Fig 1.1: Tools: 1 – Hand Saw; 2 – Metal Ruler; 3 – Compass; 4 – Pencil; 5 – Keyhole Saw; 6 – Coping Saw; 7- Tape Measure; 8 –

Bar Clamps.

Fig 1.2: 9 – Power Drill; 10 – Spade bits; 11 – Drill Bits.

Fig 1.3: 12 – Hammer; 13 – Quick Square; 14 – Sand Paper.

Fig 1.4: 15 – Jig Saw; 16 – Forstner Bits; 17 – Circular Saw.

Fig 2.1: Cutting the base, the hard way.

Fig2.2: Full sized base piece

Fig 2.3: Measuring halfway across the board (7”) and marking it on one side. I do the same thing on the other side.

Fig 2.4: I drew a red arrow pointing out the faint line I drew across the board. You can also see the two marks I made (penciled

“V”s) that will guide my cross mark for the center of one of the rotation points. They are right next to the ruler.

Fig 2.5: The completed line across one of the centers. My pencil is pointing to where one of the rotating units will be placed.

Fig 2.5b: Another way to accomplish this would have been to use a quick square and line it up with the edge of the board and

put a single mark placed 7” in along one edge like so.

Fig 2.6: Ooops, too short.

Fig 2.7: The nail is driven into the center of one of the crosses.

Fig 2.8: Pulling the string/twine along the central line off the side of the board. I’ve put an overhand knot right at the edge of

the board and am testing the length of the twine loop. I’ll make a square knot when I’m satisfied that the loop is the correct

length.

Fig 2.9: Pencil is perpendicular to the wood and the twine is pulled fairly tight. I’m ready to draw.

Fig 2.10: A completed half circle using the string. Neat trick, eh? You can see I’m using my middle finger to keep tension on the

end of the pencil so that the twine stays tight.

Fig 2.11: Starting the cut with the coping saw. I like to work with the handle of the coping saw under the work, but do it

however you like.

Fig 2.12: Halfway through the cut. The cut isn’t extremely beautiful, but it’ll sand to be a pretty good end.

Fig 2.13: At this point I couldn’t go any further without the coping saw catching on the end of the work, so I had to pull the saw

out and cut off the waste. You can cut the waste off with either the coping saw, regular saw, or keyhole saw.

Fig 2.14: The waste is now gone, I can finish my cut.

Fig 2.15: The finished cut. Not the prettiest, but it won’t be too bad with some sanding.

Fig 2.16: The base entirely cut. I cheated and used a Jig Saw for 3 of the corners after using the coping on the first to make

things go a little faster.

Fig 2.17: In this case the base is colored black and the flange silver. In this case, the base is 1.5 inches in diameter.

Fig 2.18: I set my compass to 0.75” (3/4”) and drew a circle. This is what needs to be removed for the hard drive motor to be

mounted.

Fig 2.19: Drilling the first hole. You want to make sure all your holes are lined up so that the outside of the hole falls just on the

line you drew. If you go inside of the line the hole will be too small, and if you go outside it will be too big. Drill a bunch all the

way around the inside like this.

Fig 2.20: I loaded up my forstner bit. This makes things WAY easy. I recommend it.

Fig 2.21: As you can see the forstner bit shaves away a circle of wood. In this case I’ll stop drilling as soon as the hard drive

motor fits flush to the board. At this point I’ve got another 1/8” or so to drill before it would sit flush.

Fig 2.22: Now my hole is to the proper depth, I can insert my motor and double check that it’s flush.

Fig 2.23: As you can see the flange of the motor sits flush against the base. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could measure

this flange and use another forstner bit to inset it so that the entire flange would sit down into the wood and be flush to the

surface entirely. However, for this project I thought it would be a little more work than it was worth, so I left it like this.

Fig 2.24: The “completed” base. At this point the motor hasn’t been affixed yet, and there is still some sanding that needs to be

done. However, these steps will come much later during the finishing up portion of the project

Fig 3.1: Measure the width of your belt or tire as you intend to use it. In my case I’m going to use a doubled over bike tube,

which measures about 7/8”.

Fig 3.2: You’ll need to gather the hardware used in the hand crank. The ½” bolt with nuts and washers, the hard drive motor,

and one of the hard drive platters (or whatever you plan to use as your mount).

Fig 3.3: Fully thread 1 nut on the bolt, and then thread the other nut so that the ends are flush. Measure the gap between the

nuts. In my case it was about ½".

Fig 3.4: Measure the diameter of one of the ½” washers. Roughly 1 3/8” here.

