Automata's Darker Side: Bunny's Bad Dream

Kinetic sculpture artist, Gina Kamentsky directed my attention to this piece by Aaron Kramer entitled, Bunny's Bad Dream. Kramer creates beautiful pieces using found materials.

From the Artist:
"The project was to create a piece of art from an instrument provided by the Zimmer Children's Museum. My interest in musical mechanical automata goes back to my childhood on the south side of Chicago. I remember standing in a penny arcade watching a mechanical orchestra, mesmerized by the cacophony of all the parts working in concert. Here I've created my own automata. In his cage a wind up velveteen bunny waves and plays a lull-a-bye. Crank the handle and a wheel turns a vintage tin clinker, that spins another music box mechanism riveted to a coffee can and that turns yet another. These play while a crank-arm turns circular movement into an up-down pumping action for a German tin toy top that plays a tune as it spins. After the riotous noise subsides the melody continues until the bunny is still. I chose several tin musical toys primarily because most of the cool looking instruments were chosen already.(violins, brass horns...) The final piece has 5 musical elements. The bunny that I found on ebay for a buck is a wind up and plays rock a bye baby."

Here is a link to Aaron Kramer's amazing flickr set.

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Brassy Dragon Automaton by Keith Newstead

Take a look at the beautiful metalwork in Keith Newstead's classic dragon automaton. The piece is available once again at the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre online store.

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Soldering: A Basic How-To for Automata Makers

The photograph shown here features some of the essential tools used to solder metals together: a fan for blowing away fumes, protection for the work surface, water for cooling, a torch, solder, and flux. The photo should also show emery cloth, steel wool, or Scotch-Bright pads for cleaning the metal surfaces -- a very important step.

Charles Mak writes:
"I was looking for soldering info, since soldering, I believe, is a technique an automata-maker should be familiar with. In fact, some works by Neil Hardy require soldering for their mechanical parts. I came across this site which offers more than just soldering technique but also a wealth of (free) information on materials, preparations, sources, etc. It's all free to view and print, but for those who prefer a 16-page color book, they can order it or download it for a fee."

Most online tutorials assume you want to solder electronics. While the principles are the same, the process is a bit different. Here is the site with free soldering and metal-working tips. (You'll need to scroll down a bit to find the start of the article.)

For a comprehensive reference to metal-joining techniques, you might take a look at Soldering, Brazing and Welding, which looks to be a great book on the subject.

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Robot Factory - Steampunk Windup Sculptures

Fascinated with machines since he was a boy, artist Serge Jupin creates metal automata from found objects.

At www.robot-factory.fr you can purchase his amazing retro-future works.

The robot shown here is known as Wattson. I love this stuff. These are tin-toys for the Steampunk generation.

Robot Factory automata are original handmade limited editions, numbered, and signed. Each robot comes with a certificate of authenticity.

Visit ROBOT FACTORY to see his full line of automata.

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Hand-Cranked Metal Fly Automaton

Check out this excellent metal fly automaton by
Seattle based artist Casey Curran. Very, very cool.

I learned of this video from a post over at Make Magazine's Blog.

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