How would you design a bicycle chainring?

[deemon328]

Hey everyone, I'm looking for advice on what software you would use to design a bicycle chainring like in the attached photo.

I'm going to make a half dozen trophies for our YMCA triathlon this year and wanted to make them look like a chainring with text around the circumference.

Which of the CW software would you choose to use if you were to design this yourself? I have the basic software and centerline, but none of the new importers or pattern editors. I'm particularly concerned about getting the teeth of the ring designed well, given the target audience.

Thanks for any advice on this topic!

[cnsranch]

This do anything for you?

[bjbethke]

Hey everyone, I'm looking for advice on what software you would use to design a bicycle chainring like in the attached photo.

I'm going to make a half dozen trophies for our YMCA triathlon this year and wanted to make them look like a chainring with text around the circumference.

Which of the CW software would you choose to use if you were to design this yourself? I have the basic software and centerline, but none of the new importers or pattern editors. I'm particularly concerned about getting the teeth of the ring designed well, given the target audience.

Thanks for any advice on this topic!

Will this work? If you are using centerline you will need to set the height to 999 to bring the carving to the top of the board.

[DocWheeler]

BJ, you done good!

[www.carvenow.com]

Those are nice but if you want a best result 3d software is the way to go. 3ds max for example.

[deemon328]

Thanks for your input all. I messed around with the gear tool in Blender 3D, but the tooth profile was all wrong for a chainring, and I didn't have enough experience to fix it. An import of the original photo wouldn't give me the results I needed, but thank you for helping. I wish I could try a demo of that pattern editor. I'm impressed that the import turned out as well as it did; I think it would be good for other relief carving patterns that I have in mind.

In the end, I referred back to an earlier post here on the forums regarding spacing holes around a circle evenly and used a spreadsheet from that post to make 40 evenly spaced holes to mimic my chainring.

The end result took about 3 hours to carve on optimal, and I'm overall very pleased with the result (which doesn't happen often). The finished trophy is sapele, 5/8" thick, 10" diameter, finished with Watco Teak Oil and paste wax.

[Chay]

Looks great.
Do you have a link to that post "spacing holes around a circle evenly"? I'm trying to create a round Crib board.
Thanks
Chay

[Jcpb321]

Chay,
A great resource for tutorials including what you are looking for provided by Ask Bud iis
http://www2.wcoil.com/~nharbison/cw-...0downloads.htm

Looks great.
Do you have a link to that post "spacing holes around a circle evenly"? I'm trying to create a round Crib board.
Thanks
Chay

[bjbethke]

Thanks for your input all. I messed around with the gear tool in Blender 3D, but the tooth profile was all wrong for a chainring, and I didn't have enough experience to fix it. An import of the original photo wouldn't give me the results I needed, but thank you for helping. I wish I could try a demo of that pattern editor. I'm impressed that the import turned out as well as it did; I think it would be good for other relief carving patterns that I have in mind.

In the end, I referred back to an earlier post here on the forums regarding spacing holes around a circle evenly and used a spreadsheet from that post to make 40 evenly spaced holes to mimic my chainring.

The end result took about 3 hours to carve on optimal, and I'm overall very pleased with the result (which doesn't happen often). The finished trophy is sapele, 5/8" thick, 10" diameter, finished with Watco Teak Oil and paste wax.

I find the Pattern Editor very useful, it comes with the probe and you could have scanned the Bike Gear. I used the PE and painted in the holes, and changed the color so the PTN looks flat.