Fig 3.5: Measure the diameter of the top of the hard drive motor (the diameter of the locking cap that used to hold the platter).

About 1 3/8” here.

Fig 3.6: Measure the diameter of the platter. 3 7/8” in this case.

Fig 3.7: Use a straight edge aligned from corner to corner to find the middle of your square pieces. I just grabbed a piece of

straight cut plywood.

Fig 3.8: Once you’ve connected both opposing corners, you’ll have an X that marks the middle of the piece.

Fig 3.9: You don’t have to actually draw the full “X” like this, you only need to find the center so you can use much shorter lines.

I just drew them full length for illustration purposes.

Fig 3.10: Set your compass to the radius to 6” to draw the outline of the 12” diameter plate.

Fig 3.11: The circle drawn for the 12” diameter plate.

Fig 3.12: You will need to label one as bottom and one as top so that the different marks on each can be kept separate.

Fig 3.13: Set the compass to 5.75” and draw the 11.5” diameter circles on the two remaining pieces.

Fig 3.14: Using your ruler and one of the washers, figure out where you want to place your handle hole. In my case I felt that 10

1/8” from the center seemed to look pretty good.

Fig 3.15: Mark an arc using the compass on the line where the center of your washer will be. This will help make sure your

washer hole is centered where it’s supposed to be as long as it’s drilled somewhere centered on the arc.

Fig 3.16: Put a mark through the arc perpendicular to the center of the full circle. This will help give you a point of reference.

Fig 3.17: The mark through the arc. You’ll drill at the intersection of the two lines.

Fig 3.18: Mark one of the central boards with a ½” diameter hole (set compass to ¼”). This will help keep it separate from the

other three boards which will have the larger holes sized to the washers.

Fig 3.19: On the remaining 3 boards draw your washer circle. Err on the side of making the circles slightly too big. Also, take

the opportunity to mark all 4 boards in the center with the hard drive cap measurement. In my case the hard drive cap was the

same size as the washers.

Fig 3.20: On the piece you marked as “bottom” draw a circle the same diameter as your platter. Again it’s a good idea to

overlay the platter to check for size as you’ll be using that mark to line up the platter later.

Fig 3.21Cutting out the platter. You can use the coping saw here, but if you have something powered, go for it. The best here

would be a scroll or band saw and a disk sander, but a jig saw works well enough for this project if you have one.

Figure 3.22: You’ll likely need to cut off each of the corners one at a time to make things easier.

Fig 3.23: The completed circle. Time to cut out the other 3.

Fig 3.24: If your original piece was 12” square (as mine were) you’ll actually be able to get some of the later pieces out of the

scrap, as it’s just wide enough. So keep the scrap for later.

Fig 3.25: As you can see, the central pieces are ¼” smaller in radius than the top and bottom pieces. This gives a place for the

belt to ride in.

Fig 3.26: Now it’s time to drill out all the center holes. I’ll be using a forstner bit for most of the holes I drill, but I thought I’d

take an opportunity to show how you can cut out a circle using a regular drill bit and a stop collar (you don’t need the collar but

it helps a lot). You’ll probably want a piece of sacrificial scrap (the plywood under the circle), but it’s optional.

Fig 3.27: Set your stop collar so that the drill will just barely emerge from the disk into the sacrificial piece.

Fig 3.28: Drill so that the edge of your drill is touching the line for the central hole. You want the hole the drill makes to be

entirely inside the line but still touching it.

Fig 3.29: As you can see, the hole is inside the line, but still touching it. You’re trying to do this all way around inside the line.

Fig 3.30: You’ll need to space your holes apart slightly so that your drill doesn’t drift over into the previous hole.

Fig 3.31: I didn’t move over far enough so my next hole drifted over. This caused my bit try to dance off square and made

drilling the hole really difficult.

Fig 3.32: I didn’t make the same mistake with the rest of the holes. As you can see they’re more appropriately spaced.

Fig 3.33: There are many ways to cut out the hole from here. The least efficient is to grab a coping saw blade between two

pairs of pliers (two vice grips would have been best, but I was doing this as an example and not thinking as hard as I should).

Fig 3.34: You pass the blade through one hole and grip it with pliers on each side. You can then cut between each hole and

eventually knock out the full-sized hole. This absolutely sucks to have to do, but it works... very slowly.

Fig 3.35: Another way to do it is use a coping saw with a really deep capacity. I have a 6” capacity coping saw, so it’s perfectly

sized.

Fig 3.36: Unseat your coping saw blade, pass it through the work, and then reattach it to the saw. You can cut out around all

your little holes from there. Much easier than using the blade gripped between pliers.

