Valentine Card Automaton (Music Box)
This Valentine Card wiggles its hearts and text, and plays a little tune. So, I guess it a crossbreed between an automaton and a music box. An AutoMusBox, maybe?!?
I found the pianola-like mechanism on Amazon. It came with a punch so you could play your favorite tune by punching holes in the 5 music rolls they provided. I made an endless loop by magic-taping it together.
Most of the wood is cherry, but there's some Baltic Birch plywood and beech laths thrown in for good measure. I cut out hearts for the bell crank and as much of the mechanism as possible. I think there are 6 in total. One of the hearts stops the crank from being turned anti-clockwise.
The downside of the Amazon music box is that the crank doesn't turn turn a fixed number of revolutions per musical bar (either because the roll slips or it wasn't designed that way). Because of that I couldn't add drums (well, banging!) and other 'instruments' to accompany it.
I probably should have added a gear to speed up the crank that turns the music box handle. I didn't have time for that because it was hard to keep the project secret as it was!
This is a fun idea and I have plans to create other music boxes that play some good old fashioned rock and blues in the future. One of them will be You Got to Moo - a cover of Mississippi Fred McDowels classic You Got To Move, in which a Moo box will replace the 'move' lyric! A hand carved Mick Jagger will 'sing' it.
Don't tell anyone, but I didn't compose the music box melody (it's "Better When We're Together,' by Jack Johnson).
Most of the wood is cherry, but there's some Baltic Birch plywood and beech laths thrown in for good measure. I cut out hearts for the bell crank and as much of the mechanism as possible. I think there are 6 in total. One of the hearts stops the crank from being turned anti-clockwise.
The downside of the Amazon music box is that the crank doesn't turn turn a fixed number of revolutions per musical bar (either because the roll slips or it wasn't designed that way). Because of that I couldn't add drums (well, banging!) and other 'instruments' to accompany it.
I probably should have added a gear to speed up the crank that turns the music box handle. I didn't have time for that because it was hard to keep the project secret as it was!
This is a fun idea and I have plans to create other music boxes that play some good old fashioned rock and blues in the future. One of them will be You Got to Moo - a cover of Mississippi Fred McDowels classic You Got To Move, in which a Moo box will replace the 'move' lyric! A hand carved Mick Jagger will 'sing' it.
Don't tell anyone, but I didn't compose the music box melody (it's "Better When We're Together,' by Jack Johnson).
Detailed photos coming soon....
