Automata and Mechanical Toys E-Book

Rodney Peppe

• Herausgeber: The Crowood Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 215

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Automata and mechanical toys delight children and adults alike with the beauty of their design and the excitement of their movement. This book explains how the mechanisms work and celebrates many leading makers. Topics covered: ·tHistory of automata & mechanical toys including the early inventors from Hero of Alexandria, through the mechanical marvels of the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries, to contemporary automata. ·tAdvice on how to get started; tools and materials required and techniques explained. ·tStep-by-step instructions with clear colour photographs.

Leseprobe

First published in 2002 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2023

This impression 2016

© Rodney Peppé 2002

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7198 4351 8

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Credits and Permissions

List of Contributors

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 A Brief History of Automata and Mechanical Toys

Chapter 2 The Origins of Contemporary Automata

Chapter 3 Tools and Materials

Chapter 4 Techniques

Chapter 5 Making Automata Mechanisms

Chapter 6 Theme Projects

Chapter 7 Design

Chapter 8 Painting and Finishing

Bibliography

Index

For Georgia and Blair.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A book of this type would not have been possible without the generous co-operation of the makers in supplying illustrations of their work and accompanying text. To them I offer my warm thanks and appreciation for allowing me to reproduce their contributions.

My sincere thanks are also due to Fleur Hitchcock and Ian McKay of Hitchcocks’, Bath, for recommending me to The Crowood Press. I am indebted to them for allowing me to use Hitchcocks’ list of makers’ names and addresses, which simplified a difficult task.

Finally, I would like to thank Tatjana, my wife, for typing the manuscript and helping me through what has been the most enjoyable book I have ever produced.

Rodney Peppé

CREDITS AND PERMISSIONS

pp37–9, 73–5 © photos: Heini Schneebeli

p77 Cabaret Mechanical Theatre

John Grayson

pp25–6, 27 (top right) & 27 (bottom)

© photos: A. Yale

p27 (top left) © photo: G. Murrel

Peter Markey

pp61, 77 Timber Kits Ltd

Keith Newstead

pp73–5 © photos: Heini Schneebeli

Cabaret Mechanical Theatre

Rodney Peppé

pp4, 6, 9, 12, 16, 17 (three photos), 23, 31–4, 36, 43 (right), 106, 160, Author’s Collection

p9 © photo: V. Oliver

Robert Race

pp 120–2 © photos: Thalia Race

Paul Spooner

pp 132–3 © photos: Heini Schneebeli

p77 Cabaret Mechanical Theatre

Automata Mechanisms, Plans, Diagrams and Drawings

pp76, 78–110, 112–13, 160

Drawn and made by the author

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Lucy Casson

20

–

2

Ron Fuller

22

–

4

John Grayson

25

–

7

Neil Hardy

40

–

2

Andy Hazell

43

–

5

Tim Hunkin

46

–

8

John Maltby

55

–

7

Tony Mann

58

–

60

Peter Markey

60

–

2

Ian McKay

67

–

9

Frank Nelson

70

–

2

Keith Newstead

73

–

5

Rodney Peppé

117

–

19

Robert Race

120

–

2

Martin Smith

123

–

5

Paul Spooner

131

–

3

Melanie Tomlinson

134

–

6

Douglas Wilson

137

–

9

Kristy Wyatt Smith

145

–

7

Vicki Wood

148

–

50

Jan Zalud

151

–

3

PREFACE

If this book has a main purpose it is to encourage beginners and intermediate students to make their own automata and mechanical toys. But it is also aimed at enthusiasts and collectors who, for the first time, are offered the opportunity to read about modern makers and see a good selection of their work – five pictures each – in one book. Until now, only exhibition catalogues showing one or two pieces by automatists have been available, and those have been few and far between. Without the generosity and co-operation of the contributors in supplying textual and visual material, publication would have been virtually impossible. They are the book. Their contribution provides the chance for an appraisal of their work, not as a group, but as a set of highly gifted individuals – a band of different drummers, each marching to their own tune.

‘A Different Drummer’ (Rodney Peppé), powered automaton using a fishing reel mechanism to move the harlequin drummer differentially out of rank, 1991 (248mm × 191mm × 95mm/9¾ × 7½ × 3¾in).

A large part of the book covers the main mechanisms used in the building of automata and mechanical toys. Step-by-step instructions, with photographs, cutting guides and instructions, will help readers to make their own automata. The practical guidance also includes advice on making bearings and shafts, cams and followers, cranks, linkages, ratchets, drives, gears and levers. All the mechanisms can be made in a piece, which can be assembled and dismantled by using friction-fitting pegs.

