It took us a while to discover that this shop sign is of a “Gouty Rat” which was the eccentric name of a shop familiar to the young Jules Verne.
21:30 Choeur Mikrokosmos in front of Museum d‘histoire naturelle. Sat on comfy shop step until we got bored and drifted off to find this nice little rhyme, loosely translated if rhyme-free as “life is beautiful, just like you”.
Which was also used in “les enfants de paradis”… Go on, try out your French comprehension!
What’s that?
A nicely planted street pissoir – only in France.
On the “Arty” walk. Nantes waiters are so friendly!
What is Gerhild doing in that basket in the galerie des machines?
Waiting for takeoff with Heron airlines.
You’ve never seen a hummingbird like this.
A wooden goose.
Testing the plants for the Heron Tree.
On our happy way home.
Today we went for a pretty walk along the river Erdre, accompanied by Sunday joggers, a few bicycles and people looking for a picnic spot.
Creative use of bits of tree to make a nice picnic area.
One way to paint your boat.
There’s a message in this somewhere.
Kim likes this skeleton tag which we have seen on a few pieces of black street furniture.
Where the path is blocked by posh gardens they built a nice boardwalk.
Strolled along the green line today, after buying a baguette for lunch.
The park opposite is reflected in this pierced facade.
Nice signs for the butcher‘s shop
Cheeky fellow stepping on Gerhild‘s head.
Bookshop sign!
In the evening we took the ferry to Trentemoult.
Where there are some great paintings lurking behind the ivy.
Not to mention this large clock with no hands.
As it got dark, the rings on the île de Nantes lit up (les Anneaux -Daniel Buren)
Which looked good from the ferry on the way home.
Had a look at the Chateau today.
Anne and her royal namesake, the Duchess Anne.
Lunch on board a boat on the Erdre (Pépé Guingette). In the foreground „Amours“ by Karina Bisch.
We went to visit the elephant today.
Children, large or small, love it.
Then we went to the giant carousel des mondes marins.
This morning we walked to the Nantes Musée d‘art. Nice buildings but modest art apart from Mircea Cantor who I liked.
In the „cube“
Two Englishmen, Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle, who live in Nantes, made Planet Man. Nice.
Breakfast on the balcony again today. Gerhild feels observed from the other side of the river!
Echoes of the fantastic Jacques Tati and Mon Oncle.
Are we going up there?
Yes we are. You can see our flat from the top.
This is called Nid (nest).
Boat passing just as we arrived home.
Today we took the train to Pornic which is about 43 km away on the Atlantic coast and was the favourite seaside village of the nice woman in the tourist office.
Cooler than Nantes it was still too hot to be in the sun for long.
And a beautiful view from the garden while we enjoyed our crepes, after a strawberry and rosé wine aperitif. Hence Kim‘s strawberry nose.
La Crêperie de la Fraiserie in Pornic
Some shop signs in Nantes, like in the rue de Maréchal Joffre are mechanised! As trend setters they all have tattoos if you look closely.
Fish & chip shop
Ladies clothing
Hamburgers
Bar
All on the way to the amazing Jardin des Plantes.
Which is completely potty!
The little sign says DO NOT FEED THE PLANTS! The cage ensures your safety from this carnivorous collection.
If you pump hard enough on the stand next to the path, the kinetic sculptures rise up out of the water.
This is one cool cat. Despite the heat he just kept snoozing on the lawn.
Nice sequence of 25 Claude Ponti pictures here https://jardins.nantes.fr/N/Accueil/Ponti/Claude-Ponti-Album.asp
What an amazing show, the Nomad Men and their BATT MOBILE. Batter is what French musicians do to drums, nothing to do with flying rodents.
Kim played with a giant cardboard Tamagotchi dancing and cleaning up after it.
African robots
French, wire-operated robot
Just outside we found this beautiful roundabout http://lesmanegesdandrea.com
Let’s celebrate in the streets for the opening night of the Voyage à Nantes!
How to liven up old bronzes in the Cours Cambronne, an elegant park right next to the opera.
Is she getting on or getting off? Philippe Ramette.
Gerhild next to a theatrical theatre.
What a lot of statues – 750 of them as a selfie park in Place Royal
There is a bridge over the river Erdre, but where does it go? No not Japan, l’île de Versaille, Nantes.
Lots of picknicking going on here and whyever not?
The unicorns have found their way here too
They like strange things over the streets here.
The locals describe this as an enigmatic bas relief. Google offers this.
The „jungle“ art installation in the middle of the shopping district.
Nice update to the Sainte Croix church added in 1860, even if Kim was disappointed that the bells rang, but the trumpeters neither trumpeted nor moved an inch.
See everything on one long page here, or choose a day.
Our fine, tiny apartment for the next two weeks
Gerhild and her nice flea-market hat.
The evening view over the river Erdre
Wikipedia tells us that the unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiralling horn projecting from its forehead. So of course I had to make one.
There are already plenty of horsey automata around. Rob Ives designed a brilliant paper Pegasus, a flying horse, using a clothes peg to hold the mechanism (https://www.robives.com/product/pegasus/). Keith Newstead has designed some fantastic winged horses (https://www.keithnewsteadautomata.com/slide/pegasus/) and there are a number of laser-cut wood/MDF kits available for both Pegasus and flying unicorns. It’s great to be able to see how other folk approach similar problems to see how they coped with the various challenges of making something quite mythical.
Some examples in YouTube
Some time ago I bought and assembled a laser-cut MDF Pegasus kit. The movement is good, but my 3 year old friend managed to break off the thin MDF handle at first go, and it is so light that it skates around the table while you turn the crank, meaning you need a second hand to hold the base still. So my first requirement is that it must be sturdy and heavy enough to be worked with just one hand, especially if it’s only 3 years old. A rubber mat under the base should prevent it from slipping about.
The force applied to the handle as you turn it varies. The handle must be positioned so that you are pushing down when the most force is applied and pushing up when the least force is required. Again this will make one-handed operation easier.
As a genuine unicorn, it has to have a spiral horn, horsey ears, a splendid mane, a bushy tail and friendly eyes. The base is part of the show, so it shouldn’t be boring.
