Creative Kinetics: Making Mechanical Marvels in Wood

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 144 pages
• Published by: Sterling April 1, 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1402732236
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1402732232
• Book Dimensions: 9.9 x 8.4 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 1 pounds

Product Description
Artist, inventor, and longtime author Rodney Frost is known for wacky, whimsical woodworking books that encourage readers to experiment. With his newest, most creative volume yet, he provides an introduction to the wild and whimsical world of kinetic art—art that moves. Using plenty of informative sidebars and dynamic illustrations, Frost teaches the basic techniques in his own inimitable style, beginning with easy, fun projects like weather vanes and mobiles powered by air currents alone. Then it’s on to simple toys you manipulate with strings, and art mechanized by levers, cranks, cams, and cogs. Far from a routine woodworking book, Creative Kinetics will inspire even the least craft-minded reader to pick up some scissors and turn a tuna can into a propeller or cardboard into a jumping-jack.

Reader Reviews
The cover is misleading. It shows an interesting artwork but the text is trivial in ideas. The approach is to consider a mechanical linkage, cam, crank etc., and then give detailed instructions on making boring and trivial example. The frustrating aspect is that photographs of interesting but complex pieces are scattered through the book. I expect that he author felt that explaining the basic mechanisms was the major point. What is omitted is combining multiple mechanisms and creating something other than a simple toy for a six year old. The result is an unbridged gap between the art that is occasionally illustrated and the bulk of the text. The first 71 pages could have been covered in fewer than seven pages with no loss. The first interesting photographs are on pages 72 and 73. This construct looks as if it utilizes at least half dozen mechanisms. I am sure that there are a number of interesting problems in the design and construction of this item. What would have been interesting would be details of the working parts with some discussion of the choices and problems. The object is not to suggest that the reader would duplicate this artwork but to give the reader some idea of the decisions, issues and problems in a real complex construction. As an example, This construct uses three pulleys at the base. Pulleys are finally discussed on pages 112-115. Is the third pulley a driven pulley, an idler, called a rider by the author, or both? The photograph raises dozens of interesting questions but the answers are not in this book. What you will find is that the great majority of the book is construction details on projects that almost no one would want to build and very little help on real projects.