Design Progress Report: Drawing Machine

I’ve been-pricing out my drawing machine design, and I think a fully electronic design is well beyond my budget at $1149, so I think I’m indeed going to pivot to something gravity driven.

At my last job, I did a lot of copper pipe soldering, and I always thought it was a cool technique. I’ve never been very good at it, but I’ve always thought it looks really beautiful with the copper color and something about the heat, technique, etc. has always intrigued me. I think this could fit in well with the steam punk aesthetic, so I’ve started to source materials for making the project. I have found a handful of 3/4 copper tubes from an old plumbing project at a friends shop, and will start getting fittings, solder, and other tubing along with a cutter and blow torch this week.

I think I’ll pursue the approach of a blackburn pendulum,

This pendulum allows for some really cool tuning of each of it’s lengths to get different shapes. Info here. I think this should make a pretty cool machine, with an interesting aesthetic. I think I could make the upper pendulum out of copper tubing and use steel cable for the lower, so perhaps I can do something to swage, etc. this cable. I need to do more research on this.

Either way, this is a significant departure from my initial designs and layout, but I think it’ll make for a cool aesthetic and I’m excited to pursue the fabrication and the process!