The Idea
One fine autumn day, idly contemplating how fast technological development makes things redundant, I first thought that it would be entertaining to see if my smallest friends would recognise a record player. Then I thought about “cool cats” listening to jazz music. Finally, I was tidying up in the workshop and I found these two cones, which reminded me that record players didn’t always include amplifiers but were once wound up with a crank, driven by clockwork and just used a horn to make the sound louder.
I thought that he second cone wasn’t the right shape for a dog’s head (as in the logo for His Master’s Voice), but it does serve very nicely as the nose for a mouse, so I was now ready to start making.
Making the Mouse
I glued a hemisphere to the flat end of the cone to make it more head-shaped. A small wooden ball on the pointy end turns into a mousey nose, just waiting to be painted pink. A piece of 10 mm dowel provides the pivot, to allow the head to move up and down in time to the music. The hollow carved into the head makes space for the pivot as well as for a tongue, hinged on a second piece of 2 mm diameter brass rod.
I drilled a 10 mm hole through a wooden egg to accommodate the pivot dowel, which also serves to fix the body to the base
Right next to the 10 mm dowel, I drilled a 3 mm hole to take a 2 mm diameter brass rod which will push the head up. To prevent the rod from snagging in the head, I glued a small wooden ball onto the end with 2-component epoxy resin. To make the mouse’s tongue I used tin snips (sturdy metalworking scissors) to cut a piece of brass foil.
Making the Horn
The horn came more or less ready-made from the craft shop. I just added a ball to fix it to the dowel which holds it next to the turntable. To allow the horn to be pointed in any direction it is not glued directly to the base, just to the two wooden discs which keep it in place while allowing free rotation.
Making the Base
The base is a box, open at the front and at the back, with two pillars to support the drive shaft. The drive shaft has a crank to move the horizontal bar left and right.It also has a small wheel to friction drive the turntable mechanism.
The side view helps to understand how the drive shaft works. Turning the handle at the left rotates the drive shaft which drives the turntable mechanism via the small wheel. The crank mechanism moves the horizontal bar to the left and to the right.
As the wooden horizontal bar moves left and right, the slope at the right-hand end pushes the brass rod up to lift the mouse’s head and then allows it to come down, followed by the head.
You can see that the turntable mechanism is just two discs connected by a 5 mm diameter dowel. The dowel turns in a hole in the bottom of the base, thus keeping the dowel vertical and the discs horizontal.
The mechanism to push the mouse’s head up is a piece of brass rod, its bent end moving within a slot. As the horizontal bar moves to the right in the slot, it acts like a wedge, pushing the rod upwards.
First Reactions
My five-year-old friend wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. When I tried explaining a little she asked “why can’t I hear any music?” Which I suppose makes it an automata destined for folk of a certain age who have enough tunes in their head to make it up as they go along. Maybe Al Jolson singing something from the scratchy sounding wind-up gramophone period or, in my case, “My baby just cares for me”, which has a good rhythm to nod along too.
Reflections
I’ve left a lot off in this piece. The mouse has neither hands nor feet. The horn has no visible connection to the the record on the turntable. There is no audible music. Imagination is required. The mechanisms are pretty simple, but enough to tell a small story and maybe raise a nostalgic smile from those old enough to remember. I hope you like it.
Images
Download from https://www.wordwise.de/Mouse_Archive.zip
Video