The unicorn would be interesting just by itself (see the inset image), but I thought a hapless rider would add to the fun, stylishly dressed but fearful of the unicorn’s movement, opening his mouth to protest each time that he might fall off backwards, rescued only by holding tight to the reins.
From the pencil sketch it’s not too hard to make some card templates which makes it easy to mark the wood for cutting with a bow saw.
Two MDF discs make a nice, heavy base and a vertical horseshoe is perfect to take a lot of the mechanism. I did wonder for a while, why horses can’t wear shoes with laces. I suppose not having fingers makes doing up your laces kind of hard. Anyway some creative soul came up with nailing a bent metal strip to their hooves and this is such a design classic, that nowadays it is instantly recognisable as equine footwear and not at all boring.
However magical it is, a unicorn needs a horn, a head, a neck, a body, a tail and four legs. The neck must have a splendid mane of course. For the mane, drill a few holes at regular intervals along the neck. Measure the required diameter by using pliers to pull out a tuft of bristles from the brush that is to supply the mane. The empty hole that is left in the brush is the size that you need in the neck. Just push the bristles into the neck, with a small dab of glue on the end.
The body is the thickest part as you have to chisel out slots for the tail and for the neck.
The slots have to be wide enough to allow free movement. I then used 1.6 mm welding rod for the hinges, drilling 1.6 mm for a tight fit and 2.0 mm for a loose fit to allow movement.
The crank is the handle that you turn to get the unicorn galloping. A small sphere on one end prevents the loop on the end of the central rod from coming off. A small sphere on the other end is painted bright red to say “this is what you turn”. Plastic washers reduce friction
The central rod slides easily up and down through this block of wood, which can turn easily in the top of the horseshoe. The hemisphere on the end stops the axle from slipping towards the back.
While fiddling about to get everything right, it’s useful to leave bent “handles” on the rods which serve as axles for the head, neck, tail and legs. Once everything is OK, then these can be cut off at the correct length. The two leg axles are glued right at the end to keep the pairs of legs firmly joined together. It’s much easier to paint the parts before the final assembly. Rods which pivot in the horseshoe and in the legs and tail protrude enough so that a small wooden hemisphere can be glued on to prevent them from slipping out and to prevent inexperienced jockeys from getting accidentally stabbed by sharp ends.
Once the rod hinging the head to the neck has been cut to size, glue hemispheres on top to conceal the holes and prevent the rod from sliding out and, when painted, they make beautiful eyes. For the ears, I cut rubber sheeting to a suitable shape, rolled it around a thin pin, tied it with cotton thread to prevent it from unrolling and drilled a small hole to take the pin. Two-component epoxy resin glue, fairly liberally applied holds everything together and in place.
Fully assembled and painted the base looks like this –
There are apparently people around who believe in unicorns and even think they can ride them.
This small, smartly dressed fellow is carved from lime wood with his arms and lower legs hinged on 1.6 mm rods. His head is a beechwood egg with the jaw cut out and glued firmly to his shoulders. A rod through a hole at the back of the jaw allows his head to flop forwards and backwards as the unicorn gallops. There is a hole drilled through each hand for the reins. When the unicorn points skyward, the reins pull tight and lift the rider’s arms, his head flops back and his mouth opens in a silent appeal for salvation. At the other extreme, the reins are slack, his arms drop and his mouth closes in relief.
There is an English saying that discourages you from waking sleeping dogs. Doing so is to risk provoking a defensive reaction, a baring of teeth and a concert of barks to wake the entire neighbourhood. This sounds like a great place to keep your valuables safe. Like keeping your favourite chocolate bar safe from your little sister. The only problem is that a real dog might like chocolate too, however unhealthy it is for them, so it will have to be a wooden dog. A wooden dog that knows how to keep its jaws clamped shut until it wakes up, and goes barking mad at any attempt to snaffle what’s in its mouth. Man’s ingenuity knows no bounds so here is the latest product from Berlin’s high-tech animalatronic workshop, a sleeping dog!
Here are most of the bits that make up our ferocious friend.
This dog has false teeth! You can take them out, which makes them easier to align so that they overlap nicely without touching and painting is very much easier too. The upper set of teeth sit on wooden blocks to create a hidden space for the strings attached to the nose, which move ears and eyes. This space also hides the spring for the catch which keeps the jaws locked together until the nose is moved.
Spring for the catch
The small black microswitch is activated when the upper jaw is lifted. The little circuit board comes ready to use from a hobby shop and this replays your recorded sound when the microswitch triggers. I replaced the standard speaker with a smaller, dog-sized one and glued this to the partition. The sound is quite cheerful for our purpose, as we won’t be playing Beethoven’s 9th.
The eyes are only held in the centre on a piece of wooden dowel. A spring keeps the eyes closed until a tug on the string pulls the lever to open them. The eyes don’t touch the panel so that the paint doesn’t rub off and allows for alignment errors when drilling the wooden balls. Two plastic washers keep the friction down.
Eye mechanism
Eye mechanism half assembled
Eye mechanism in place
Return spring for ears
https://www.visitlimburg.be/en/what-do
https://www.routeyou.com/nl/group/view/7773/themafietsroutes-fietsparadijs-limburg
Dear Kim
Thank you for your request. Via the following link you can find information on all installations from the art in public space project in the city of Borgloon:http://www.janboelen.be/pit-art-in-open-space/
Cycling through the water is located in the city of Genk, Bokrijk. http://cyclingthroughwater.com/
This year the open air museum (not contemporary) Bokrijk has a new unconventional exhibition on Bruegel.https://www.dewereldvanbruegel.be/en/
Eline Kempeneers
Partnerwerking
eline.kempeneers@limburg.be
T +32 11 30 59 00 | +32 471 80 55 30
Toerisme Limburg
Universiteitslaan 3 | 3500 Hasselt
PROJECTS
Gijs Van Vaerenbergh: Reading Between the Lines (2011-permanent)
Architect duo Gijs Van Vaerenbergh’s (B) see-through church ‘Reading Between the Lines’ in Borgloon is a 10-metre-high structure that weighs 30 tons. It is made of 100 stacked layers of steel plates in the shape of a church of Loon. The structure enables seeing the surrounding landscape through the church both from far away and up close; the church is both present and absent in the landscape.
