GRAHAME WAGHORN
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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).
Detailed photos coming soon....
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  • Home
  • Automata
    • Tug-O-Love
    • Valentine
    • Horse and Carrot
    • Laughing Machine #1
    • Duelling Stereotypes
    • 4th July
    • Halloween
    • Attention Deficit Disorder
    • Crank-slider skier
  • Blog
  • Music
    • About
    • Music >
      • Life Is on Standby >
        • Release Notes (Standby)
      • I'm Alive. It's a Miracle! >
        • Release Notes (Miracle)
      • Waghorn & Taylor - Into the Blue
      • The Other Side of the Storm
    • Videos
    • Lyrics >
      • Life Is on Standby
      • Catch and Release
      • Change For Good
      • The Other Side of the Storm
      • Lonely Castaway