Paper Bellows
One of the birds in the wetlands near where I live is the oyster catcher. A beautiful black and white wader with a distinctive long thin orange beak. It turns out its call is very similar to the single paper pipe project I made recently, the perfect opportunity for a paper automata project! My plan is that I’ll make an oyster catcher flap its wings via a scotch yoke mechanism and in the base of the box I can fit a set of bellows and a pipe for the distinctive oyster catcher call.
Previous bellows I have produced have tended to be five or six sides, for this project I’ve decided to use a rectangular bellows.
Here’s the layout I’m using, if you are a paid member of this newsletter you’ll be able to download the pdf for free at the end of this post. The dotted lines represent valley folds and the dashed lines are hill folds. Assembly instructions as follows…
After printing out the bellows onto paper, score along all the dotted and dashed lines then carefully cut out the shape. It is useful to fold the crease lines back and forth to exercise the folds
Start at one end, folding all the creases along one vertical line into place. Use the dotted and dashed lines to help with directions of folds.
With the first vertical done, move onto the next one and repeat the same process. You’ll need to open out the bellows a bit to get into the corner creases then fold it back down again.
Having completed that row, move on to the next and final set of creases.
Complete the bellows body by gluing the tabs into place.
The basic shape of the bellows is fairly easy to construct, especially if you a fluent with a drawing program such as Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator. The horizonal lines are all parallel and equally spaced and the zig-zag lines are at exactly forty five degrees. With a bit of effort you should be able to create bellows of a size and depth of your own choosing. I finished these off by adding a top and bottom plate. There is a small hole in the top plate through which air flows to the paper pipe from the paper whistle project.
Next step will be to link this all up with a bird automata!
You can follow progress on my Instagram Feed Here.
Find out more about this project and dozens and dozens more by becoming a member of my website www.robives.com