Fred Eerdekens: Twijfelgrens (2011-permanent)
Wooden-like sculpture by Fred Eerdekens (B) appears as a folded line in the landscape; from the right angle, the line forms a word ‘twijfelgrens,’ a ‘doubt border.’ The work continues Eerdekens’ use of language as a medium.
Tadashi Kawamata: Project Burchtheuvel (2011–2017)
Tadashi Kawamata’s (JP) wooden sculptures in the open space can be labeled social constructions, as he lets the local community help build the sculptures. In Borgloon, Kawamata built a wooden sculpture around and on top of Burchtheuvel, a historically significant place. He worked with twenty visual arts, architecture and interior design students, who researched how Burchtheuvel could again play a full-fledged role in the city centre.
Dré Wapenaar: Tranendreef (2011-permanent)
Tear-shaped sculptures by Dré Wapenaar (NL) are hanging from the trees and provide an alternative form of accommodation in Haspengouw. Situated on the border of architecture and sculpture, Wapenaar’s sculptures are often temporarily placed tent structures. Social interaction around the work is of great importance for the artist.
Ardie Van Bommel: Pure Nature (2011-permanent)
Ardie van Bommel (NL) brings a sitting, washing, toilet and barbecue unit to Tradentdreef, at the tree tents by Dré Wapenaar. The units are based on the palettes of fruit chests often seen in the Haspengouw landscape.
Paul Devens: Proximity Effect (2012-permanent)
‘Proximity Effect’ by sound artist Paul Devens (NL) is located at the Servatius church in Groot-Loon. Through speakers and sensors, the site-specific sound installation in the 12th-century church plays a game of tones, sounds of outside recordings, acoustics, echo and space.
Wesley Meuris: Memento (2012–permanent)
‘Memento,’ a sculpture by Wesley Meuris (B) at the Central Burial of Borgloon, is an anchor point in the sloping landscape. The architectural structure of the work provides an experience of looking and dwelling. The experience of intimacy reflects the memory of the sculpture’s surroundings. The sculpture is initiated by De Nieuwe Opdrachtgevers.
Aeneas Wilder: Untitled #158 (2012–permanent)
Aeneas Wilder (UK) builds an architectural structure in the landscape near the Monastery of Colen in Kerniel. The round construction with a magnificent 360-degrees view is aligned with uniform vertical wooden slats. According to the artist, the work functions as a lens where the visitor can focus his thoughts and emotions with the landscape of Kerniel as a background.
Wooden figures are more interesting if they can talk. This basically means wagging their chin as thousands of puppets have done over the years. I thought it would be interesting to try an alternative, keeping a stiff lower chin and wagging everything else. This results in a vivacious little figure, full of temperament, so she obviously had to get a dramatic, expressive hairdo and some dangly ear rings to round things off.
Here’s the original rough design showing how the figure’s left arm is pivoted, with holes for the spring and the connecting rod to the head.
Here’s the reality, after cutting the wooden egg in two and carving out hollows for the spring and the left arm to move. The right arm and legs are attached using 3 mm dowel into drilled holes.
11 km, 3 Stunden Laufzeit.
Nordausgang Potsdam Hauptbahnhof (List Straße) um 11:00 Uhr, Sonntag 5. Mai
Fährhaus-Caputh. z.Z. gibt’s Spargel (Spargelzeit im Fährhaus)
Straße der Einheit 88, 14548 Schwielowsee
Telefon: +493320970203
Bus 607 nach Potsdam Hbf
ab Caputh Feldstr. 15:29, 16:29, 17:29, 18:29
RB23 nach Potsdam Hbf
ab 15:07, 17:07
You need a piece of lime wood for the body and the fins, a beechwood egg for the head, and wooden ring as a controller to attach the strings. I had a few old wooden curtain rings lying about which was handy, otherwise craft shops often stock them. 2 small wooden hemispheres serve for the eyes and a piece of welding rod hinges the mouth.
First draw a turtle template on a piece of card
Use the templates to cut out the basic shapes and then curve them.
The head is made from the wooden egg, which you first have to cut into two pieces. You then need a notch in each piece to attach to the neck.
I made the neck from plywood. Glue it to the top of the head and sand the protruding stem to make it round.
The lower half of the head is hinged onto the neck piece.
The plywood neckpiece makes the centre piece of the hinge and a piece of 1.6 mm welding rod is pushed through to make a nice loose hinge.
Drill holes to take the strings. The hole in the top of the head is larger so that the string moves easily without jamming. The hole through the jaw is smaller so that a simple knot will keep the string in place and not pull through the hole.
To add to the feeling of a stiff salty breeze I painted the ring like a ship’s life-saving ring. This makes the controller a visible part of the show, not something to be hidden high up in the darkness. Only four strings and the very simple controller reduce the risk of the terrifying tangle that sometimes ties up more complicated puppets.
I left the jaw string slack so that the turtle’s mouth is usually open. If you then press the front string the mouth will then close, so that the turtle can talk.
The latest product from Berlin’s booming startup scene, a touch-sensitive smart chicken! An extremely low maintenance cockerel which operates on just the environmentally friendly pressure of one finger. No feed or batteries required and guaranteed free from electromagnetic emissions and all unpleasant odours.
What does this cock a doodle do? Eternally patient it pecks away at its state of the art miniature smartphone. Dreadful anti-avian discrimination by the developers mean that every attempt with his beak is bleak. With feathers but no fingers this bird of little brain will forever be barred from crowing onto the Internet, which is probably no bad thing.
Goldesel plays a role in one of the European fairytales collected by the Brothers Grimm.
According to the fable, all you have to do is say “bricklebrit” and Goldesel’s droppings will turn to pure gold ducats!
