In this part of the tutorial we finish making the orrery.

Part 1 of this tutorial is here

Now let's fit that assembly to the orrery. Place it on the orrery like this. Match the gears up so they mate. And put a mark on the earth arm right where the center of the dowel is.

Then switch the arm over to the other side of the dowel, mesh the teeth of the two gears and put another mark.

Draw a line across those two marks.

Pierce a hole in the center of that line and install the whole assembly onto the orrery like you see here.

Test it to get reasonably smooth rotation around the big gear. You can make adjustments at this point.

Once it works pretty well you can glue that assembly to the dowel. Don't let any glue drip down to the big gear. If that happens it won't turn. So keep the glue between the dowel and the earth gear assembly.

To get it to operate smoothly you can sand paper or emory board the teeth on both the large gear and the small earth gear.

Now put together the sun, earth, and moon. You have some options with this.

You can just cut them out of the template and glue them together. Better would be to trace the pieces onto something firmer like cardstock or cereal box cardboard. Glue them together into the shapes I have here.

Then glue them onto the orrery.

Glue the moon onto a toothpick and then pierce it into the moon disk at an angle and glue it in place.

And that's it! Your Orrery is complete. Be sure to send me a picture.

Orrery: A Story of Mechanical Solar Systems, Clocks, and English Nobility (Astronomers' Universe)

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