Congratulations!

Dear Tony,

We are happy to inform you that your application for Mini Maker Faire Bristol, Amateur Automata Maker, has been accepted. We're looking forward to having you participate in the 1st Mini Maker Faire Bristol on the 23 March, 2013 at M Shed Bristol between 10:00am and 4:00pm. 

Please prepare for your exhibit. We will provide a standard setup, which includes a standard banquet table and two chairs. We ask that you bring all other items required for your exhibit. If you need something different, and you indicated so in your entry, we may contact you to discuss these details. We will also provide a small sign for your exhibit. We encourage you to think about ways to design your exhibit and to make it interactive and fun. If you have any questions about your exhibit or changes to it, please email us at ************************
Thanks, and we look forward to seeing you at Maker Faire!

Mini Maker Faire Bristol Team

Very happy but I seem to keep putting deadlines/pressure onto myself. Well, sometimes a deadline can be a good thing I guess.

Anyway, time to plan.

Photos of recent exploits

As I mentioned, here are some pics of things I have been getting on with. I will shelve this project for another day and return to it. I am thinking a rack and pinion gearing system might be a good mechanism to try. If I can't get it to work at least it'll be good experience. 

Close up of the mechanism with the main pin wheel gear

Reverse view

My initial mechanism with pin wheels on half of the gear. It nearly worked but if I turned the wheel too fast, the centre wheel would have built up some inertia and would continue moving around. I wanted it to turn exactly 180 degrees each time. 

A new mechanism I was trying. There would be an offset cam which which push the lever up and down. The lever would have a rod sticking up out of the end of it which would lift the friction wheel up, disengaging it from the main drive friction wheel. This model also nearly worked but didn't quite make it. 

A close up of the "newer" mechanism

A present for my friend

The hearts for the cupid model

My friends present. I scrapped this configuration

I decided to make a makeshift sanding table to lay parts on to get a perfect 90 degree angle. It requires a bit of work

With the sanding attachment

This is a luthier clamp I made out of mdf and pine (I'm going to build my own guitar, amateur guitar maker blog to follow). It's not the best example but all of the videos I saw on Youtube involved them being made out of mahogany and I am too poor for that. I might try plywood but I think that would probably snap easily.

Another view of the clamp

For my friend's present I decided to try using papier mache. This is the plasticine mould

Newspaper layer

Finished

The re-done mechanism. Hopefully this will work out better. I have a few other bits to attach.  

Sorry it's a bit of a dull one. I'll try harder next time. 

fail...

Well, I didn't finish the model on time but that's OK. I didn't like putting the pressure on myself. The whole mechanism needs re-working so I'm going to leave it for a while. Besides, I recently split with a girl I was seeing so I don't really feel like working on a Valentine's model. 

Time to do some fun stuff. Sorry for the lack of pics recently. I will get on it at the weekend.

Maker Faire Bristol

Well this is exciting! A Maker Faire is coming to my home town. I've always wanted to attend. I've applied for a stall, although it won't be much. In any event I'll be there even if I fail in my submission. It's on the 23rd March at the M Shed.

In other news, work on the Valentine's model is coming along slowly, so slow that I won't have it made in time for Valentine's day. This has led me to make a decision that I won't be making any more themed work as I hate to put pressure on myself. When it's done, it's done. 

Some pics to follow of the things I've been up to. 

Valentine's model update

So, I've started working on a model for Valentine's Day which involves Cupid and a couple of hearts. Here are some pics of the work in progress:

This is my new drill press stand. It has a solid construction and is pretty accurate. I used it for my pinwheel gears.

The blank frame

My original sketches made on tracing paper to transfer to the lime wood.

A view of the friction wheel to rotate Cupid and the larger pinwheel gear

Cupid's body

Cupid's legs clamped into place while drying. My carving wasn't very accurate unfortunately which left gaps between the body and the legs. I filled these in with a mixture of lime wood sawdust and wood glue and let it dry and then sanded it down.

The main drive gear added to test. Unbelievably, it meshed the first time!

Hearts

Another new toy which allows my drill to become almost like a lathe and sander. The drill can be angled in this holder to add more flexibility. I shall be putting in a sanding disc to aid quick sanding. You can see a vacuum cleaner int he background which I use as a dust extractor to do this.

First arm added

Another little project. Since I don't have my own workshop space, I needed to make a little unit to store my most commonly used tools as previously, everything was stored on the floor. I have since added an extra shelf.

Another view

The carving for the second arm was more intricate so I broke the arm up into sections which I then stuck together with pins and glue

Second arm in place

The head. It was a bit large at this stage so I trimmed it down a bit

That's better

Action shot

Rather than have the hair pre-cut, I found it easier to handle at this length. I could then trim it afterwards

Haircut and coat of paint. I think the colour of lime wood has nice flesh tones but the sawdust/lime wood mixture I made hadn't kept this colour. Therefore, I had to paint the model to get an even colour.

Side view

 

 

 

With bow

More pics to follow. I think I've been concentrating on the characters a bit too much recently. I need to focus on the actual mechanism now to see if it works.

It's a friend's 40th birthday in March, so I need to make a model for him too. It'll involve a moustache.

Pinwheels in Inkscape

My new model involves making pinwheel gears. I used to do this in Illustrator and used the tutorial on the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre website for this. However, I no longer have this software and instead went for the Open Source alternative of Inkscape. I had trouble working out how to make the pinwheels at first but now have a method. I thought I'd create a PDF and provide a download link for those who are interested in it:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?z0r4prji5oaptz0

One of the nice things about making automata is that the materials do not necessarily have to be expensive. I'd find it hard to justify spending hundreds of pounds on a piece of software to assist with the design process, so I use a free alternative. 

Of course, another alternative would be to just use a protractor, ruler and a compass but I always find my accuracy slightly off with this method. 

I hope this helps. If you have any queries, please comment/contact me.

Post seasons greetings

Hello and seasons greetings to you all. Just thought I'd give a quick update following Christmas.

I've started working on my next model which I will make in time for Valentine's day (hopefully). I've made the frame and am going to incorporate a pin wheel gear, as I 'm fed up with work gears. Besides, pin wheel gears can be tricky to make accurately so there's a challenge there in itself. Pics to follow soon. 

I have also been shopping on line and have bought a few new goodies, such as a block plane, a drill press stand and a drill holder so I can turn my drill into a lathe of sorts. This should allow me to do more interesting things and hopefully with a bit more accuracy. 

I might also be getting a workshop in the new year! Good times!

Anyway, back to the model.