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June 27, 2011
hand paddles
by sven at 11:55 pm
Immediately after the Northwest Animation Festival ended, I got hired to do some armature work for a feature film. I was asked to fabricate 160 puppet hand paddles.
I made parts in two sizes, using 10mm and 8mm jump rings.
The 10mm rings are solid brass. The brazing process draws copper to the surface of the metal, making it reddish in color.
The 8mm ring appeared to be made of brass — but that burned away during brazing, revealing a steel core. I was initially worried that plating would interfere with getting a good bond. It didn't turn out to be a problem.
The balls are 1/8" diameter, the rods 1/16". We're talking SMALL. I constantly had to use needle-nosed electronics tweezers to pick things up.
Doing just about anything 160 times gets tedious. At least the tedium gets punctuated with panic when things go wrong!
Armatures are a love/hate thing. There's a very special misery when things aren't working out in the machine shop… But when things do work, perfect shiny metal is all kinds of sexy.
A couple weeks of living night and day with this project. Then? All those neatly laid out parts get dumped higglety pigglety into bags and I take them off to FedEx, never to be seen again. Good luck in your new life little hand paddles!
posted by sven | June 27, 2011 11:55 PM | comments (8) | categories: stopmo
Comments
I'm guessing you believe everyone reading this knows what hand paddles are? ;)
Posted by: gl. at June 28, 2011 8:45 AM
also, whoohoo! :D
Posted by: gl. at June 28, 2011 8:46 AM
Ha ha! Good point! Yeah… Wire will be wrapped around the rings to make fingers, and the balls will be wrist joints. Silly me. :)
Posted by: sven at June 28, 2011 10:01 AM
Congratulations on the huge success of the festival, Sven!
And those armature components are perfection. They should be delivered via sherpa in individual velvet-lined boxes!
Posted by: Shelley Noble at June 28, 2011 4:14 PM
thanks for sharing these - I was wondering what they looked like. it's fun to see them all together. and another congratulations on the festival and getting this contract
Posted by: dot at June 28, 2011 6:04 PM
Yes, all that shiny metal IS damn sexy :) Congrats on completing the job! What film is it for?
Posted by: Ubatuber at June 28, 2011 7:22 PM
"They should be delivered via sherpa in individual velvet-lined boxes!"
If only that didn't take so long, Shelley! :)
Posted by: gl. at June 29, 2011 11:51 AM
Thank you Gretchin, Shelley, Dot, Uba!
I hate it, but I'm going to keep my lips shut about the name of the film for now. I hunted around online, and can't find any public announcements. I don't want to get in trouble.
How about this: It's for a major producer of stop-motion animation in the USA. But it's not LAIKA or Disney. If you know the biz, that narrows things down pretty well.
Posted by: sven at June 29, 2011 9:52 PM