Antikythera Mechanism Build.

[Mechanism Man]

Ah ha!! Everything's now fitted, and it works - huzzah!!

https://youtu.be/Ku9k8o2YIsE

Next job? A few dials and pointers me thinks!

More soon.
:-D

[Maets]

Direct view:

Wooden Antikythera Mechanism first run

Looking good.

[Crescat Scientia]

Congratulations.  Well done!









(For some reason embedded videos -- or what I assume must be embedded videos given people's comments -- don't seem to show up on my browser from this site.)

[RJBowman]

Some videos don't  show up on my phone.

[von Corax]

Congratulations.  Well done!

(For some reason embedded videos -- or what I assume must be embedded videos given people's comments -- don't seem to show up on my browser from this site.)

Do you have Flash Player installed? It's necessary for the embedded YouTube player.

[steve323]

Hi Mechanism Man,

This is Steve from the wooden clock forum, finally jumping to this forum after the spam to useful post ratio went higher than 10:1 at that other place.  I will try to contribute as best I can over here.

I love the progress updates and really like seeing it in action.  I have a few wooden clocks in the works, but nothing close to what you have been able to accomplish. 

Steve

[MWBailey]

Been thinking about doing a foliot escapement clock, but now...

[Crescat Scientia]

Hi Mechanism Man,

This is Steve from the wooden clock forum, finally jumping to this forum after the spam to useful post ratio went higher than 10:1 at that other place.  I will try to contribute as best I can over here.

I love the progress updates and really like seeing it in action.  I have a few wooden clocks in the works, but nothing close to what you have been able to accomplish. 

Steve

Spam on a wooden clock forum? 

[Mechanism Man]

Hi Mechanism Man,

This is Steve from the wooden clock forum, finally jumping to this forum after the spam to useful post ratio went higher than 10:1 at that other place.  I will try to contribute as best I can over here.

I love the progress updates and really like seeing it in action.  I have a few wooden clocks in the works, but nothing close to what you have been able to accomplish.  

Steve

Spam on a wooden clock forum?  

Oh yes - lots and lots of spam, mainly centered around a nice group of chaps who are recommending themselves to help you move house if you live in India... Targeted advertising when your targeting system is kaput!
Anyhow, glad that you found your way over here Steve, it's probably the friendliest forum I've found, and I've been here since about 2008. There are lots of regular faces who are all endlessly helpful if you need it and supportive of stupid projects - it's my kind of place.  :-)
I'm now going to go and find out what a Foliot escapement clock is...

[Mechanism Man]

Ok, the redesign for Mk II has started in earnest with starting to lay out the central frame. This frame is a great starting point as it carries all the pivot points for the entire machine, so I can pretty much set everything up from just this one component.



It looks like a random set of curves, circles and partial ellipses, but this is an amalgam of the two separate halves of the machine (front and back) which come together at this central frame - so some elements of this will project forward and some elements will project back. Hopefully it will make some kind of sense as it comes together!
I've jumped the gun a little as I've got to recut all the gearing before I go to much farther as I have to check that all the pivot points are in the right positions measured against the new gears, but it's nice to know more or less what it'll eventually look like as I'm spending countless hours cutting cogs...
More news in a few weeks once I emerge from the shed, blinking into the sunlight, with my shiny new gears.
:-)

[Crescat Scientia]

Ok, the redesign for Mk II has started in earnest with starting to lay out the central frame. This frame is a great starting point as it carries all the pivot points for the entire machine, so I can pretty much set everything up from just this one component.



It looks like a random set of curves, circles and partial ellipses, but this is an amalgam of the two separate halves of the machine (front and back) which come together at this central frame - so some elements of this will project forward and some elements will project back. Hopefully it will make some kind of sense as it comes together!
I've jumped the gun a little as I've got to recut all the gearing before I go to much farther as I have to check that all the pivot points are in the right positions measured against the new gears, but it's nice to know more or less what it'll eventually look like as I'm spending countless hours cutting cogs...
More news in a few weeks once I emerge from the shed, blinking into the sunlight, with my shiny new gears.
:-)

Oooooooh ...

[steve323]

I like the looks of the new backbone.  How do you find the time to build such amazing contraptions?

Steve

[Mechanism Man]

Thanks Steve,
Hmm... time... it's always the big enemy. I hoped to have this finished by late summer/early autumn but other projects and work commitments keep getting in the way. Doh...
On the plus side though, the mechanism part of it does now work, but it's taken the best part of two years to get to even this stage. The MKII version, of which this central frame is just the first component, will now probably take me into the spring. I also have another two simple orrery commissions to complete by the end of February. And a full time job. Oh yes, and a family... I always thought that TV and relaxation were overrated anyway.
Again, doh...
Bye for now,
Dave.

