One day I woke up with an old song rattling around my brain with a merry chorus of “mud, mud, glorious mud…”. When I looked it up on Youtube I was reminded that it was actually called The Hippopotamus Song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zpDF3Py7r8). So of course I had to make a hippo. A hippo that might sing too.
The Design Brief
This is a very simple project which is mostly a carving job with the minor addition of a moving mouth.
Making
Before starting to carve I made a maquette in plastercine. The first thing that I noticed was that a large head is heavy and the whole thing tips forwards if the front legs are too far back. It’s always handy to discover things like that before investing a lot of work in carving. I have also decided that grey plastercine is very dull and I will choose something more cheerful next time I go shopping for plastercine.
I carved the hippo in one piece, about 6 cm long, and only then cut the lower jaw out. This makes sure that the jaw will close nicely.
To be able to make space for the mechanism, I then cut the poor hippo in half.
Inside the hippo, I had to make space for a spring and space for the lever to move. The axle on which the lever turns is simply a piece of brass rod. The lever is glued to the lower jaw.
With the lever in place you can see that I also made space for the teeth as the lower jaw comes up. You press the protruding part of the lever up to open the jaw. When you release the lever, the spring pushes the lever down to close the jaw. Once I was certain that everything moved easily, I glued the two halves together and got my paintbrushes out.
Reflections
The mechanism here is very simple and could be used to make all sorts of four-legged animals talk. As the operating lever is hidden underneath the body it’s not immediately obvious that anything moves. This adds to the surprise as you pick the figure up and demonstrate it to your latest visitor.
One day a video of an automaton made by Per Helldorff popped up on one of my Internet feeds. As Per explained when we eventually managed a visit, a previous visitor to his „mekaniske Kabinett“ made a video of his three-armed cup and ball trickster and quietly posted it onto YouTube (https://youtu.be/m9daxtL90XY?si=UqjMThCtTdzuSRQe) This went viral and, last time I looked, it had been viewed 1.3 million times. To his amazement, Per was then contacted by a Japanese TV network for permission to broadcast the video across Japan. He just wondered “how on earth did that happen?“
Per and his wife Anna live on a quiet crossroads in a tiny hamlet in the Swedish countryside. One room serves as the exhibition space and another as a small shop. Anna‘s nettle soup is legendary as one Swedish visitor told me – „we come here just for the soup“. We didn‘t come for the soup but to see Per‘s creations.
Per started by explaining his inspiration, showing us this historic wool skein counting machine. A woollen thread is wound onto the four arms as a handle is cranked. When the handle has been cranked a set number of times a wooden hammer hits the frame to signal that the required count has been reached. A royal Swedish edict from long ago specified severe punishment for anyone selling skeins of wool with less than the specified number of loops.
Looking closely at this old mechanism, two of the shafts have been carved to produce what Per called a „two-toothed cog“. This is a very pragmatic solution to slowly drive the large cogs. Using an „ordinary“ cog, a minimum of about 9 teeth is required to avoid the mechanism jamming. This traditional solution means that you can merrily work the crank on some of Per‘s automata and things happen at a considered, controlled pace.
Anna and Per Helldorff at the entrance to Per’s mekaniske kabinettPart of the exhibition
Per has worked with wood since he left school. He didn‘t receive any training, he just learned it all by doing it himself. Now of course he’s a skilled craftsman. When an injury restricted what he could manage, that was when he moved towards automata making. His sense of humour and creativity really distinguish his work. He doesn’t do drawings so, when someone orders an existing automaton, patience is required while he copies the original in his workshop.
I mentioned that I knew of no other automata makers in Sweden and Per asked if I knew of Tomas Skimutis. I hadn‘t heard of him so another visit was now on the cards.
A visit to Tomas Skimutis
Tomas Skimutis decided to build his own gallery. Was he a master carpenter? Well no, he wasn‘t he worked in graphic design.
Over the entrance to Tomas Skimutis‘ gallery
Things were a bit chaotic inside as preparations were in full swing for a summer exhibition.
Tomas demonstrating one of his works
Still Tomas was happy to show us around. His projects are very varied including small pieces of furniture, occasionally including electrical/electronic bits and pieces, here and there with a handle to turn.