This wooden version of that fabulous animal has its own magic. Touch its single carrot and Goldesel will lift its head in wonder and, delicately used, Goldesel will waggle one of its ears. That can’t compare with the 24 carats heaped at the other end, but if you can find the one special, magical ducat, Goldesel will respond by politely lifting his tail. Unfortunately, so far despite lifting its tail “bricklebrit” doesn’t seem to have the desired effect with my limewood version. Maybe it’s my pronunciation, but I haven’t given up hope yet.
Video on Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_SsgYUONhw
Goldesel plays a role in one of the European fairytales collected by the Brothers Grimm. All you had to do was say the word “bricklebrit” and the magical donkey’s droppings turned to pure gold ducats!
This wooden version of that fabulous animal has its own magic. Touch its single carrot and Goldesel will lift its head in wonder and, delicately used, Goldesel will waggle one of its ears. That can’t compare with the 24 carats heaped at the other end, but if you can find the one special, magical ducat, Goldesel will respond by politely lifting his tail. Unfortunately, so far despite lifting its tail “bricklebrit” doesn’t seem to have the desired effect with my limewood version. Maybe it’s my pronunciation, but I haven’t given up hope yet. Maybe your version will work better?
How to make your Goldesel
Draw one ear, a head, a tail and the body with legs on some stiff card. Bigger heads look cute as they suggest a young animal. Use some pins to try out the movement and work out the best place for each hinge. When you are satisfied, trace the shapes onto wood of the right thickness. At this stage, I actually scroll cut 3 ear shapes, as it looked close enough to a carrot shape to be able to carve it.
Drill two holes through the head for 3 mm dowel. For the hinge between the ears and the head drill the head so that the dowel is a tight fit. For the head to move freely on the dowel in the body, drill a second hole in the neck for a loose fit. Drill the holes where you had put the pins in the card when you checked the movement.
This clever donkey needs a hole chiselled in its head for the ears to move. For the neck hinge, mark the wood that needs cutting away using the cardboard templates to check what needs to be removed before sawing. To cut the arc shape, a sharp chisel is what’s required. Try fitting the ears to see that the hole is big enough for them to move freely.
I left enough space for a small plastic washer between the ears to make sure that they can move separately. Roughly carved, head and ears look like this.
I used cord to waggle the ears and the tail. I tried cotton thread, but that caused too much friction. I tried fishing line, but that was too stiff when relying solely on gravity to pulle the ears down. I finally settled on thinner 1.5 kg nylon cord which is smooth and flexible enough for the job.
Here you can see how I drilled two holes along the neck, one for each ear. Note that routed like this, the cord which pulls the ears up will also pull the head up, when the ear has moved as far as it can.
Here are the thinner, smoother nylon cords, ready to thread through the body.
Now drill two holes in the body for a tight fit to hold the dowel to pivot the head and the tail. Note that it is best to drill the holes while the wood is still solid and the sides flat. That makes it easier to be precise and less likely that thin bits will break off. Then chisel out the space needed for the neck to rotate at the front and for the tail to rotate at the rear. Pencil markings on the outside show roughly how much space is needed for the movement.
Once there is enough space for the neck to move freely, drill two holes through the body for the ear pulls. One hole is enough for the tail.
For the ear pulls, I fed the cords through the front hooves. For the tail pull there was enough space between the two rear hooves
I recycled an old round wooden base for Goldesel to stand on, adding some smooth pieces of dowel to reduce the friction when the cord has to turn through 90 degrees. There are two holes at the front to connect the carrot to the two ear pulls and one hole at the rear to connect a coin to the tail pull.
I’m afraid my gold ducats are only made from beechwood dowel with a lick of gold paint. Go for the real thing if you feel like it!
Carve a carrot and drill two holes in it, one for each ear pull.
We need a base for the carrot and the ducats.
Now everything is ready to be assembled. Threading the fine cord can be quite testing and I found press-to-release tweezers quite handy to keep my frustration levels down.
Goldesel was an interesting experiment in using pull cords running inside a figure, like an inside out marionette. Unlike a thumb puppet it has no spring and relies on gravity to move ears, tail and head back to their starting positions. Before demonstrating, it is vital to practise your braying. The onomatopoeias for braying is “hee-haw” or “eeyore.” Curiously the National Geographic thinks that donkeys say “wee-snaw”. As a fan of Winnie the Poo, personally I go for eeyore.
The latest product from Berlin’s booming startup scene, a touch-sensitive smart chicken! An extremely low maintenance cockerel which operates on just the environmentally friendly pressure of one finger. No feed or batteries required and guaranteed free from electromagnetic emissions and all unpleasant odours.
What does this cock a doodle do? Eternally patient it pecks away at its state of the art miniature smartphone. Dreadful anti-avian discrimination by the developers mean that every attempt with his beak is bleak. With feathers but no fingers this bird of little brain will forever be barred from crowing onto the Internet, which is probably no bad thing.
I was inspired by a number of clothes peg automata, starting with a beautiful bird by the amazing Martin Lhotak (which you can see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkBWAJ83Yv0 ). It’s quite a simple mechanism where squeezing against a spring causes two parts to move relative to one another. Clothes pegs are fine if you want to clip your creation to something, but are not so good if you want it to stand on a surface. I went for an egg shape as it’s a chicken. In this case the chicken came first and then the eggs!
Draw a chicken without any legs and then cut out that shape on a piece of card. Draw an egg, or pinch an egg from hyperspace if you are geometrically challenged like me. Cut it out on a piece of card. These are the templates to mark a piece of lime wood for the body and two pieces of thin plywood for the egg-shaped base.
Scroll cut the body
Scroll cut two egg shapes in thin plywood.
Make a wooden hinge to go towards the fat end of the eggs, located between the two eggs. This is three bits of roughly 10 mm x 10 mm strip with a hole drilled through the middle to take a piece of dowel. I added a couple of plastic washers which are probably not necessary as the rotation of the hinge is minimal and friction is not too important. You will however have to round the correct corners of all 3 pieces to allow enough rotation to get the cockerel pecking properly.
Carve the body to make it look like a cockerel. I glued on small ready-made hemispheres for the eyes for a nice popeye look.
