Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
Agreed; this conjurer clock may be among the easier contraptions. But it seems like historical calculators, orreries, and assorted mystery machines are the next wave for advanced hobbyists looking for a new challenge. The videos of high-end restorations by horologists and the like are gaining popularity. Another example: Clickspring building the Antikythera Mechanism. These once-archaic machines have now become cool and campy.
"Cool and campy" are an interesting choice of words Jon, and get it at some level. To me it is first the vision, then craftsmanship, then the design, and of course the HMT thinking that it took to develop such machines and devices back in history that intrigue me. Perhaps cool and campy in today's language but from a history perspective, time keeping, calculators, and orreries are how we got to HMT's today and a necessity for us to be able to travel the globe and space. To paraphrase Newton, we stand on the shoulders of giants, who pioneered the ideas with vision and perspicacity to develop tools, mechanism, materials etc. to bring forth these visions for us.

This mechanism like your first posting is what I would call the "art" of mechanical mechanism (automaton) where the details like the filigree and the oriental character/mystical magician depiction were fitting for the time period. It wasn't about how simple the mechanism is but the elegance of the creation like the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, the architecture of Chartres Cathedral or the hand writing automaton in the Smithsonian, which I consider artful and a mechanical wonder for its time.

I once did a white paper and lecture for IONS about the history of sound as therapy. The earliest recorded sound instrument back then was a 35k year old bird bone flute, which to me was astounding, mainly for how the idea and tools came about in what we consider primitive times. In short, that historical breakthrough eventually ties to Pythagoras, Cardono and Capivacci in the 16th century, to Kepler, Chaldni, Lissajous, Koenig and Shore, then Hemholtz in 1863 (a similar period as your postings) with electrically operated tuning fork and his seminal treatise "On the Sensation of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music"...to today's understanding of vibration and technological developments like EEG (20's), Neuro-Feedback and FMRI's today.

As with Clipspring's Antikythera Mechanism, not only was it a revolutionary mechanism for the time period but it was the (r)evolution of tools and craftsmanship that changes our perspective of history and the possibility we conceive of. I've always wondered where and how the file came about, not just the use of abrasives but the file as we know it today. In one of his videos he builds his own files from raw materials available at the time, to build the mechanism...empowering and motivating stuff, rife with other possibilities to come forward with. A seemingly simple process, but I would probably buy them now days like everyone else.

Once again I am thankful for your posting these type of Tool Talk post as they inspire myself and others to create our own Tools and mechanisms to bring more of this forward.

PJ