Finalized wing design!

Below is the final scale drawing of the full puppet, with all the changes so far on the wing and the rest of the body combined and incorporated. We'll see how many times this still will change...

At least I think I am finally happy with the wing design... I completed the second wing using the new design, and it can move and fold in the right way now. The only issue I would have still with this design is perhaps that it moves too freely. As I changed the shoulder from one single ball joint plus a hinge joint into suddenly two ball joints + a double one at the elbow, there are many more ways it can move into, which could become confusing... But now the feather rods are on it already helps making it clearer and I think when everything is in place it should be ok. Compared to a wire armature it will still be more limited.

One other issue that came up this week was that I noticed that some of the bigger ball bearings I have been using - which were annealed by someone in the fabrication cente previously - were not entirely smooth anymore. They seem to have little dents and spots on the surface. I am afraid that it may have been caused by the annealing process, and maybe these steel balls got too hot or were too hot for too long. These balls are definitely softer then the smaller ones I annealed myself... They may be too soft. I'm not sure at the moment what I will do. I have already used the balls in several places. In the start I never noticed this damaged surface, but now every one I use seems to have it, and I can feel how it affects the smoothness of the movement in the joint. I am tempted to get new balls and anneal them myself and replace the non-smooth ones. But then it will delay things again... Maybe I will first do a proper animation test with this wing to see how bad it is.

Making new rods for the wing.

Making tiny screws even tinier. 

The new countersunk screws reduce a lot of volume from the previously sticking out screw heads. I will probably replace all of them in the other wing as well.

And here is the new wing all final and completed. Except the wire and fanning mechanism.

Really looking forward to completing the other wing in the same way now, to combine both and make an animation test with two wings...

New animation test

Still the old wing design, but with the wire extensions and possible solution for the fanning mechanism. In the mean time working on building the new wing design for the wing at the other side...

I had some doubts about the elastic band, but so far it works quite nice. Indeed it is a bit springy, but for the subtle movements needed in this part of the wing it works ok. I'm not sure though how it will work out in the hand part of the wing. Will have to just try it once I've got the new design for that finished for at least one wing. The wire works quite nice. I was thinking that the slightly thicker and therefore slightly tougher to animate wire would be nicer to work with, but actually I was more pleased with the thinner ones. Because it needs to be such subtle movement, it is easier to achieve this with the more flexible wire. But then, I don't want to move everything around when just slightly touching it... I will just have to play a bit around with different combinations I think to find what works best... Also it will take some more tests to find out what would be a good tension on the feather rods, so I don't accidentally knock them sideways, but still they are easy enough to move when pulling a feather. At the secondary feathers part where I already added the sewing elastic, it was hard to find a good balance where the rods were tightened enough to have some resistance against the elastic, but still loose enough to follow each other when pulling one.

During this test I also clearly noticed how my one ball joints are currently not working right and can not be tightened properly. The shoulder joint can in some positions just simply not carry all of the weight of the wing therefore, and so sometimes drops down, or makes other unwanted moves. That should all be resolved with the new design, hopefully...

Yep, now things are starting to move there is lots more to think about again and more problems to solve, as always...

extending feathers - trying a fanning solution

This weekend I had a go at extending the feather with wire how I originally planned it, poking the wire through the holes I made, and securing them with Polymorph (which should make it easier to replace a feather if necessary). Because I need the wire to be fairly thin, I tried strengthening it by twisting it together with copper wire. First I tried a double strand of really thin aluminium wire (can't remember the exact gauge, but much less then a mm) together with one or two strands of very thin copper wire (I only have some that is really thin). Then I didn't have any of the thin aluminium wire left, so tried it with one strand of 1mm aluminium wire with one strand of the thin copper wire. This actually seemed to get a nice balance between flexibility and strength, though I would have to test it to find out for sure.

I also bought some elastic band to try using this for the fanning mechanism. I used it double and sewed it around the flattened rods like previously with the stretchy fabric, but this time also using the holes I made to keep it at fixed at one place. I'm not fully satisfied with how it works, though it has some positive effect. At least the rods cannot move much further away from each other, and they are slightly pulling each other to follow, but not really as much as I had hoped. It does at the same time also create quite a bit of elastic tension, that might make it harder during animating to make subtle movements... I'm considering of I should for the secondary feathers just use a non-stretchy kind of fabric, as the feathers don't really have to move much separately from each other, but the primaries still need to...

