Making cheap 3-dimensional gears for decorations

This year's VBS decorations calls for a bunch of large gears! The 2016 Life Way Vacation Bible School is "Submerged" Worship Rally decoration theme is the interior of the helm of a sub. LifeWay Vacation-Bible-School/Submerged   Here's a way to make the gears without spending a couple hundred dollars on Styrofoam. Cardboard is cheap, people are practically giving it away. In the evening the big club store, Sam's Club, I drive by tidies up their shelves; when I asked if I could take all the large flat pieces, they said, “Sure, take all you want.”  

So get you hands on some big pieces of cardboard, string and pencil or large compass, a hot glue gun, lots of glue sticks, big scissors or tin snips and sharp utility knife, a sturdy straight edge, cheap flat white primer spray paint and paint the colors of your choice.

Start by trimming of any edges so you have a flat piece of cardboard to work with.

 

Draw several circles on the cardboard. Use a string or compass or project the gears from clip art or free hand them. I wanted my gears to look a bit wonky so I didn't worry about getting them perfect. The space between outer circle and an inner circle will be the height of the gear's teeth. Draw two more inner circles to help guide you in making the interior cutouts.

Draw evenly space lines across the circles to help guide the placement of the teeth and cut outs. It worked best, for me, to imagine the circles are the face of a clock. Draw a line from 12 to 6, then from 3 to 9, twist the cardboard so the top of the first line is at 10:30 and repeat the 12 to 6 and the 3 to 9 lines. 

Now, draw lines to make the teeth, and the center cut outs.

Cut it all out, be careful.    

Plug the hot glue gun in about now.

Take another piece of cardboard and draw a several parallel lines. Make sure they are all the same width. It'll work out better in you draw the lines perpendicular to the corrugation in the cardboard, because the strips will be easier to bend around corners. Carefully cut those strips..

Glue the strips alone the edges; the inner cutouts first, then along the outer edge.

Glue any desired embellishments to the front.

 

Put on a light coat of white primer.

It's now ready for paint.

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