Fig 3.37: There you go, all cut out. You could use any number of other saws to do this, including the jig saw with a fine blade, a

keyhole saw with a thin blade. You can even modify a keyhole saw to hold a jigsaw blade for this purpose if you like.

Fig 3.38: Just note that using this method produces one heck of an ugly hole. You’ll need to clean it up. If it’s really ragged you

might need to use a chisel to knock off some extra wood. A rasp would also be useful for hole clean up.

Fig 3.39: In my case, the hole was pretty decent, so I just needed some really rough sandpaper.

Fig 3.40: Some vigorous abuse with 60 grit sandpaper does the trick. Luckily this doesn’t have to be pretty. To get the inside of

the hole smoother you can wrap the sandpaper around a piece of dowel, pvc pipe, or a broom stick.

Fig 3.41: After your hole is finished, test it for fit on the top of the hard drive motor. Unfortunately my hole was a little too

narrow, so I had to attack it with the sandpaper some more.

Fig 3.42: Another attack with sandpaper later and the motor fits. I probably should have broken out my chisel to save some

effort, but sandpaper around a broomstick worked well enough.

Fig 3.43: My broomstick sanding contraption. Worked like a charm.

Fig 3.44: For those with a forstner bit, this whole process is much easier. But, you may want to grab some scrap before you drill

that hole for testing. This is just good practice.

Fig 3.45: Drilling into the scrap piece. I’m really lucky I did this too, as my original hole actually was about 1/16 of an inch too

narrow. I grabbed a second piece of scrap, moved up another size in my forstner bit set and tried again.

Fig 3.46: The hole I drilled in the second piece of scrap actually worked, so I used that bit. The motor was a tad loose in the hole,

but since the hole is just for access and not structural, it’s not a huge deal.

Fig 3.47: Once you’re ready to go with the forsner bit, clamp your piece to a sacrificial piece of scrap. The sacrificial piece is

necessary because you’ll be drilling all the way through. If you pass through your disk with a forsner without a sacrificial piece

under it the hole will tear out a lot and look horrible.

Fig 3.48: I unscrewed the cap from the hard drive assembly (something I should have done when I measured it) to make sure

that the cap will fit through the hole I drilled. It was a little snug, but it would pass all the way through. My hole will work.

Fig 3.49: The completed center hole using a forsner bit. It took about 1/10

th the time as the other method. A cheapo forsner bit

set is a good investment as it will save you time. But if you’re on a budget you don’t need it, just extra time. Now to drill the

other hole on this piece.

Fig 3.50: Both holes of this piece (the top) have been drilled. Time to finish the other pieces.

Fig 3.51: The sacrificial piece after the drilling. As you can see the forsner bit does eat into it a bit, so if nothing else you’ll want

the sacrificial piece to protect whatever work surface you’re using.

Fig 3.52: Make sure you drill your ½” hole to the right size. One of the reasons I made the circle (even though I didn’t really need

to) was to remind myself I had to drill one of the disks different than the other three.

Fig 3.53: The least painful way of drilling this hole is to just use a nice, sharp spade bit. They aren’t expensive, if you don’t

already have one.

Fig 3.54: Once again, use the sacrificial scrap wood when drilling.

Fig 3.53: After you drill your ½” hole, test it with the bolt. Once you glue this up, changing the diameter of the hole will be very

difficult.

Fig 3.54: It’s a good idea to dry fit your bolt and washer before going much further. This will double check that all your holes

will work. It’ll also help us set up the pieces for some preliminary sanding.

Fig 3.55: The washer fits!

Fig 3.56: Now to check the bolts and nuts.

Fig 3.57: Put one nut all the way on the bolt.

Fig 3.58: Thread the bolt through the washer and secure the other nut below. Seems to fit pretty good.

Fig 3.59: Use your finger to line up the central holes as flush as you can get them. If they are out of flush by more than a

millimeter or so, you’ll need to cut a new piece and double check your measurements. But, provided they’re close, clamp it when

you’re happy with the alignment.

Fig 3.60: Once you’re clamped up, sand the edges of the two rings so that they’re smooth. This will provide a continuous

surface for the belt to ride against. You may also want to sand the inner hole a little too, but that’s optional.

Fig 3.61: Using a piece of scrap plywood as a sanding block, I true up the two pieces so that there is a continuous surface.

Fig 3.62: I also sanded down the surfaces of both pieces to give a better gluing surface. I probably didn’t need to do this.

Fig 3.63: With the two central pieces sanded and tested for fit, it’s ready to glue. It’s a good idea to set your pieces out in a

coherent way before gluing to avoid mistakes.

