Heres a photo, a little fuzzy, from my phone with the CFO sitting where he will eventually reside in the current work. He looks so lonely I've been inspired to add a few buddies for him. I still have not finished the construction as you can see from some protruding shafts in this photo. I suspect the space to the upper right of my friend will be filled with a safe; but you will have to wait for that.
Taking a couple of days out of the shop to maintain a proper perspective on the world, but will be back at it soon.
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I decided to add a few additional minor characters into the current project. This little fellow is one character who will sit in the mechanism area. While he holds the lofty tittle of CFO (Chief Financial Officer), in this case he merely tracks and counts the coins collected from above. He is holding a Canadian "Loonie", a dollar coin about 1" in diameter. He is made from 11 assembled pieces. His feet, hands, and tail are maple, which is strong enough to handle details like shaping his toes, his eyes and nose are shaped from a 1/4" dowel, and the rest is basswood. His fur is cut with a pyrographic burner.
With the addition of two front teeth, a coat of paint and some eyeballs, he'll be ready assume his fiscal responsibility. When I display my automata at shows you can develop cramps from winding mechanisms. I would also rather talk to visitors than focus on turning cranks. I generally don't let visitors crank mechanisms until I determine they have the proper amount of respect for the work. My solution was to automate some pieces, have them not operate continuously, and not install permanent motors to try to stay true to the personal interaction a hand crack provides. The solution is a temporary driver I use for shows called "Conquergood Creative's Right Hand Man". The output shaft has a 1/4" dowel that pushes on the crank handle of the automata to make it work. It's important, of course, to have the centre line of the Right Hand Man aligned with the centreline of the piece being cranked. I use a shim plate under the automata or Right Hand Man as required to do this. The box has an adjustable timer so I can set the time to run for anywhere from seconds to minutes. There is a fan inside just to keep things cool and a big push button on the top to actuate it.
I have three of these so I can run several pieces at once. When someone is walking by all I have to do is push the button and the action draws them in. I received a note to my website from Wim van der Wal from Vlissingen in the Netherlands. He asked about plans that I might have as he was eagerly getting into making automata. After exchanging a couple of emails he sent me this photo of a character he adapted from a plan he bought from Philip Lowndes in England. It was like visiting an old friend. I had purchased the same plan from Philip as I stated on my path. I especially like the way Wim embellished the character with stringy hair and whiskers. Nice touch Wim.
Vlissingen Nederland I'm usually very structured when making automata, doing a significant amount of planning for entire piece before I jump into the workshop. This little rat and I have been a different story. If you follow my blog you'll see that the rat, currently known as Norton, is basically completed. However I now find myself locked in front of my PC doing the refinements on the mechanism and supporting structure for the little fellow! There has been a lot of adjustment! The good news its only computer bytes I'm shuffling not blocks of wood. I expect that will come later.
The thing about this part of the work is that the more time I spend in designing the piece the more it develops in theme as well as complexity. I now hope to add a few small rats into the mechanism clutching money and will be looking to place a small "Rat Vault Co." safe into the piece to collect coins collected by Norton. Anyway back to my drawing work..... Al When I design automat pieces I always try to have the viewers experience memorable. Often I try to achieve this by having a quirky story and a significant number of motions that stirs a fascination. Sometimes though, when the animation concept is simpler I try to spend more time on the characters in the automata themselves so that they become the memorable experience. In this way a piece with even the simplest of mechanisms can become favourites with viewers. My rat in the sewer is one such case. I have tried to make him cute so as to be memorable. Already visitors in my shop associate him with the acorn crazy squirrel in the Ice Age movie, a widely popular animated character. So this is why I have invested significant time in him. I expect he will become the memorable focal point in my current piece. Here he is painted. Here is the manhole cover that will sit atop his head.
Took some time off this weekend since the grand kids were here to play in the piles of snow we have here this winter. Nonetheless I did get a little more done on the rat in my current automata project. He now has the arm he needs to help balance a manhole cover on his head and I am detailing his fur by wood burning. Even with about 3 hours of wood burning he is still only half done. He also still does not have any eyeballs as you can see, but he has teeth!
Working away shaping the head and body of my next project. As a sewer rat, I'll likely name him Norton in honour of the old Honeymooners TV series. In building Norton the eyeballs and some of the operating mechanism had to be installed before install the eyelids and brow, which is meant to give him a sinister look. At this point his arm is not yet attached. His head is flat since he will be balancing a manhole cover on his head. Here is another earlier photo showing the eye mechanism installed before the addition of the eyelids.
My next automata project is in the prototype and early production stages. It is a rat who pulls coins into a manhole. The concept is not unlike the cast iron mechanical banks of older days. My little friend will lift the manhole cover from below, glance side to side, then reach up and pull any coin left in the "magic spot". The manhole is 8" in diameter, and the rat is about 6" long from the nose to the back of the head. This early prototype had no body, and was built to help position the eyes show that upper and lower eyelids could be added. In a production version, here is a roughed-in rat, with eye sockets and a cavity cut in the top of the head to install the eye mechanism. The final base structure will be much deeper since it will contain all the mechanism underneath to actuate my little friend.
I am almost complete with the mechanism portion of my current project and will be meeting with my client this week before performing the final assembly. I created this short video of the mechanism in motion to post on the blog. The upper works will not be shown until the project is delivered. In the meantime I hope you enjoy this little video clip of a work in progress. |
Why Automata?Automata is a creative blend of my life interests , engineering, art and woodworking. Archives
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