no foul...carbide cuts right through the plasticm but it probably voids the warranty. [/QUOTE]



nice job bartee