Handmade Christmas 2014 - Model Universal Joint

Model Universal Joint

I've been wanting to make this model of a universal joint for years and this is the year I decided to actually do it. Milling up the parts was very, very time consuming and fussy but I think I did OK given that this is my first time at trying to create very accurate parts.
Here are the pieces that will become the forks. The larger one is actually in a U-shape, which you'll see later.

I pre-drilled everything because working with the larger blanks is way easier and safer than trying to drill small parts.

Here are the parts after cutting them out of the blanks. Now you can see the U-shape of the forks.

I decided to stain some parts a contrasting color just for visual appeal so I created these little hangers to allow the parts to dry after staining.

Here they are drying after being stained.

It was easy to urethane the square pieces after slipping them on this dowel.

 Here's one half of one of the joints before assembly. I used the pennies as spacers so that I could apply some pressure to get the dowels in without worrying about breaking the fork, which was a bit delicate.

Next, I used a Dremel cut-off wheel to cut the short pins for the joints. This was way, way easier and safer than doing it on the chop or table saw. I used the scrap from another christmas gift to hold the dowel steady while I cut the pieces.

Here's one fork in the process of being assembled. The pennies really helped. I put a dab of super glue on each pin to hold it in place.

Two forks, assembled.

Two forks joined with a drive shaft.

Here are the joined forks on the base plate. I wanted to have them offset as much as possible to really get a sense of how the thing works.

Progressing towards mounting them on their base. Input and output shafts in place. That's the partial base in the background with its finish started, too. (In case you missed it in passed posts: those plastic triangles that the base is sitting on are the best thing ever for finishing projects. They are super stable, do not leave a mark and get the pieces and parts off of the bench, which is awesome.)

And here it is assembled and finished. The left-hand mounting block isn't perfectly square, which is a bummer, but I didn't notice until after I had glued and screwed it in place.

I've been wanting to build this model of a universal joint for years and years. I'm happy with how it turned out and am looking forward to giving it away, as that was also been my desire for years and years. I hope the recipient likes it since we haven't talked about how cool universal joints are for about 15 or 20 years. Yes, I've wanted to do this project for that long.