The book also includes a brief history of automata and mechanical toys, culminating in the hiatus that separated the craftsmen engineers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from the artist craftsmen of the 1970s. There is a chapter on the emergence of seminal artists in the medium, Alexander Calder, Jean Tinguely and Sam Smith, sometimes referred to as the father of modern automata. The appearance of Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in 1983, under the auspices of its founder Sue Jackson, is described as a landmark of the contemporary automata scene. Her encouragement of Peter Markey, Paul Spooner and Ron Fuller started in motion a ball that is still rolling. The chapter on design is devoted to these three CMT automatists, who have influenced their fellow makers for more than twenty years. Frank Nelson separately forged his own path under the championship of the late Sam Smith, who also encouraged Peter Markey in his endeavours. This is how the seeds of contemporary automata were sown.

Alongside the general history of the subject, there are individual stories from the makers themselves. Chapter 6, on theme projects, encourages students to make their own pieces on a theme of their own choosing, and there are also the inevitable (but very useful) chapters on tools, materials, techniques, painting and finishing, offering vital practical information.

I hope the reader extracts from these pages some of the joy I experienced in writing and devising them, and appreciates the rich offerings of the various makers. I feel privileged to have been entrusted to showcase their work in a more durable form than has hitherto been available. If learning about mechanisms and seeing the work of leading makers encourages students to make their way in this fascinating field, I will have succeeded in my aim.

INTRODUCTION

People are often puzzled about the meaning of the word ‘automata’, but they usually know what a ‘mechanical toy’ is, and many have fond memories of a favourite wind-up animal or human figure. Do automata bear any resemblance to those wind-up toys? The answer is that they do indeed – only more so. Automata are distinguished from mechanical toys by the cycle and complexity of their movement. The mechanical toy is a child’s plaything; the automaton is an adult’s plaything. It is a fascinating object, to be demonstrated to others by its owner, and a magical reflection of its maker’s ingenuity.

The word ‘automaton’ has been defined as a piece of mechanism with concealed motive power, but this definition is somewhat dated, since many automatists now believe in revealing the mechanism as part of the performance. In most cases, definitions of automata do not really help, because the pieces differ so much in their mechanical and artistic aspirations. Sculpture, unless it is kinetic or mobile, is easier to define because it is static, but ‘mechanical sculpture’ fails to describe automata adequately. Clearly, a new word is needed.

In its singular form, ‘automaton’ tends to evoke a Frankenstein-like creature with a high forehead and a bolt through its neck. The pictures of makers’ work in these pages will offer a better understanding of the term ‘automata’ than any words. The common denominator in these pieces is a subversive sense of humour combined with a rather British sense of the ridiculous, which has its roots in Heath Robinson, Rowland Emett, Bruce Lacey and Michael Bentine, among others. Added to this is, of course, mechanical ingenuity. Each piece extends an invitation to interaction. The viewer is often mirrored in the piece he handles and amused by its ability to mock him and his surroundings.

Above all, ‘automatry’ does not take itself too seriously, ensuring its enduring charm, and modestly denies any status as Art with a capital ‘A’. But it may be nudging its way towards becoming an art form. Where industry once exclusively commissioned sculptors and mural painters to enhance its public spaces, it is now turning to automatists, or to artists who work with engineers, to build pieces that interact with the observer. Twenty years ago, the late Sam Smith was commissioned by renowned graphic design group Pentagram to devise an animated display of puppets reflecting the people of Lewisham in their Riverdale Shopping Centre. (Sadly, this has disappeared, as the cost of maintenance was too high to sustain its continued existence.) In the mid-1980s, the painter Kit Williams (of Masquerade fame) was commissioned to design and build, with the aid of engineers, the automated clock in Cheltenham’s Regent Arcade. The clock is a wonderful talking point for shoppers and visitors, giving a focal point to the arcade. It is constantly entertaining, but especially as it strikes the the quarters and the hours. At noon, a giant fish blows bubbles as the animation reaches its peak.