Fig 3.64: I used a healthy squirt of glue and spread it with a paper towel.

Fig 3.65: Get the crank platters as aligned as possible, lining up the central holes and the handle shaft holes.

Fig 3.66: Get the bolt ready to insert with the washers. Use the washers and bolt to line up the handle shaft holes.

Fig 3.67: Once you’ve got the bolt in, don’t tighten it further than finger tight.

Fig 3.68: Once again use your fingers to feel the central hole to line it up correctly. Work fast as the glue will quickly get tacky

and make the platters difficult to move.

Fig 3.69: After everything is lined up, start clamping. Make sure to double check the central hole after the first clamp.

Fig 3.70: Once the second clamp is on, check the central hole once more.

Fig 3.71: Once you’re happy with the first two clamps, pull the bolt out.

Fig 3.72: Put on the third clamp then clean any glue off the bolt, washers, and nuts.

Fig 3.73: Grab a wet rag (or wad of paper towels) and clean off any glue that’s seeping out of the cracks. Take special care to

clean out the central hole and the belt line. Set the crank aside and give it enough time to dry.

Fig 3.74: Depending on how exact you want to be when attaching the hard drive platter, these next steps are fairly optional. I

like my screws to be equally spaced, so I went to the trouble. Start with a long, straight line with a mark on it for reference.

Fig 3.75: Using the measurements of the platter, draw a circle around the intersection of the mark and straight line.

Fig 3.76: I always check to make sure things are the same size.

Fig 3.77: Next, grab a protractor and put 3 marks outside the circle at 0, 60, and 120º.

Fig 3.78: Draw 3 lines. Each connecting one point to the central mark and continuing on through the far side of the circle and a

little farther.

Fig 3.79: Place the platter back in the circle. Put a ruler over the top of the platter and line it up with one of the lines

underneath. Use a sharpie marker and draw lines on the platter.

Fig 3.80: If you want to be really exact, you can use a compass to place crosses at an exact distance from the center of the

platter. This is where things start to get a little too exacting for a kludge project.

Fig 3.81: You can somewhat see my sharpie marks on the platter. Sorry about all the fingerprints.

Fig 3.82: Grab the drill and chuck up a bit of sufficient diameter for the 6 screws you’ll be using to affix the platter to the wood.

I used a countersink bit to try to make the holes in the plate tapered. This ended up not working because my bit wasn’t strong

enough to cut the aluminum of the platter well enough to leave a useful countersink.

Fig 3.83: As always, use a scrap block when drilling to save your work surface.

Fig 3.84: Once you have all 6 holes drilled, line the platter up with the circle you drew on the bottom disk of the crank.

Fig 3.85: Once you’re happy with the alignment, drill through one of the holes with the same bit.

Fig 3.86: Put a screw into that hole, double check your alignment, and tighten the plate down.

Fig 3.87: Drill the other 5 holes and then drive the screws in to affix the plate.

Fig 3.88: To test for fit of the hard drive motor, first take off the cap.

Fig 3.89: Make sure the cap can fit in from the top of the crank all the way down and sit flush up against the platter.

Fig 3.90: Set the plate onto the motor and screw the cap back into the motor unit. Now the plate should be back in its original

location on the motor and held fast by the cap. The whole unit should now spin on the bearing.

Fig 3.91: Set the bolt up with one washer and one nut. Tighten the nut as far as it will go up the threads.

Fig 3.92: Put one washer up against the nut and measure the distance between the inner face of the washer and the underside

of the bold head.

Fig 3.93: Use this measurement to mark the PVC pipe.

Fig 3.94: Clamp the pipe down for cutting if you’re using a hacksaw or keyhole saw. If you’re using a pipe cutter, this is

unnecessary.

Fig 3.95: I used a hacksaw; it works, but leaves a pretty ragged surface.

Fig 3.96: The piece cut off. My cut wasn’t square, and it’s pretty ugly, but it’s about the right size. Some sanding should help

this work better.

Fig 3.97: Some 120 grit sandpaper removes plastic quickly while still leaving a nice enough end.

Fig 3.98: Once you’ve got the tube sanded (if needed), put it on the bolt and make sure it spins free. In this case it bound up a

little bit between the washer and bolt head and needed more sanding before it would spin free.

Fig 3.99: Once the pipe is ready, it’s time to assemble the handle for the crank.

Fig 3.100: Assemble the handle by putting the bolt through the pipe and securing and one washer and a nut. Then pass the end

of the bolt through another washer, then through the crank, through a third washer, and then end with the last nut. Use a

socket wrench and a crescent wrench to tighten the final bolt.