well windlass construction

Above is my brainstorm sketch for the windlass. Although my partner and I didn't collaborate together during the brainstorm period due to the snowstorm, we had many similar ideas, interestingly enough. After discussing potential problems and the limitations of the material supplied, we finally decided on the following design.

The orange part is the base, that will span/sit on top of the "well". On the rods that run parallel to the plane of the base is where the string will be attached. Now, how it really works...

As you can see, there are disks connecting all the rods together. Some of them are tighter than others, pretty much acting as bushings. The important part though, is the part that can't be seen in the Solidworks/actual assembly. Within the green sides that are perpendicular to the base, there are smaller circular disks attached to the rods. The bigger disks that can be seen on the outside sit very tightly against the sides, thus keeping the smaller rotating disk stable. The bigger disk on the lefthand side is also attached to the rods in the same way as the others, but it also has a rod attached closer to the edge of the disk, thus acting as the handle to turn the entire contraption. 

Despite having redone the assembly a few times in Solidworks, we kept making the windlass left-handed...

... and continued to do so in the non-virtual world as well...

 Fortunately, our piece was pretty much symmetrical besides the large "handle" wheel. (**note, we did notice that we made it left handed in Solidworks but knew that it wasn't really an issue). Thus, when we piano-wired everything, we were able to 'fix' this minor issue. Finally, after much sanding...

... we finally got it right ! (pun 100% intended)