Meccano
Ellipsograph
Drawing instruments have always attracted
my interest.
Most of them are now obsolete but collectible.
Their accuracy and precise engineering is the most excited
thing about them (from my point of view).
Nowadays we can draw everything using a personal computer
which is easier, and requires less skill, than using a dedicated
instrument.
One
of these expensive and rare instruments is the ellipsograph.
I have seen it only in pictures, in quite a lot of different
constructions, most of them owned by collectors or museums.
As I always wanted to own one of these instruments,
I decided to make one. I have used Meccano parts for this construction.
The idea of how to construct it came from a small wooden
gadget that we have at home. It is small with a crank that gives
the impression -when you turn it- that it is doing something. This
impression comes from the way that the crank turns. It follows an
ellipse instead of a circle, and its supporting points are moving
along two axis positioned at right angles relative to each other.
Actually it is doing nothing and this is the actual name of the
gadget: “The doing nothing machine”.
Below you can see my first attempt on this. It works fine. After
about ten full moves, the ellipsograph follows repeatedly exactly
the same path, which means that the instrument is quite accurate.
Ellipsograph |