The latest notable commission is ‘Cornucopia’, designed and built by Paul Spooner, in collaboration with Will Jackson, for the Tropics Biome of the Eden Project in Cornwall. This fully automated exhibit, which took six months to design, build and install, shows how natural products from rainforests the world over are turned into everyday household objects. The message is a reminder of the countless products used from rainforest materials, and of the significance of the vital resource that supplies them. It must be heartening for the public in general – and automatists in particular – for ‘Cornucopia’ to be seen in such a successful venue as the Eden Project. The hope is that industrial designers and architects will be inspired to think in terms of powered automata, rather than static sculpture and murals, when advising industry on the decoration of foyers and courtyards (mechanical maintenance notwithstanding).

The place of modern automata and mechanical toys in the technological age is difficult to gauge. The memory of a chip can outperform a cam’s a millionfold, yet it cannot reproduce that magical quirkiness that is the hallmark of modern automata. In the future, who knows whether automata will be totally governed by computer technology, or whether the ‘rude mechanicals’ (as Frank Nelson describes his own automata) will survive? And if they do survive, will they continue on the paths laid down by Calder, Tinguely, Sam Smith and CMT, or will they branch out into something quite different, as unrelated to them as they themselves are to the Victorian automatists?

Time will tell. In the interim, many young automatists in art schools, as yet unencumbered by the baggage of technology, are producing lively, imaginative work. Popular with students, Tim Hunkin is one automatist who has been involved in corporate commissions; perhaps his experiences will inspire young artists to channel their own energies in a similar direction. With more realistic prices being paid for corporate work than in galleries, their work for collectors could, to some extent, be subsidized. Industry is being presented with a golden opportunity to enliven its cultural facade by utilizing their talents.

‘Hand-cranked Drummer’, by Rodney Peppé.

1

A BRIEF HISTORY OF AUTOMATA AND MECHANICAL TOYS

AUTOMATA

Earliest Days

The notion of man-made man has exercised human ingenuity from far back into prehistory. There is evidence that, while developing language and tools and executing cave paintings, prehistoric man was also making models of himself, with movable limbs. In ancient Egypt, special jointed statues of the gods were secretly manipulated by priests, so that they appeared to be moving and speaking of their own accord. These manifestations of ‘life’ were used to exercise power over underlings, and were the beginning of the link between automata and religious control through the ages.

The steam eolipile of Hero of Alexandria.

The first recorded automata appeared in Egypt in the second or third century BC. The renowned engineers Ctesibius (who developed the rack and pinion movement and the self-regulating clock), Philo the Byzantian and Hero of Alexandria (285–222BC) all belonged to the Alexandrian School, along with other learned alumni, Euclid and Archimedes. It was Hero, one of Ctesibius’ pupils, who recorded the work of his predecessors, and, indeed, his own inventions, expressing them in mechanical form by making models. He used the models to entertain his pupils, thereby teaching them about the physical laws that related to the workings of the models. The theorems devised by Hero of Alexandria that governed these working models survive in his treatise on pneumatica. Among other things, he built a machine called an eolipile, to show the expansion of gas when heated and the force of the gas escaping from various orifices. The lateral tubes (not shown in the illustration) were connected to a freely revolving platform that supported little figures. The machine was simply a turntable driven by reaction.

The knowledge that the ancient Greeks possessed about gears, simple mechanisms, hydraulics and pneumatics formed the basis of mechanical science for later civilizations, reaching the Byzantine world after the fall of Rome (AD 476). The Byzantines drew upon the legacy, making water clocks that incorporated automata, and the inevitable war machines. They and the Muslim rulers revelled in the wonderful mechanical displays, which had now reached a high point of ingenuity. The accumulated knowledge travelled to the Arab world and, from the seventh century AD, Islamic artisans led the field, creating even more elaborate animated water clocks and ways of recording time.

The monumental clocks of the Arab world, incorporating spectacular automata, were far more advanced than the weight-driven clocks being used in Europe at the same time. However, by the fourteenth century, automata had begun to appear on colossal cathedral clocks in many European cities. The animated figures that struck the hours were called Jaquemarts, or ‘Jacks’. They were made of painted wrought iron, generally portrayed as a mechanically operated man who used a hammer to strike the hours. Later, the striking of the halves and quarters was added, incorporating more automata. In addition to their striking duties, the figures would also enact religious or profane scenes, much to the amusement of the public and giving rise to mixed feelings on the part of the Church, which hoped that such displays would mostly inspire devotion.