Good advice & changing the design again

The first Monday after the break I went to Puppet's place in Bristol to meet Hanna Habermann, a very experienced stop motion armature and model maker. We talked about how to improve the shoulder joints, how to make better one ball joints and how I could simplify the end of the wing a bit to reduce weight and mass in the wing hand. The same day I quickly sketched a new plan from this and decided to start with this new plan for a new wing: it would not be much quicker to be 'changing' the first wing as there would still be a  lot of parts to make new. Because I have to present the project next week I thought it would be a good idea to have the old wing design still in its 'completed' form, to be able to show the comparison with the new plan. I hoped to have the main structure finished this week, but obviously things still always take longer than planned...

So, the new plan:

* change the shoulder joint(s) --> see scale drawing.
* Change elbow joint it to a double ball joint instead of hinge (and obviously still change the direction).
* Simplify the 'hand' of the wing: take one joint out at the end and make the second (now last) part longer (to have space still for all feather rods). Second part requires no extra joints in this way, and so will also be thinner.
* Change design of the single ball joints: have the screw separate from metal plates that 'fill' the gap distance between ball and plates. Or at least, have the metal plates not fully filling the gap: as the screw can not be tightened enough to tighten the joint.
*Don't file away from the rods when trying to create wider range of movement: this will weaken the rods. (I still stupidly made this mistake at some point this week... for a different reason) It is better to file away from the plates.
* Interesting to consider: looking at John Wright's ball joints, there seems to be one kind that has smaller holes as ball sockets, but therefore the balls can be much nearer the edge of the joint, or even sticking out: of course creating a lot of movement possibilities.

Although I have drawn the scale drawing only at the end of the week and used my rough sketches while building, I will share the scale drawing first now, as it will be clearer then my messy drawing... It will also be helpful for myself again while building, as I found this week that during building I got confused about the size of joints, which I think wouldn't have happened if I would have drawn it all out in scale...

(Final....?) new wing design

Even though I would think I would get a bit wiser every time, still I seem to be always doing things wrong first before getting them right... This week I started making the new one ball joints, needed for the shoulders and wrist joint. But, I made all three of them to be used with the small sizes steel balls, while I was planning to use the larger kind for the shoulder joints, which I think is important to have bigger and stronger for these important, much weight carrying joints. At least I still will be able to use the smaller joints for the otherside and possibly for part of the feet. But, now I had to make them again in the bigger variety. This took more time as I had to re-measure everything, etc. I had to file some more metal away after soldering but then put the screw that had been heated up back in again... apparently it had accidentally been annealed, and I messed up the screw head while trying to get it out... but this was also one of my new nicely fitting countersunk screws, so in no other way I could grab it. I tried destroying the screw by drilling through it up to the point where I would be able to take things apart again, but obviously it didn't work and I was destroying the whole joint. Alright... new attempt... In the mean time I figured out that for the other joint I had the holes lined up too closely to the edge and they would be too weak... So actually I should re-make this one as well... Very productive day...  I found luckily that I could re-use another joint made previously (not soldered together yet) for the hip joints, if I would just file away some metal around the screw area. But the other one I would have to re-make entirely.

Another mistake this week was where I tried to solder the rods onto the joints, put this time wanted to file away an area in the joint to have the rod laying in, which I had witnessed on one of Hanna's joints on Monday, but I didn't file away enough. I though it would be ok to file away just a little bit from the rod, but I had to file away more then I thought I would beforehand. It really doesn't look strong enough, I can even bend the metal there a bit too easily... so I think I definitely have to redo that part... For the other joint that would have to have a rod laying in it I could still not get it soldered after several attempts...

I also decided after making the elbow joint (a straightforward two ball joint) that I wanted to make it a bit smaller if possible. Ok, not the most time consuming thing next to the one ball joints, and can still use the larger one for the neck. All in all it didn't really get me up to speed this week though...

All the other parts for the wing are ready to be soldered together. I'm not sure if I will have much time to finish it still before the presentation though...

Lots of joints for the new wing, and lots that will not end up in the new wing.. too...

Final produce of this week, what will end up in the wing

(apart from re-making the rod part for the upper-arm probably...)

The one ball joints on this picture may look like they are still having a lot of metal around the part where the screw goes. I choose to start with longer plates that would cover the screw too, and then file enough away to still be able to tighten the screw enough, and hopefully it also makes the joint a bit stronger.