Aki-san, these are the first three prototypes, in a July 2010 photo. You didn't get yours until April 2011.
Nr.1 no longer exists and there were no photos if it. It wouldn't turn at all, and its parts were incorporated into Nr.2, which worked beautifully and showed me what was wrong with the previous one, which looked kind of like Nr.4. Nr.1 involved a lot of telescoping brass tube, which I had to use to get the input and output shafts on the same axis, and probably would have added more friction than the chains and sprockets eliminated.
But it wouldn't turn at all. My immediate inclination was to throw it against a wall, or maybe put in on the floor and drive back and forth over it. But my better self took over and instead, it was put up on a high shelf out of sight for 3 or 4 months.
When I decided to take it apart and make Nr.2 so I could analyze things, the fact that the shafts had no endplay and were all binding was immediately apparent. As a side benefit, it taught me that having the shafts on a common axis wasn't at all important. The counter was borrowed from my Gizmo Geezer winder.
Then I built Nr.3, of timber, because I like the feel of timber. All the wire was .047, and the bushings were Tefzel (like Teflon) wire insulation. It worked nicely, and still does. Nr.4 was probably what you might call the first legitimate prototype, although the overall dimensions and shaft spacing aren't the final ones. It also still works nicely.
All these are 1:20; the first 1:10 was ordered by Kang Lee and shipped in June 2011. The current instrument is 3.5 x 1.8 x 1.089 wide, plus the counter module. Weight is 91.6 grams. There are probably no two completely alike, as evolution continued.
art.
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Received on Tue Nov 03 2015 - 10:55:01 CET