Make two feet. Note that the chicken’s left foot is a tight fit for its brass leg and its right foot allows its brass leg to move freely.
The holes in the side of the body are at the same height but the hole in the right side is about 5 mm further back. This offset means that when the right leg is pushed up relative to the left leg, it makes the body tilt forward and our cockerel starts pecking away. Between the two eggs, the right leg is fixed to the bottom egg.
A spiral spring between the eggs pushes them apart and keeps the chicken upright.
As you can see, the spring pushed the eggs a bit too far apart, so I glued in another piece of 10 mm x 10 mm (not shown) in front of the hinge to correct that.
A very small piece of plywood serves as the smartphone. As it was too small for me to paint, I printed out a small image of a phone and glued it on.
May I present to you a fantastically ferocious feline who can be persuaded to miaow on cue and can even wag her superior striped tail. Recently returned from an amazing tour with Kim’s Kabarett, she is eminently suitable for the smallest of lion tamers. I give you Magnificent Moggie the Circus Cat!
(Youtube link to the video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYXjcz8zUH4)
What was the brief?Thumb push puppets are classic toys which come in hundreds of variations, but they all seem to share the idea of something collapsing when you push the base in. Horses like this one are quite popular, when you push the base, it first lowers its head and when you push harder it flops completely down. Wooden toys like this usually use turned parts to keep the price down.
I thought why not make a thumb puppet which does something else besides flopping and decided on a cat. To give a reason for the round base I thought she could be a circus cat, waiting for her tamer’s command. Push the front of the base and it opens its mouth, push the back and its tail moves (flops). So what makes a cat a cat? Those distinctive cat’s eyes with the vertical, ellipse-shaped slits? Whiskers? Big ears, a bushy tail and stripes? Well that was my recipe for cattiness.
Pencil sketch of the Magnificent Moggie
Here’s a rough sketch. The single spiral spring in the cylindrical base tries to expand, applying downward force
– keeping the tail proudly erect, via a piece of fishing line, which shouldn’t break with such a small fish
– keeping the cat’s mouth closed, via a slim brass rod
Press the base up and the tail will slacken and/or the cat’s mouth will open. The operator is responsible for the miaow.
I went for a spherical head and huge hemispherical eyes and a small nose made from beechwood. The body, tail and ears are made from carved lime wood as I won’t be charging anyone for my time to do that little bit of carving.
I reused an existing wooden base which had originally been turned.
Once the rough design was ready, this fairly simple toy only took a few hours over a weekend to make, with a bit of fiddling about for the final assembly.
Scroll cut the body
Cut the hinge slot
Slot the head onto the plywood for the hinge and mark neck and mouth
Sand the head flat where it is to be glued to the body
Cut the head into 2 pieces so that the cat can miaow
Make a hinge to be glued to top part of head with 2 holes for push rod and hinge pin which is pushed through a hole in one side of the body
Cut a slot in body to loosely hold the hinge with enough space for it to move easily
Glue hinge into the head. Carve & glue on ears. Glue on eyes and nose. Drill holes to glue whiskers. For the whiskers, simply use pliers to pull two tufts out of a brush, then glue one tuft into each of the holes next to the nose.
Cut slot in the movable base to take the loop on the end of the push rod. Insert brass hinge pin to hold the loop.
Putting it all together was tricky and required quite a bit of patience as I could only bend the top loop on the push rod once it had been fed through the body. With hindsight, I should have cut slots which were long enough to let the loop through. That would not have detracted from the general impression. That’s life innit? When you only make one of anything, you never get it quite right.
Fix fishing line to movable base. While squeezing the spring in the base fix it to the tail. While squeezing hard, push the pin in to catch the loop on the push rod in the hinge. Now wiggle the hinge about until the holes line up and push another pin into the carved body and through the wooden hinge.
Ready for painting
Hello, I am The Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Magician
Welcome to my modest show!
With my astrological buttons, you too can work magic! Press the digits to show off your prestidigitation.
First you need to summon my assistant Humphrey.
Then lower my magical hat carefully over him and tap it three times with the magic wand.
If he doesn’t disappear, try waggling my ears to shake my magic earring.
Once he has disappeared, say the magic phrase “Maus, Maus, komm heraus” and be amazed at the stupendous power of your own magic.
Take great care however, not to try this when the moon is full or you may find yourself transformed into a small white mouse with hypnotic red eyes.
The secret of the trick
All shall now be revealed
Be astounded about the wondrous, never-ending miracles of the universe
Children, ask your parents’ permission before looking any closer
Thanks to all of the woodworking wizards of Puppets in Prague who made me into the magician I am today!
Nativity scenes are an inseparable part of Christmas in the Czech Republic, and as the festive season approaches you will find them at almost every Christmas market. Nearly every Czech city or town has a Christmas tree in the main square with a nativity scene beneath the tree. Each nativity scene is original and unique. The story of baby Jesus, with a manger for a crib, is shown in many ways by artists and one artist in particular is responsible for perhaps the most elaborate nativity automata in Europe: Josef Probošt.
Czech farmer and carpenter Josef Probošt lived in a small village called Třebechovice pod Orebem (current population 5700), about 120 km east of Prague in the Czech Republic. In 1999 his automata was declared a Czech national cultural monument, but work actually started in 1885, while Queen Victoria was still on the British throne.
It is thought that he initially made it for his wife, following the death of their 7 month old son. She liked it and he decided to enlarge it, bringing in another carver Josef Kapucián, and Josef Friml who was a “mill carpenter” and a specialist in the making of cog wheels and other mechanical parts made of wood. Probošt was a deeply religious man who held his work for an altar. His original, modest concept was of a religiously based nativity scene with the infant Christ, angels, stars, wise men and so on.