During the Middle Ages, all mechanical science had been regarded with suspicion and was often confused with black magic. An awkward relationship had developed between the Church and the automatists. As the focus of learning moved away from the monasteries to the newly established universities, however, scientists were able to experiment more freely. Bavarian philosopher Albertus Magnus (c. 1200) was said to have constructed a mechanical man of brass who could speak, while Roger Bacon (1214–98), the English monk who has been called the father of experimental science, explored similar projects, undeterred by the teachings of the past. St Thomas Aquinas, a former pupil of Albertus Magnus, was one religious figure who clung to monastic bigotry; he smashed his former master’s mechanical companion, denouncing it as the work of the devil. Albertus Magnus was devastated: ‘Thus perishes the work of thirty years,’ he lamented.

A Golden Age

In the sixteenth century, Hero of Alexandria’s treatise on pneumatica was translated into Latin and subsequently into Italian and German. The writings and drawings were pounced upon by the Renaissance engineers, who constructed amazing water gardens complete with hydraulic automata. The gardens of Villa d’Este and Pratolino in Italy, for example, drew visitors from all over Europe, including Solomon de Caus (1576–1626), a French engineer who had studied the technical heritage of the ancient automatists. De Caus brought grottoes and mechanical hydraulic effects to Stuart England. In the grottoes, articulated mythological statuary – deities, satyrs and various other creatures – were constructed to play practical jokes on hapless visitors, who were drenched in water, or covered in salt, or, even worse, soot! The mischievous humour was very ‘Renaissance’ but the mechanics at the heart of the constructions had clearly been handed down by the Ancient Greeks. Increasingly ingenious creations appeared, which were breathtaking in their mimicry of life.

Descartes and other philosophers of the Renaissance had played their part in dispelling prejudice and misconceptions about mechanical devices, but religious paranoia persisted even into the eighteenth century. A number of diehards continued to condemn as pagan magic all mechanical things, especially those that bore an uncanny resemblance to life.

The most famous automatist of the eighteenth century was Jacques de Vaucanson (1709–82), a native of Grenoble in France. He entered training for the priesthood, but his stay at the college was short-lived; during his time there, he made some flying angel automata that were destroyed by the Jesuit priests for their ‘heresy’. De Vaucanson took this as a cue to relieve himself of his vows, and went on to lead a rather wild life in Paris, working his way through a small fortune left to him by his father. After studying music, medicine and mechanics, de Vaucanson began to earn a living from exhibiting his automata. His most famous creation was a life-sized mechanical duck made of gilt brass, with flexible rubber tubing to simulate intestines. The duck not only looked like a duck and quacked like a duck but, on being fed corn, it also digested and produced droppings like a duck! In later life, de Vaucanson followed a more sober and distinguished path as Inspector of Mechanical Inventions at the Royal Academy of Sciences, and achieved recognition as one of the most significant minds in the development of automata.

Automata in human form became known as ‘androids’. Produced by de Vaucanson, and other masters such as Jacquet-Droz, Leschot and Maillardet, these figures perfectly reproduced the human movements of drawing, writing or playing an instrument. The pieces were jewels of complex mechanical invention, requiring long and painstaking work, and automatists would complete relatively few pieces in a lifetime. Their main purpose was to imitate life by mechanical means; only today’s robots could match their ingenuity, but nothing could match their style.

Front and rear views of French POW model in Peterborough Museum.

Following a series of naval victories during the Napoleonic wars, thousands of French prisoners filled British prisons. The skilled craftsmen, watchmakers, clockmakers and jewellers among them would supplement their meagre rations by selling their own work in the prison’s market. Materials were limited, but there were plenty of bones from the cookhouse, which explains why so many of the pieces were tiny and white (although many were painted). Guillotines were popular subjects, as were domestic and trading activities, such as spinning, cobbling and knife-grinding. The delicacy of the wheels that drove some of models must have involved painstaking cutting work, but time was hardly at a premium for these craftsmen of quality. Some escapees managed to earn enough from their work to buy a passage back to France.

As the industrial age dawned, the French seemed reluctant to surrender their artistic traditions to new technology. During the second part of the nineteenth century, however, trains and steamships had an enormous effect on travel and communications, and the establishment of the new department stores affected the automata and mechanical toys industry. Artist-craftsmen were taken by surprise at the speed of developments, and totally unprepared for the surge in demand.

