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A little paint goes a long way

3/26/2012

Here's the two stars of "Urban Terrorists" with a little makeup on. the arms are still in progress. The main box and gear mechanism is complete. Cams and levers are the next task. You can see one the tail of the raccoon on the left between the two characters.

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Work on Urban Terrorists Continues

3/21/2012

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Things are progressing on the Urban Terrorist project, although I have to say that a few days of 25 degree Celsius weather here in Southern Ontario has lured me out of the shop to clean up some of winter's wrath on the garden railroad and slowed my progress.

The top works of the piece is nearing completion. Here one racoon is contoured and painted while the other still shows the rough finish of the head before finial shaping. The can is a stand-in for the final one as it is a little higher than I wanted for the piece. The arm in the photo is unfinished, waiting final dimensioning so that it rests on the edge of the can. The taller raccoons arms are not shown.

The Geneva mechanism shown in the other photo is the driver for the periodic appearance of the mouse on the block of cheese. Shown below is the rough-in of the gearbox used to adjust the performance of the gears. I decided to use toothed gears as the load might be fairly high.

Mock-up gearbox.

The two raccoons in the can.

Geneva Mechanism

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Raccoon Heads

3/13/2012

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Here are the two main characters of the new piece piece roughed in. The ears are made but will not be fitted until the final shape and sanding are completed. The green circle on the paper represents the outline of the "garbage can" these characters sit in. The right arm of the one on the left hangs outside the can. The bodies are hollowed out to allow room for the internal linkages for arms, eyes, jaw, tongue and neck. Next step for this portion of the piece is to fabricate the arms so that the hands correlate correctly to the top of the can.

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Urban Terrorists - Under Construction

3/5/2012

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Finally under way on my new project. These three pieces are the lower jaw, tongue and upper jaw of a racoon character. the brass plates serve as counter weights and a smooth surface for the actuating push rod to slide on as the head turns. The large piece is the upper jaw (upside down here) and the tongue and jaw are assembled into it.

For this project is necessary to assemble the interior head mechanisms as the head it built, then the outside shape will be carved to shape. The tongue and jaw received a flesh coloured coat of paint now since this area will be hard to paint when assembled.

The head will be about 3" tall when completed.

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Al's Automata Blog

A little paint goes a long way

Work on Urban Terrorists Continues

Raccoon Heads

Urban Terrorists - Under Construction

Why Automata?

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