[Mechanism Man]

Afternoon all,
Progress is still painfully slow, but here are the freshly cut frames hastily cobbled together for photographic purposes of MKII.
I ran into a bit of a hitch having cut them, my drill press is not big enough to allow me to drill the centre holes in the frames as it's only got a 10.5cm throat depth (about standard for most £100 machines I have discovered). Unfortunately my frames are close to 13cm to the centre of each circle, so I've had to splash out on a shiny new drill press with a much deeper capacity. It's always nice to have an excuse for a shiny new toy, and I have wanted one for a while, but I just wish that I'd worked this out sooner!
The size of the frames is very much a product of the size of the gearing that they're going to contain and the dials that will be fitted onto them, so going smaller wasn't really an option, so I guess I was always going to have to get a bigger machine.
Right, I'm off to start cutting a new batch of gears whilst I wait for the postman.
Until next time ladies and gents.
:-)

[frances]

Beautiful.

[Maets]

Looking good.  Will be watching the MK2 progress.

[Drew P]

Well, hot damn tamales! Thems is nice!!

[Prof. Cecily]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
What a pleasure to see your WIP.
It gives a splendid beginning to my day!

I remain yours,
Prof. Cecily

[Banfili]

This is, without doubt, going to be a beauty! And a fair to middling advert for those of us who work in wood!!

[von Corax]

Today on Hack A Day: Wooden Antikythera Mechanism is Geared for Greatness.

EDIT: I just noticed that the Hack A Day article links back here for the build! 

[Mechanism Man]

Thanks Von Corax - I had no idea that this had been done until I saw your post - groovy!
I knew that the article was a possibility, but I had no idea that it would be this soon, and it's great to have the link back to the weird and wonderful world of Brass Goggles! Life is good.
I guess that a quick update would be appropriate since I'm here. Well it's still not finished (no surprises there), but progress has accelerated in recent weeks thank goodness, and I'm now well on the way through cutting out the new set of gear wheels - there are just as many to cut on the second go around though unfortunately...
More soon.
:-)

[Herr Döktor]

Haven't been around much, but what a feast to come back too!

Bloody good work, that Mechanism Man!

[Mechanism Man]

Thank you Herr Doktor,
This 'little' project has taken far longer than I ever thought that it would - spare time always seems to be at a premium at the moment. Although, that said,  I have now got the bit between my teeth again and progress is actually quite good at present, I just hope that it continues. I'm actuality getting quite excited now to see it finished!
I've really enjoyed the build with this one, especially as the machine is relatively well know but rarely seen. It's nice to be doing something that's needed a fair bit of research and planning for a change.
I'll post some more photos very soon.
:-)

[TempleCorran]

Hello,
Yes, I'm new here, drawn in by an article recently published on Hack a Day detailing the AMAZING work of Mechanism Man.

I am no stranger to wooden clockwork machines. Nearly 10 years ago I decided I wanted to make a wooden clock and settled on Clayton Boyer's Mission Clock as a starting point. I quickly realised that without a scroll saw I was beat!.
I set about to build a CNC unit and made a first attempt to make a clock in Perspex. The wonderful damp air of County Antrim was too great a match for an MDF CNC machine!! It has since been replaced with an Aluminium framed contraption.  I digress.

Anyway, I now face retirement and would like to try building an Antikthera machine - and rather than be miserly, I'd be willing to pay a reasonable price to have a copy of your plans. and I think others would too....

all the very best.
TC

[Mechanism Man]

Hi TC,
Thanks for hunting me down - it's always nice to be appreciated!
Unfortunately since the machine is not yet finished -even though the prototype runs quite happily now - there are no plans as yet - Katy lots of notes, sketches, and assorted patterns. Once the next one is finished it is most certainly on the 'To do' list. From your point of view though it might still prove problematic to build the machine using CNC as I'm not exactly building and designing this rediculous machine using digital means, most of what I do is hand drawn directly onto wood and then cut out - if I like the results I'll take physical patterns so the the component can be reproduced, but there isn't a DXF file in site I'm afraid.
The exception is the gearing which is produced by an online gear generator, with each gear printed onto paper and the stuck directly on the wood for cutting out on my scroll saw. The other issue is the scale of the gearing from a cnc point of view - some of the gears are really small. I have no idea of the cutting capabilities of a cnc router, but the smallest pair of gears in this machine have a tooth pitch of just 1.2mm, and they are cut from 6mm birch ply. It might be with seeing how small the smallest routing bit is, because it'll need to be tiny...
PM me if you want any more info, but I'll keep posting progress shots as I get closer to the end.
Dave.
:-)