A Clockwork Owl

Wow it's been a while since I posted.  So busy getting various pieces ready for Teslacon III.  Here's a post on a project I did for Teslacon II.

The Story of Bubo machinus. 

So the infamous Bubo visited my workshop over the weekend.  He needed a bit of a tune up (his head was getting wobbly).  He is still my favorite steampunk creation so I thought I would share the story of his construction. 

So at the first Teslacon Convention, my good friend Sara saw this:

Which lead to instantaneous envy, and more importantly the question: "Could you make me a mechanical owl?" 

So to be clear, I have no where near the skill that would be required to create the above brass parrot.  It truly is a work of art, and if you ever get the chance go take a look at how marvelous this parrot truly is. 

But not having the skill set to make something should never dissuade a true tinker from trying... so on to the owl. 

So my first hurdle was trying to figure out what pre-existing stuff out there had the right shape and size to make an owl.   

This lead to my tried and true plan: "When in doubt wander around the hardware store..."

That's when I came across the copper toilet tank float:

Inner monologue: "Hmmm, it's copper (that's cool), it's hollow (so I can put motors and such in it), and it already has a threaded bit at the bottom (so I can attach it to various and sundry platforms).  Well old chap you're looking at a mechanical owl's body casing."  

So the first step was to open the float up to make room for the "inner workings".  Knock-off Dremel tool to the rescue.  (*bloggers note, I don't own a name brand Dremel tool they were kind of spendy back in the day, when I was a poor research fellow so I picked up a knock-off one from a tool sale when I lived in Columbia, MO.  It has always gotten the job done, so I've never upgraded.)

Plenty of room for bits and bobs, but the copper is extremely thin.  That was probably the hardest part of making the owl was being very careful with the copper. 

Now I had to figure out how to reattach the two halves, can't have your owl falling to pieces, its just not done.

Here's the bottom 1/2 of the body.  I've added a small brass hinge to the back and a leather strip to stiffen the body wall up. 

Here's another pic of the bottom half of the owl.  I went back and forth on how to do the legs.  I finally went with the KISS approach and just added to brass corner brackets that I cut the one side of to make the toes.  Looking at a bunch of pictures of real owls, their feet are kind of tucked up into their bodies and feathers when the are sitting there, so this would give him the "right appearance" when he was sitting on a perch. 

Here was one of the pics I used for inspiration on making the owl. 

Here is a pic of the body with a small 7rpm motor added to the top half of the casing (thanks American Science and Surplus!)

The next quest was to find something to use for the head that was in the right scale for the size of the body.  Originally I was gong to use a plastic X-mas decoration, but I was worried because the plastic was so thin.  I then stumbled upon a round plastic bottle at my local supermarket.

Not quite the right color, but that's why we have paint. 

First a plastic primer and then a coat of flat black.  I typically like to start with a base of flat black when adding metallic paint to something; I think it comes out looking better, and if it gets scratched it's just the black that usually shows through so it just looks like wear on the device. 

While the paint was drying I started on the wings.  In my original crazy idea mode I thought it would be cool if the wings flexed away from the body, but once the motor for the head was in place I realized that there wasn't going to be room for a second motor so the wings were just attached to the body casing. 

I started by cutting the wings out of leather:

I wanted to two tone look so I alternated between a copper colored paint and neatsfoot oil on the rows of leather "feathers" .

The "feathers" were than stitched to the leather wing backing under the overlap. 

The "tail feathers" got the same treatment.  The hole was to allow a pass-thru for the switch that turns the owls head on and off. 

To cover the gap between the head and the body I added a leather collar. 

The owl's eyes were done with some LED lights, and a toggle switch.  I did wind up using 1/2 of the X-mas decoration to reinforce the plastic cup. 

The next challenge was the beak.  I went around and around on what to make it out of.  Finally decided on painted leather bolted to the head.  The mask portion went pretty easy.  Leather and brass tarp grommets.  It then got treated with neatsfoot oil.

Here he is with the eyes on.  I think he strikes the perfect balance between cute and menacing...

Once the owl was done all that was left was a platform for him to sit on.  For at home I made a wooden plat form from some pre-fab deck building supplies.  I added a threaded piece of rod to the top so that the owl could "sit" on the platform.  I also added a name plate to the platform.

For conventions I made wax-hardened leather shoulder plate and harness.  A bolt passes through the plate to attach the owl. 

Here's Bubo with his owner enjoying the last World's Steam Expo. 

Well that's all for now. 

M-T-T