Mobile' #55

I've made a couple of large mobile's this month. It started out as one mobile' but it didn't look right so, I made two mobile's instead. The first is #54 not shown here. The second was this one shown above. It is a little over three feet tall and about eight feet long. All the rods are steel, painted black. The base is a maple tree branch. The other wooden elements are assorted wood species: eucalyptus, western maple, silver maple, cedar and plum. All the wood is stained the same color for consistency.
I like to set up the large mobile's in my backyard for a week or so to see how they will behave. If there are any flaws in the design or construction, nature will expose them. This one worked beautifully from the first set-up and lasted the week without any tweaks or repairs. I thought, "OK, time to finish it of with a coat of paint on the steel and I'll do that right now." I turned to walk out the back door and this is what I saw.

That's a twenty foot long maple branch that broke off the tree the mobile' was under. That green stuff is mistletoe, which is really heavy. That's why the branch broke. It completely smashed the mobile'. Luckily, it didn't break the base. I was able to rebuilt this mobile' in a couple of days. It's now on a pedestal in my front yard. It looks great and is beautiful to watch. It is for sale if you're interested.
You can see all my mobile's on my art web site: http://www.tesserak.net/html/mobiles.htm
Here's a video clip of the mobile the day before it was crushed.

Mobile' #52

Here's another small wire mobile', #52. A pivot-on-point type mobile' with a stretched square spiral balanced on a stand. Painted paper tags will catch the slightest air currents, spinning the spiral. See it in action on my YouTube channel.

Another new mobile', #51

Here's another little mobile' sculpture. This one is all mild steel wire about 6"H x 3.5"W. It's a pivot-on-point type mobile. Of course it looks a lot better in motion. See it in action on my YouTube channel:Mobile' #51 video clip.
See all my mobile' sculptures on my art studio web site at: Tesserak Art Studio Web Site

A couple of mobile' prototypes.

 Here are a couple of new mobile's. These are prototype models for larger full-size mobile. These ones are about 9 inches tall, made from steel food cans, wire and some big steel washers. These are pendulum-type mobile's. I made these in December 2014.

My Tiny Swiord

I made this tiny, hand-forged, sword. Just fooling around in my shop one day. This is made from two nails, heated up and hand-forged, ground and polished. No particular reason for making this. Just to see if I could make it. It took about an hour.

Ellen's costume armor project is finished

At long last, Ellen's costume armor project is finished. Today we had a photo session with Ellen and our horse Elroy modelling the entire outfit.
This is a Medieval, chain-mail type armor. Ellen made all the parts of this costume except the sword and the shield. The chain-mail for this costume is made from beverage can pull-tabs; about 20,000 of them (that's about 3,333 six-packs, and no, we didn't drink them). Ellen is a bartender, and between that and her friends and family saving them for her, she eventually got enough of them. Also, that's one of the reasons it took four years to make this costume. There are also about 2,000 larger die-cut scales used on the horse armor. The horses head and neck armor includes sections made with a faux crocodile leather. The belt, girdle and scabbard cover use this same leather. The cuffs, leg armor and helmet are made with painted and studded Naugahyde. The tunic and cape are made with upholstery fabric.We designed and cast our own buttons and medallions used on this outfit. The findings (studs, rings, buckles) are store bought but everything else is hand made. My gal is a wizard with a needle.
The horses outfit is adjustable and can fit most horses, up to Draft Horse size. Ellen is willing to rent this costume; and just in time for Halloween! Horse not included.

Harmonograph #2

Here's a look at Harmonograph #2, a 3-pendulum device. The 'table' stands about 30 inches high. The drawing surface is about 48 inches high. The black rectangle is where a sheet of paper is fastened. It is on a pendulum which hangs from a gimbal, allowing a circular or elliptical swing. The other two pendulums each swing on a single plane but at right angles to each other. Where these two arms come together there is a hinge which holds the pen (near the red spring-clip). The frequency of each pendulum is determined by the height of the weight on the bottom section of each pendulum arm.
This harmonograph doesn't work as well as my first one, which clamps to a table top. There is too much 'play' and friction in various parts of this machine, which all adds up to dampening and sapping of the energy of the pendulum swings. These problems are resolvable without redesign or rebuild. A smaller, lighter drawing pad. Lighter drawing arms and much lighter hinge. Stiffer legs. Those would all help.
I don't have a video clip of this one yet but I do have a few scans of drawings done on it. See below.

A simple harmonogram (a harmonograph drawing, 8.5 x 11 paper).

A more complex harmonogram

The simplest type of harmonogram, with all the weights set at the very bottom of the pendulum.

 The drawings below were made while I was setting up and tweaking the harmonograph. I made one drawing on top of another to save paper. So the drawings have a kind of child-like imperfection, with wobbly, scratchy, jerky lines, skips and stutters. I thought some of them were interesting, and that I could make them more so by reworking them a bit. A lot of the lines were made with Sharpie pens, so I dribbled rubbing alcohol in spots here and there on the pages, which made the ink dissolve and run in interesting ways. Here are a few examples:

Example 1: these were done on 8.5 x 11 paper

Example 2

Example 3