Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Came up very nice!

Thanks for the compliments guys, I did enjoy the build.

A few extra thoughts:

I gave the overal height of my build but not the wheel Diameter, measuring left to right I get 11 inches tip to tip on the big wheel.

There appears to be several wood ferris wheel kits on the market, I even found some merry-go-round kits that may be suitable for engine power.

I found this kit from another maker, it has wood clock works gears as the gear reduction to get the slow smooth movement of the big wheel. These type kits often use rubber bands as a way to store power and you wind it up and the gearbox reduction releases the power slowly to the Wheel. I see a flat pulley in the video that runs pretty fast and this one "might" be a good one to power with an engine....just a Very different look than the kit I built. No music box but the base has drawers and "secret" compartments. Not trying to push this kit, just showing options.
  The gondola's are a different style, I do kind of prefure how the Gondola's on my kit build are mounted on the spokes that extend out past the circle so they are mostly in full view.
  Bruce's setup with the music maker mounted on the engine base would still give this kit music. Mostly this post is to get ideas flowing on kits that "could" be powered by steam/stirling.

Note:Bruce, I Did catch your hint of "like to see my build in motion"!
  THAT actually Could happen! I'm on extended Vacation so I have time to carry my cell phone out to civilian and get a signal long enough to make a YouTube account...I am sure I will have questions on how to make it all work...coming soon! 

The video is of one the "other" wood kits

Searching for my "next" kit.
   I have my eye on the Ugears merry go round, there are some kits that look a bit more "fancy" or perhaps better "looking"...all the kits have the horses run in a circle, but this is the first I have found that the Horses have a Vertical "jump" as well, it made me laugh the first time I saw it run on a video.
   One possible "down" side of Ugears IMHO is they really go out of the way to make the kits 100% wood. This is pretty cool, but I have found it is often Much more difficult to get there kits to run as smooth as the models shown in there professional filmed videos. Rokr is a brand that I have found Will use metal pins for axles in a model, if it helps the model run more smoothly.
   
Observation: the pole the horses are mounted to has what looks like a "T" shape sticking out the roof, you see these moving up and down as well when the model runs. If you zoom in these are actually "birds" flying in the circle. The "wings" are Very block shaped thickness. I can not tell yet, but from what I can see in the video the wings are not critical to function, so a clever builder could make the wings Much thinner for better bird presentation.

I have also had my eye on the Ugears models for some time. Ugears offers interesting things. Brought it to the attention of my wife. Maybe she understands the hint with the fence post.

I'm looking forward to your next report.