The day of the expensive ‘one-off’ automaton was gone. Prices came down as production lines were developed to make numbers of identical pieces, supplying a middle class who had prospered in the improved financial climate, and liked to display the mechanical marvels in their drawing rooms. The growing popularity of automata allowed inventors to exercise their ingenuity and flights of fancy, profiting from modern economical methods of manufacture that none the less allowed them to retain some of the quality of a hand-made product. As the automata industry grew, so did competition. Innovation was all that mattered in the new, competitive market, and wholesale plagiarism was rife. The tiniest new detail would persuade a buyer to choose one automaton over another. So fierce was the rivalry between firms that many eschewed registering patents to protect their inventions, preferring to guard their originality by constant change rather than relying on time-consuming legislation.

Some wonderful new effects were introduced in a Golden Age that lasted from the mid-1800s to the beginning of the First World War. Leading makers such as Bontems, Lambert, Phalibois, Renou, Roullet et Decamps, Théroude and Vichy influenced and were influenced by each other’s creations.

Nineteenth-century automata were characterized by emotional idealism and paid homage to the entertainers of the day. They were expensive, even after the introduction of low-cost methods of production, and were not intended for children.

Nineteenth-century mechanical toys were characterized by ingenuity and style, although the craftsmen who made them were rewarded with very low wages. They owed their continued success to the fact that they were able to keep pace with changing markets.

The nineteenth-century automatist was a clockmaker by training who, with his own expertise and that of craftsmen and artisans skilled in turning, drilling and cutting, oversaw the assembly of all the diverse components that made up a piece. The making process began with the modelling of a clay or wax figure from which a mould was made to form the head, body and limbs. The working mechanism and musical movement were inserted in the completed body before the finishing touches were added by painters, seamstresses and hairdressers.

These automata were usually displayed in the children’s section in exhibitions, but they were not for children. In spite of cheaper production methods, costs increased as they became increasingly sophisticated and more lifelike. Many aimed to reflect Parisian society of the day, capturing the essence of performances by famous entertainers, clowns, acrobats and music hall stars. Just as they mirrored the society that created them, so were they subject to changing fashions. Around the 1890s they were thrust into a new role, on public display in department store windows, extolling the virtues of the store’s products by their gestures. They became larger, in order to attract shoppers, and the musical accompaniment was dispensed with as it could not be heard from the other side of a window. The commercial automaton came to outshine its domestic counterpart, and what was once the exclusive property of the well-to-do now became available to all.

Decline

By the end of the First World War, electrical automata replaced the clockwork models in the elaborate window displays. Clockwork could only run for several minutes, but the action on an electrical piece could run on an ever repeating cycle until the power was switched off. Demand for clockwork automata diminished and they fell into decline. In a fast-developing world it became increasingly difficult to find skilled craftsmen and engineers to build them.

The decline was accelerated when US importation laws placed an embargo on French toys coming into the USA. To beat the legislation, certain French firms sent foremen from their workshops to set up on the other side of the Atlantic, but automata were, it seemed, destined to disappear. During the First World War, France itself banned exportation of toys and this brought production to a virtual halt.

After the horrors of the conflict, the public was in no mood to return to prewar luxuries, as automata were perceived to be. As the twentieth century settled into the Jazz Age, with its new amusements – the gramophone, the wireless and moving pictures – the extinction of automata was virtually complete. Only mechanical toys, which were in certain cases scaled-down versions of their superior relations, continued to flourish. They had a mass appeal, were affordable and in tune with the times, and they endure today.

MECHANICAL TOYS

The main factors distinguishing mechanical toys from automata are running time and the number of cams. Automata were programmed to execute a series of complicated movements within a time span. The duration and complexity of the cycle distinguished them from the simpler mechanical toys.

Origins

France was supreme in the manufacture of automata in the nineteenth century, but it was makers in Germany, the centre of tinplate production, who produced the finest mechanical toys before the First World War. Production quality was high, with manufacturers such as Bing, Carette (an expatriate Frenchman), Lehmann and Marklin showing meticulous attention to detail.

A version of an early American jumping jack (Rodney Peppé), 1999 (280mm × 152mm × 67mm/11 × 6 × 2⅝in).

Before the development of tinplate, early mechanical toys (at the beginning of the nineteenth century) were made of wood and sometimes fabric, with very simple mechanisms, perhaps involving a single lever or cam. Few of these have survived – they were cheap toys for the general market, and made with perishable materials. They depicted subjects such as figures spinning or playing a drum, horses and carts, jumping jacks, acrobats, and the like. Leather strips or springs served for joints while string and wire levers were used to operate the simple mechanisms. A typical toy was a drummer, with movable arms attached at the shoulder by strings that were wound round dowel rods connected eccentrically between three rollers. Turning the handle produced a drumming action in alternating rhythm.