# A 240 year old doll that can write



## gld (Sep 23, 2013)

You fellows got to see this:

http://www.chonday.com/Videos/the-writer-automaton


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## John Rus (Sep 23, 2013)

Words fail me for the most exquisite piece of mechanical art I have ever seen! 

I still can't even to begin to fathom a mind to create something one tenth as incredible!

Still shaking my head in disbelief,
John.


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## Tinkerer58 (Sep 23, 2013)

That guy was a mechanical genius, absolutly amazing and all that without the high technology that we have at our disposal. I'm sure this will make quite a few of us here feel very inadequate, makes me feel like someone that just butchers metal and wood LOL.


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## Herbiev (Sep 23, 2013)

Totally awesome. Thanks for sharing.


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## brian13b (Sep 23, 2013)

You should see their automaton bird for the toubillion watch they have....kick ass


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## Mechanicboy (Sep 24, 2013)

High skilled nice work to create a lot of cam disc to make each letter to write on paper.


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## Tinkerer58 (Sep 24, 2013)

Imagine the calculations involved and all the working out of which disc goes when and when to trip which lever and how many degrees does it have to move and which disk requires to be turned by how much and when. Just thinking about it is doing my head in :wall: LOL 
Now that takes dedication.


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## Mechanicboy (Sep 24, 2013)

The large disc has difference heights of cams for each letter and other operation such as dipping the pen in ink cup and moving the paper. It need 3 disc for each operation to example  1 disc for lift/lower the pen, 2 disc for each letter. The mechanical writing machine is programmable to change the letter on the large disc. We did same with the earlier mechanical "CNC" lathe in old days, really true?


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## AussieJimG (Sep 24, 2013)

What can I say? It is both mechanically and artistically beautiful. I wonder if he created as many scrap parts when building it as I do when building an engine.

Jim


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## Tinkerer58 (Sep 24, 2013)

Hey Jim, maybe that are all the scrap parts that he had and used from other projects LOL, I have seen a lot of people that make amazing things from scrap and some of them become the best inventions, look at Henry Ford's 1st engine and here we are looking around for scrap so we can copy it. Us model engineers are a weird lot, we love living in the past and re-inventing or copying the wheel, or are we just nostalgic.


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## jthulin (Sep 24, 2013)

Look up the movie called "Hugo", there is an automaton featured in it. Good movie, I think it won some awards.


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## Mechanicboy (Sep 24, 2013)

The other doll can draw a dog!! 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8u93VQfHmw[/ame]


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## isambard (Sep 24, 2013)

that is stunning the most interesting automaton I've seen

Tom


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## jwcnc1911 (Sep 24, 2013)

Wow! Amazing and inventive!  So impressive and even a little creepy!


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