The Cat Wheel Project

Ever since I saw a hamster running his little heart out on a wheel in his cage, to go nowhere, like people do at gyms on treadmills, I've thought to myself, 'Cats are just big hamsters, or, little people.' I've dreamed of building a cat wheel. I got some hardware awhile back, at the Habitat store, just some pipe pieces, and once began the cat wheel project, then set it aside.

This evening, I set out to fulfill my dream again. I was almost there, when disaster struck. I tripped over the extension cord to which my second Goodwill Skillsaw was plugged into. The cord flew, fortunately cutting off power as the extension cord and saw cord parted ways. But, the saw blade will still spin once power is cut as it slows to a halt. The flying cord, wrapping into the spinning blade, severing the wires. My second Goodwill skillsaw is now toast. The first one was obviously never adequately tested or repaired by disabled workers at Goodwill, and would overheat after one minute of use. It fried.

I tried to continue work using a low power battery powered jigsaw. I encouraged it, took to yelling at it, but after moments it too overheated and refused to cut. Battery dead. So, it's break time.

I use cat traps for saw horses.

I plan to attach it to a fence post outside, with a pipe through the 4x4 and secured on the outside of the fence. Somehow. Haven't quit worked out all the details. What will I use for the runway? Well, I thought about hardware cloth covered in hardened spray foam insulation, but they'd shred that quickly. Then I thought I'd attach old fence boards to create the circular run, but they're half rotted. So I'm back to hardware cloth, supported by 90 degree brackets at least in four spots, and maybe cover it in flexible vinyl. I happen to have some old pieces of that around.