I spotted this Rastafarian automaton, made by Keith Newstead, on page 2 of an old Cabaret Mechanical Theatre's newsletter. You can see it here https://cabaret.co.uk/pdfs/news8.pdf
Sadly, there are no photos or videos of it on the web. I'm intrigued by the quirky mechanism. It's different from most of Keiths automata of that period. He's gone to a lot of trouble to make a worm drive and an offset horizontal gear. It appears the horizontal gear has a rod attached to it, which passes through a hole in the top of the mechanism box and is attached to the body of the character. If I'm correct, that would make the Rastafarians body gyrate which is very unusual to say the least! I used my animation software, Moho, to make the video of how I think it works. Unfortunately, I don't have the skills to make the tiny toothed brass gears and worm drive, so I can't make a copy. If anyone has seen one working or has one for sale please contact me.
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AuthorI make whimsical wooden automata Archives
November 2022
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