Assembling and testing final pieces

Over the past week I have been assembling and tweaking the finished pieces and I have to say I am mostly pleased with how they have turned out, there were one or two minor miscalculations but on the wole I think I nailed it.

I started off with this one and it was a really simple job that I actually overthought so once I stopped that and simplified it it was all smooth sailing, or should I say it ran like a well oiled machine! well... I say well oiled... I say machine...

So all I need to do is attach the broom head, varnish the cogs and strengthen the copper pins and set everything firmly in place and we're away. I call it 7 days and it's a sort of comment on the nature of work, spinning our wheels for 7 days pushing dust around and wondering what we are achieving at the end of it... the gears all turn but the device has no actual purpose other than to turn. So there's that.

apologies for the crap video. Anyway, earth shatteringly profound meaning aside, it is a fun piece that people can play with and hopefully it makes someone smile, someone other than me anyway.


Next... the drawing machines.
"Octo-Sketch" was the one that gave us trouble on the laser cutter, for some reason the machine was not down with drawing straight lines.. its own protest against man's inhumanity to man I suppose but I guess that's fair. after a few tries it was stopping time so I went back to the workshop.

laser doing its own thing

After cutting most of the straight pieces on the bandsaw and edging them up on the circular sander I glued each one together and then varnised the lot. A process that in total took a couple of days with the pieces of the other device as well so not too bad.

the original maquette I made for the octosketch device

I cut down the dowels with a knife so they'd fit and I really like the handmade look, it looks better than fluted dowels.

 The final piece with just a few of the arms attached, I am pretty happy with this one, except I accidentally misjudged the centre hole on the long arm parts and it is not perfectly centred which BUGS me but it does not affect the functionality and there is nothing I can do about it now so.. that's the deal there.

And finally the elliptical cog drawing device is nearing completion, I just need to figure the rivet arm attachments so they don't catch when it is turning and it will be done. That's this next week of activity. so I made a base for it and used thick copper wire to hold the gears in place, I am really excited about getting this one running smoothly and testing it out.

     just a bit of work left.

laying it out for a first look

centering

finished bases for both devices

What I have been working on, drawing machines

Well, it has been a while since my last post and update, too long.... but I have been working on a load of stuf, I have been drawn to (pardon the pun) and experimenting with drawing machines. One direction I wanted to take was to to strip the process back to as basic a function as possibleand see what could be achieved with minimal external influence.

I have designed and created a piece I call "Octo-Sketch" (patent pending btw)

and have made up and tested a model of it, it is a load of fun and something I am working on developing further. The idea here is to have multiple participants interacting with the machine all at once. The quality of output is not important, what matters here is how the different participants interact and what sort of interplay comes of it.

I plan to produce it from clear perspex on the laser cutter and present it packaged as a game in a board game box. I wanted to have some fun with this project and this is a good way, I think.