This bird-helicopter combination was a lot of fun. Tomas pushed a button to make it descend slowly down from the rafters. There is a crank to turn the helicopter blades, but you have to detach the lifting wires to allow the rotor to spin.
Opening the bird‘s chest reveals more secrets, such as the two small bottles of Swedish liquor stored inside. Not constrained by any rules or specifications, Tomas just added whatever he felt like and who can argue with that!
Another piece shows a contestant in a dancing competition twirling in front of a judge. This is hand-cranked but includes music from some sort of electronic player and some flashing lights to show the score.
This detail from a much larger piece shows a man up in the attic listening to wax cylinder recordings. Pushing a button starts both the music and the movement of the man‘s arm as he cranks away.
As we had simply rolled up unannounced, although we saw quite a bit, a lot of things were not yet on display. Tomas promised that there would be lots more when his exhibition opens this summer 2024. If you can‘t make it, take a peek at the videos on this page http://www.skimutis.com/5/5.html and get ready to be amazed.
Recently I watched a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_MHgkZKJGU) about the incredible Thomas Dambo building another giant troll in the forest near Rouen, France and I noticed that his troll is wearing a birdhouse around its neck. He explained that, when he was a rapper, he made necklaces with a little birdhouse for himself. “Great idea” I thought, I’ll pinch that and add some movement to make it my own. It is also coming up to birthday time for one of my friends so it will make a good present too!
A wearable automaton – who could ask for more?
A wearable automaton
An automaton hanging from a branch
What’s the Story?
Just making something move isn’t that interesting, a story is required, even if it’s just a teensy weentsy one. You can see what looks like a cuckoo clock’s pendulum hanging at the bottom. Giving this a tug makes the occupant of my little house stick its beak out of the door. But is it really a beak? When the figure comes out, black and yellow stripes reveal it to be some sort of bee. First impressions can be deceptive.
So now I have a story – it’s a funny bee that is convinced that it is really a bird, a cuckoo. It has made itself at home in something reminiscent of a Bavarian cuckoo clock and, when the pendulum is pulled at the right time, it does its duty, pops out and, instead of “cuckoo” it goes “buzzz-buzz”.
Making
Some parts for the bee-house
The house is made of 3 mm plywood, and stands 54 mm tall (not counting the chimney). To allow the movement forwards and backwards I used two brass rods along which two small pieces of brass tubing slide very easily. Some thin brass foil cuts easily to form a carriage which links the two tubes and holds one end of a spring.
The metal foil carriage bent around two pieces of tubing, to be soldered together
The tab folded up 90° at the end of the carriage holds one end of the spring and soldering it in place makes sure that it stays put.
Carriage mounted on rods & spring soldered to the carriage
The “loose” end of the spring passes through a hole in the rear wall where it is glued (2-component epoxy resin) in place.
A roller for the pull string
To convert a downward pull into a forward movement a roller is handy. This is again made up of a solid brass rod with a loosely fitting tube slid onto it. I suppose that you could just use a plain rod, without a tube, but there would be more friction.
Note that the roof has a chimney in the middle. This is not just to keep things cosy inside, it also serves as a good place to thread a coloured cord through, to use as a necklace.
The bee ready to be glued to the carriage
The bee has to be fully painted before it is glued into the confines of its house. The wings are scarcely visible once installed, but what is a bee without any wings?
A top view of the bee now glued to the carriageThe open bottom showing the curious how it works
Soldering
Soldering is not hard. You need an electrically powered soldering iron and some solder. The very small parts concerned here don’t take long to heat up and to melt the solder until it flows along the surface. There is something called flux in solder which assists the soldering process. As the solder melts it produces quite acrid fumes which are best avoided or blown away from your nose/eyes. Things get hot of course, so try not to burn your fingers! Alternatively you could try glue, but make sure that it doesn’t get in the wrong places and gum up the movement.
Reflections
This is a relatively simple and quite small project and the motion is also fairly straightforward. If the viewer doesn’t immediately understand the story, some showmanship is helpful. Making the pull-cord swing to and fro while calling out “tick tock” reinforces the impression of a clock. When pulling the cord to make the bee reveal itself, a suitable musical “buzzzz buzz, buzzzz buzz” shows how the bee is doing its best to play the part of a cuckoo.