As it grew year for year, the concept grew with it to show all aspects of rural life in Bohemia at the beginning of the twentieth century including subjects such as mining, carpentry, weaving and farming, not forgetting the blacksmiths and the musicians. Local residents who visited Probošt to admire the nativity scene during its construction served as models for many of the characters depicted. Probošt himself can be seen as a carpenter and Kapucián as a wise old man. Probošt kept working on it for forty years until he died in 1926, leaving all of the farmwork to be done by his wife and daughter…
To make it work, there is a large wooden wheel around the back which could originally be turned by hand, activating the belt drives, shafts, cogs, cams, wooden chains etc. to bring all of the scenes to life. From 1935 a motor was used and since its extensive restoration a few years ago, an electronically controlled electric motor does the work, with laser beams monitoring its smooth operation.
It is 23 feet long and is made up of about 2 000 carved parts, including 373 individual figures, illustrating 51 crafts in the community with 120 figures which move in a procession around the scene on simple but obviously effective wooden conveyors.
It was first exhibited in 1906 at the Provincial Artisan Union in Chrast where it won a diploma and a gold medal. After Probošt’s death it was occasionally exhibited in various places in central Europe, even being shown at Expo 67 in Montreal where more than 8 million visitors saw it, including Queen Elizabeth II and in 1970 it was shown in London at the Ideal Home Show exhibition.
Since 1972, it can be seen in a small village called Třebechovice pod Orebem, which is presumably part of the Czech government’s attempt to entice tourists away from central Prague. You can drive there, or, from Prague you can take a train to a town called Hradec Králové and there you can change trains to cover the last 14 km to Třebechovice. From the station it is a short walk to the Museum of Christmas Cribs. The village has one small restaurant, Restaurace Na Roli serving traditional Czech meals.
It is fascinating to see how a vast automata could be built up by a man with a passion, helped by a couple of friends, using very rudimentary but very effective technology, over half a century before the Mechanical Model Museum in Covent Garden launched the new wave of automata building. Equally fascinating is to consider the trades and activities shown and to consider what their contemporary equivalents might look like, carved in lime wood of course.
Museum web site http://www.betlem.cz/en/
One minute video
Twenty minute video
The wooden conveyor mechanism
The Czech Republic and Prague are well known for puppetry. In the days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, conventional theatres were obliged to perform in German, so small travelling companies of puppeteers who were allowed to perform in Czech could offer more than just entertainment for the children and even now, one hundred years after the end of that empire, puppet shows for adults are still to be found and seem to be much appreciated from the couple that I saw. Modern Prague also has a well-regarded film animation scene, resulting in a good supply of experts in puppet, armature & model making. Master craftsman Miroslav Trejtnar and his team have also taught hundreds of students how to make puppets at his Puppets in Prague workshops and when he announced a brand new “Mechanical Object Workshop”, I thought it’s time to pay Prague a visit.
Miroslav (Mirek) Trejtnar graduated with high honours from the puppet design department of the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. He has trained with Institut UNIMA in Charleville – Mezieres in France. In 1989 he started the KID Company, designing and producing wooden puppets, toys and sculpture. Mirek’s art has been exhibited around the world, including at several UNIMA festivals. He has designed puppets for numerous productions, including “The Baroque Opera” by the Forman Brothers. He has also produced puppets for the Jiri Trnka animated film studio in Prague. Mirek has taught hundreds of students at Puppets in Prague workshops. He has also taught for the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, St. Martin’s College of Design in London, New York University in Prague, Chapito Circus Academy in Lisbon, Portugal, and in Macao and Hong Kong.
Zdar Sorm worked for the Jirí Trnka animated film studio at Barrandov studio in Prague for 20 years, and is now a freelance designer of puppets for film animation and theatre, as well as a graphic and furniture designer. He is one of Prague’s leading experts in the technological designs for animated films.
Leah Gaffen is an American who has lived in the Czech Republic for over fifteen years. She founded the Puppets in Prague workshops with Mirek Trejtnar, and has worked with him as a producer for the course since then. She has also done production and translating work for the Prague Theatre Academy and numerous theatre education projects.
Drawing of suggested project for the Mechanical Models Workshop
To apply for a place, I sent a few details of things that I had made in the cellar. Once accepted, Mirek asked for an idea of what sort of mechanical model I would like to build, so I sent him a drawing, with a rough outline of what movements I’d like. We exchanged a couple of emails and he said, yes we can make that.
Mirek’s American wife, Leah Gaffen dealt with all of the organisation, booked accommodation, a puppet show just before the course started as well as an evening at the circus, sent a pocket map of Prague and even some tickets for Prague’s public transport system, which is great when you first arrive, confused by the unfamiliar surroundings. Add a schedule for the course and loads of tips about Prague and we were all set.
Via the social media page set up for the course I was pleased to see that three of the five students were repeat offenders, which is a very concrete statement about the previous workshops.
The six-day course, 8 hours a day, with a day off in the middle, was basically in 4 parts:
One tidy workbench per student ready to get started.
Types of material and their quality.
The lathe ready to turn some wooden wheels.
How to use a bandsaw properly.
Chisels, sizes, shapes and their care.
Using a chisel.
Basics of brazing.
Tapping holes.
Cutting threads.
There is nothing better to understand a mechanism than to pick it up, make it work and inspect it from all angles. Mirek has a collection of mechanisms, some complete models from other artists and some basic mechanism, which he produced himself to illustrate how cams and levers can be used. This included Mirek’s own push along cyclist which is now included in the collection of the prestigious Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
The “horse” and the “runner made by Peter Markey use fascinating mechanisms, I spent quite a while handling them to see exactly how the movement is produced.”Man and fly” by Robert Race uses a very simple mechanism but is very entertaining and shows that it doesn’t have to be complicated to be a success. Mirek’s own animated, carved face produce a really striking effect, just from a set of cams.
Examples, for inspiration and to understand the basic mechanisms.
Mechanisms, theory and practice.
Mirek with some of his small friends hanging around behind him and some online inspiration.
Mirek has made plenty of base kits so that we can try out the mechanisms ourselves.
Templates for three cams.
Three cams in action.
Having understood what mechanisms we could use in our own projects, we then moved on to trying our ideas out on a sort of working model or maquette. This means drawing your idea with enough detail that you can see how the moving parts move, which bits are hinged or which parts sit on an axle, or rest on a cam. This is a fascinating intermediate stage which shows whether your great idea can work or not. From this point on there was a flurry of activity as Mirek and Zdar and the team took our more detailed drawings and conjured up just enough of a starting point for us to work on the movements. In my case this meant a strange centimetre wide outline of my magician figure, standing on a box with seven levers, ready to do whatever I planned for the finished object.
