Contemporary Wooden Automata

Happy New Year

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:18:34 +0000

It is gratifying to receive photographs from people who have bought my patterns and have had a fun time making the pieces. Pictured above is a photo sent by Gert W. from the Netherlands. He has re-titled the piece “The Boss”. Gert has adapted the pattern and used plywood instead of pine to create a beautifully made and painted piece.
People often write and ask if I have other automata plans for sale. So far I have not because putting the patterns and particularly the instructions together is a huge job. However the plans for “In My Humble Opinion” can easily be adapted to drive different or more cams to control a wide variety of automata.
Whether you are an automata maker, collector or just interested I wish you a happy and peaceful 2010.

More blogging next year

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:53:15 +0000

Sorry, I will not be updating this blog again during 2009 as other projects are taking up my time. More in 2010.
In the mean time I am still taking automata orders for delivery in 2010 and my patterns remain available for sale.

New sheep automaton

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:39:02 +0100

The sheep graze, then the “black sheep” stands up on one leg, resumes grazing and the other 2 look up in amazement.
A fairly simple mechanism, the most difficult part was to make the cams the right size so that the sheep make small movements for grazing but a big movement to move the head and in the case of the black sheep the body.
The control rod is at the back of the sheep, away from the movement.
Above is the set up for the white sheep. Below for the black sheep where the body pivots on one leg.

See a video of the action here

“Where’s my army gone?”

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:35:10 +0100

Now finished. He marches along, stops, looks side to side, stamps his foot in frustration, lowers his eyes and marches on again.

Concept piece coming along nicely

Sat, 8 Aug 2009 23:15:23 +0100

I have the legs, arms and eyes working smoothly. Next project is to make the head look side to side when the man stops walking.
In the final version the mechanism will be more compact.

Progress with walking mechanism

Thu, 6 Aug 2009 22:31:20 +0100

I have now solved how to use the Geneva Wheel to switch the walking on and off. Next step is to make the cams that the cam levers ride on to make the leg movement.

Cam moves the fulcrum for the cam lever up and down to engage and disengage the leg movement. Centre channel on cam will move the eyes up and down.