So at the conclusion of this project there are many things that come to mind:-
The
maker culture falls into different categories. By categories I am speaking not
so much about the actual ‘products’ that are created or produced, as the
demographics. There has always been a maker culture, but the last 40 – 50 years
has seen a significant decline, I will venture to suggest, as the consumer
culture grew and became more invasive in our society, many more things were made
commercially to entertain (distract) us and for us to buy and use. With the economic meltdown since 2008 there
has been a remarkable surge in the maker
culture due in part to people having to look to other ways to make (no pun
intended) a living, and in part to the incredible advances in computers,
software and the manufacturing equipment associated with this.
I
have always considered myself as a maker but this has had high and low points
through my life. In younger years I was always interested and active in making
things; things that required research, technical understanding and construction
(a particular point in high school). School shop projects, model railways,
aircraft, boats and of course painting and drawing, were all in the spectrum.
Working life resulted in a decline primarily to time availability but this came
back to some degree when my own children became part of my life, only to
decline again as they grew older, entered the workforce and indeed appear to go
through the same cycle. The only difference, fundamental difference, is that
they are children of the Electronic Age and firmly part of that demographic.
Of
later years, I have become more active in the maker culture and this particular
project has brought me back closer to that, re-kindling an interest. With my
generation and the following one (baby boomers I believe) we have the time to
revisit this and even revive some of the older crafts. The generation subsequent
to this are finding themselves displaced before they are ready or willing to
retire and caught between the old and new (digital) manufacturing technologies.
They are however finding new ways to make a living, drawing from their life experiences
and the extremely user friendly new technologies. The younger generations who
have grown up with this new technology have found new ways to be
entrepreneurial with it and create a new industrial/consumer age albeit on
smaller individual scales and in concert with the new technology.
The
opportunity to make this object, a pantograph, really stimulated my interest.
The origins of the instrument, of which I was unaware, went back 400 hundred
years and the inventor was an accomplished individual. Christopho Scheiner
could be paralleled to da Vinci
judging from his CV which has been compiled by Richard S. Westfall for the Galileo
project. Scheiner invented the pantograph in 1604 and details of his invention
were published in 1631 in a pamphlet entitled Pantographice seu ars delineandi. The isometric drawing of Scheiner’s pantograph
is part of the publication and while there are many images of this instrument
online today, the original drawing provided the design that I chose to work to.
What was of immediate interest was the access to original documents/design that
was five centuries old and this was possible through the Web; Chris Anderson states
in his book Makers:
The New Industrial Revolution “The
past ten years have been about discovering new ways to create, invent, and work
together on the Web” (32). I have no idea how I would found so much
information, original sources, so quickly and relatively easily, without the
Web. While in the past information was recorded but not necessarily readily available
in an accessible fashion, the Web has certainly changed this in reality for the
better. There have been times in the past where information or knowledge was
restricted, controlled and while that can still be an issue today, the Web and
the Internet have broken down barriers and disseminated infinitely greater
amounts of information and knowledge to far wider audiences than ever before.
Aldus I am sure would be happy to see this today; as he said in 1496 “My only
consolation is the assurance that my labors are helpful to all, and that the
fame and use of my books increase from day to day, so that even the ‘book
buriers’ are now bringing their books out of their cellars and offering them
for sale” (Barolini, H. 30)
With a re interpretation of the drawing I was able
to produce a technical drawing that allowed me to seek out present day
materials that would permit me to reproduce Scheiner’s instrument as close to
original as possible. During the process of material selection at the local
hardware store I found that dimensions of the arms would be difficult to handle
in the manufacture and risk distortion in the final object, so I selected a different
size of material to overcome this issue. The basic process of manufacture was
relatively straight forward; the measuring, cutting and drilling tools that I
have available were quite adequate for the tasks however despite careful
application I did encounter some control and accuracy issues. On reflection a
mitre box and better clamping tools would have been an asset and actually
access to a drill press would have permitted greater control over that process.
In addition, more control over the manufacturing process would have been
possible if I had used a harder wood; the wood that I selected was softer and
this caused more drift in the cutting and drilling process.
All
in all however, I have achieved the construction of a working Pantograph based
on Chistopho Schnieder’s original design using readily available modern day
materials reapplied to a 17th century design which in turn was
available through the internet. An interesting and informative exercise that
has afforded me an opportunity to research and make an object that I otherwise
would have not have pursued; these days I normally use digital photography,
projection and Google Sketchup, coincidentally all part of the digital world
that we now inhabit.