Once I had screwed together the parts which Zdar made for me, I could start the process of adding movement. This first means a real-size pencil drawing of something that moves like one of my magician’s arms. When you are satisfied, cut it out and try it on the maquette to see if it works. Is it the right size? Does it hinge in the right place? With a sharp pair of scissors this takes no time at all and a second or third attempt allows you to get it just right. When you are happy with the paper version, trace it onto a piece of plywood and cut it out on the bandsaw.
A “technical” drawing of your project.
The basic magician maquette, with seven levers and a simple outline of the figure.
Cut out parts in card, if they are OK, cut them in plywood.
Two mechanisms already proven on the maquette, he can politely raise his hat and wave his magic wand..
After a day off to see the marvellous sights away from Prague, today we return to the workshop, eerily quiet at the start of the day.
The maquette is finished enough with its 7 movements to get ready for the real thing.
There’s always a magically replenished supply of nibbles to go with your tea.
Having proved the principles on the maquette, it was now time to start on the real thing. To make the most of the time available I dismantled the maquette so that we could use the pieces as rough templates. For the real craftsmen it didn’t take too long to cut lime wood pieces roughly into shape, which I could then carve and prepare for assembly.
My magician also needed a hat and it was again wonderful to see how the experienced model makers go about that. Once we had decided that it didn’t need to be made of wood (I mean, who wears a wooden hat!), two layers of felt were soaked in diluted wood glue and clamped into an improvised hat mould. After drying out over night, I used a flat iron to smooth the rim and trimmed it to shape with a pair of scissors. Add a bit of wire reinforcement where the hand holds it and taraaa! A hat!
Cutting the left arm on the bandsaw from the marquette.
As finished from the bandsaw.
Same for the right arm.
The head’s a bit more complicated…
After carving.
Zdar making a hat from two layers of felt soaked in glue.
A new base in the right size, with holes in the right place.
New levers in nice wood.
Take the hat out of its mould and iron the rim flat.
Take the glued together blocked up body which dried overnight and trim it roughly to shape.
Try the head and body together.
Add the jaw.
Paint the assembled base.
Glue the head to the body and screw it into the base and start fitting the mechanisms as used in the maquette.
Although there wasn’t enough time to completely finish him, my magician was finished enough, and I was confident of completing it at home. I snaffled a few pieces of welding rod and some fishing line and set off for home, quite astonished about what we had achieved in one week. Once the magician was set up on my desk at home, I was very proud of him!
The other participants in the course came from a very diverse range of backgrounds and were very supportive. The atmosphere in the workshop was a very happy and positive experience. The course was held in English and sometimes some of the tutors struggled a bit to find just the right words. That didn’t actually matter at all, as actions speak so much louder than words and we all communicated just fine.
I also enjoyed seeing machines and tools in action which I don’t have at home. More or less the first thing that I did on returning home was to order a set of chisels and a few other bits & pieces which I had found particularly useful, to maintain the momentum and enthusiasm. The very deliberate process of making a maquette to quickly test out your ideas also really impressed me. In my days as a working engineer I would have called that “fast prototyping”. Seeing it used for mechanical models was a surprise for me, although it shouldn’t have been. That’s why you go on courses I suppose.
The accommodation was reasonably priced and very close by. The local high street was full of places to grab a bite of lunch. Leah organised an amazing cultural programme which for me included a puppet show, a music show, a modern circus, a trip to see the biggest mechanical Christmas crib on the planet and a very special visit to see one of Mirek’s old tutors. Fortunately I arrived a little early and had a chance to do some conventional sightseeing in advance. All in all I had a great time, learned a lot and now I understand why three out the five students had returned to Puppets in Prague after having attended a previous course.
What can you make, that doesn’t have a fixed base, but can still do tricks? Man’s best friend of course! For simplicity’s sake, the design has to be reduced to just those things that make a dog a dog. If you like them, their essence is a shiny nose, appealing eyes, a wagging tail and a smile. If you don’t, it all comes down to the teeth. With four legs, one can be used to wag the tail and another to work the smile. The nicer the smile, the less there will be to worry about with the teeth.
My dentist says that you must always brush your teeth for a nice smile, so a brush is vital.
Eyeballs without brass screw heads
Bright eyes complement the perfect smile, and by gluing cut-off brass screw heads into two 10 mm beechwood balls, the painted eyes always look appealingly up at you, however you tilt the body. Intelligent eyes must never be too close together, so there is a small piece of brass tube between the eyes sliding on the brass rod glued between the ears. As the smile is so nice, no one notices the brass rod.
Nose
A 20 mm long beechwood egg just needs one quarter to be cut away so that it fits nicely in place and high gloss black paint gives it that healthy shine.
6 mm thick plywood serves very nicely for the dogsbody and its legs, cut with a scroll saw. The back legs are a little smaller than the front legs, which are hinged so that you can press them to work the dog’s tail and jaw.
Each side has two rectangular cutouts. The top cutout is to hinge the leg, pivoted on a brass rod inserted from the front. The bottom cutout takes a crank, hinged on a brass rod inserted from the bottom. When you squeeze the dog’s leg against its body, the crank is pushed in, and its action then pushes the top jaw open via a sprung lever. Tricky huh? Here’s a picture and there’s a video underneath, showing it in action, which hopefully makes it easier to understand.
One tuft held by a small piece of wire
Each tuft in a brush is just pushed in with exactly the right number of bristles to fit snugly. To remove a tuft just grab it with a pair of pliers and pull, just like a dentist! This is how I made space in the dog’s upper jaw for the slot needed to take the loop on the end of the brass rod.
The link to wag the tail
The return springs fitted
I had to experiment a little to get the tail to wag nicely and to look OK when it’s not wagging, so its hinge is not exactly central. As you can see from the pictures not much is particularly square, but hey it’s a dog right, and here he is in his finished glory – Mechanical Mutt.
