More Component Parts Continued

I used my belt sander to radius the corners and then deburred it with some sandpaper. It fits just right and I'm happy with it.
 

I used some # 6 brass flathead screws to fasten it down with and I thought it looked pretty good. The reason I made the window so tall is in case there were shorter people viewing (like kids) so this way everyone can see through it.

Once Angela and Matt looked at it they both thought the trim piece should be a different color, like black. I keep forgetting they don't want any contrast here so I will be painting it. One more thing they thought of, what if someone brought a screwdriver with them, would they try to remove these screws instead of spinning the gears?
 

Some Changes

The next day I bought some tamper-proof screws to replace the brass ones. These are the same size as the others except the new ones are stainless steel. Now these obviously need a special tool to install and remove them. But I didn't buy one because it's easy enough to just make one.
 

As you can see I painted the trim piece and after Matt and Angie looked at the changes, they were pleased. And while they were at the house, they wondered how tough it would be to install all of the gears?

To find this out I sent them both in the house and then I pulled them all off. When they came back out they were greeted with a pile of gears on the ground. However, from start to finish, it only took them about one or two minutes to install them. All 15 of them!

Well, that got them thinking...maybe this wall of gears is too easy. We talked about it for a few minutes and they decided to have me add one more shaft to the wall. But this new shaft would act as a dummy to throw people off track.

Side note: Doing something like this is known as a "Red Herring". In other words, to deceive or mislead someone. Now this is a common practice in the Escape Room industry and is to make your escape that much harder. So beware.

The next day I added the 'new fake shaft' which was easily done. However, I'm not going to show you exactly where it is. Now this would surely add more difficulty to this puzzle because nobody would be expecting it. At least, most people wouldn't be.
 

The original plan was to add a clear plexiglass shield in the center area along with some metal safety doors with heavy mesh screen on them to make sure nobody would get hurt once the gears were spinning. And you would be able to see through this screen. The plexiglass idea was so people could see everything in the center move without being able to touch anything. And both doors would need to be shut before anyone could move the gears... with the aid of some electronics and air cylinders.

The air cylinders would be used to keep some of the stationary gears from moving while people were placing the removable gears on the wall.
 

Once all the gears were in place and the doors were shut, some electric interlocks would kick in to keep the doors locked. Then with a push of a button the system would detect both doors being closed and would release the air cylinders. At this point the gears could be moved and there would be little chance of anyone getting hurt.

However, the new plan won't be using any of these items that you see in the above picture or in the one below either. And the reason for this is a little complicated but just know that the kids have installed the wall of gears in their new Escape Room.

Before you go to the last page, note the date at the top of this page.
 

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