Mechanical Mutt – The video
Kim Booth – Bearded, bespectacled British bloke, born in the best bit of Birmingham, he blithely beavered to become a Bachelor in electronics, before boxing his bespoke belongings and boarding his bike to brave the borders, breaking out for beautiful Berlin. Belatedly, being both bilingual but bereft of business, he breezily became a broadband bandit, translating buckets of balderdash into Brummie British and by the by, builds bulldogs with bite.
A clock with roots that occasionally hoots.
The time it can tell without even a bell.
Ask it nicely and it will tell you precisely,
But if no one’s around it won’t make a sound.
A dozen on their perch won’t leave you in the lurch,
The assembled dawn chorus will sing something for us.
To make time a pleasure – a real treasure – not just something to measure.
My aim was to make a clock that doesn’t look like a clock, and has no rotating hands to point to the hours and minutes. Cuckoo clocks came to mind and I really liked “bird’s tree” by the amazing Carlos Zapata, so birds seemed like a good start. Then I heard the BBC’s fantastic Tweet of the Day so I just had to make it.
Original design for Twelve Tweeters
Things that are interactive are more interesting, so if no one is paying attention to the clock it shouldn’t do anything. Only when you really want to know what the time is should it do anything. Things that constantly move eventually just become part of the background and you don’t notice them any more. Not to mention the wear and tear on the mechanism.
Remembering Swiss cuckoo clocks, I thought it would be fun if the birds sang to tell us the time. Of course I had to break the Swiss cuckoo’s monopoly and open up the tree to all sorts of birds, so I chose a different bird for each of the twelve hours of the day. To tell whether it’s two in the morning or two in the afternoon, you just have to turn around and look out of the window.
Simple lever on the servo pushes/pulls the brass rod in this prototype.
For the minutes, the birds had to do more than just sing and more than one servo motor per bird was too complicated so, after experimenting with a prototype, the idea of a two-stage movement popped up. Push a brass rod half way and the bird’s beak opens. Push the rod all of the way and its head lifts up away from its body, apparently stretching its neck.
So now, when you push the button to ask the time, the birds first stretch their necks to show the number of hours from 1 to 12. For example, if it’s 3 o’clock, 3 birds will stretch up. The second part then follows, where each bird is responsible for 5 minutes, so for example, if five birds open their beaks and the fifth bird sings that means twenty-five past the hour.
For the ornithologists, each bird has its own voice 1 – blackbird, 2 – bee-eater, 3- chaffinch, 4 – goldfinch, 5 – skylark, 6 – duck, 7 – greenfinch, 8 – great tit, 9 – mistle thrush, 10 – ortolan, 11- marsh warbler, 12 – nightingale.
For more drama, a light shines on the birds perched on their tree as soon as you push the button. This stays on for half a minute or so after a bird has sung the time and a “dawn chorus”, recorded by someone early in the morning in an English forest, then plays quietly in the background for a while.
In the end I also succumbed to tradition and allowed the cuckoo to briefly show off on every full hour. When we have visitors, this inevitably tickles their curiosity and is an invitation to push the button and see what happens.
A short video showing Twelve Tweeters in action
Anatomy of a tweeter
A beech egg, from which a bird will hatch
Everyone knows that birds hatch from eggs, so for each bird, I used one 45 x 30 mm egg for its body, one 30 mm ball for its head, two 15 mm ball halves for its eyes, 13 x 10 mm wooden strip to cut its beak, 8 mm brass tube for an extensible neck, a small free-moving hinge, 2 mm plywood for the comb, 2 mm brass rod for the bird’s legs and feet and 1.2 mm brass rod to connect to the servo arm.
Precisely drilling beech eggs and balls is tricky and although I made some jigs to hold them in a fixed position and drilled pilot holes, each of the 12 birds is slightly different, just like in nature. It wasn’t practical to screw or nail the hinges so I used fast-setting, two-component epoxy resin adhesive instead, taking care not to gum up the mechanism so that the beak still moves easily. The 1.2 mm brass rod is used to push the beak open until it reaches 45°(ish) and is restrained by the comb when the whole head will move up, exposing the brass neck which is fixed to the bird’s head but not to its body.
12 servo motors with wooden arms to push a brass rod up and bring the birds to life
Previous generations would have used clockwork I suppose, but the flexibility of being able to programme the movements and sounds electronically is ideal when you are feeling your way with no exact plan. That’s why the base hides 12 cheap and cheerful servo motors which turn through an angle set by an Arduino Uno computer. I collected the bird tweets wherever I could find them on the Internet and they are kept in a micro SD card, which is read by a Music Maker shield and this is what drives the loudspeaker. A real-time clock board then tells the Arduino what time it is. When I got fed up of having to reprogram the Arduino from my laptop for summer time and then for winter time, I added a new button on the back which sets the time to 12 o’clock when pressed.
It’s hard to say how much time you spend on a project like this. It takes a while to settle on an idea and then try a quick prototype to see if it does what you intended. I suppose once you start to make 12 of everything, that’s when the “work” starts. Maybe I then needed a week to make the parts and assemble everything.
The brass rods moved by the servo motors to bring the birds to life
Twelve headless birds waiting for feathers
Something like this is never quite finished. Once I had painted it and put it all together I found that having a button on the side meant that the whole thing slides around when you push it. After I while, I moved the button to the top and that problem was fixed. Then I put it onto a shelf at the dark end of the room and each performance required the lights in the room to be turned up. I made a quick trip to get some LED strips, added a new socket to the back and a small power circuit and now everything is brightly lit as required.
Now I am content and every time I hear a cuckoo in the distance, I think, is it that time already?
Kim Booth – Bearded, bespectacled British bloke, born in the best bit of Birmingham, he blithely beavered to become a Bachelor in electronics, before boxing his bespoke belongings and boarding his bike to brave the borders, breaking out for beautiful Berlin. Belatedly, being both bilingual but bereft of business, he breezily became a broadband bandit, translating buckets of balderdash into Brummie British and by the by, builds bright beechwood birds.
