THe subject of moving eyes came up eleswhere so I thought it might not be premature to post the design I've been working on.  I am however clueless as to what to do for the "hard shell eyelids"  Shawn?

The eyelid axlis and control are not shown here




The two arms that connect to the eye rod clevises are held in position by the angled black spring wire.  Pushing in on the middle joint cause the eyes to cross.  Moving it left and right moves the eye right and left.  Moving it up and down moves the eyes down and up.

Nice design................. Thank you so much for sharing............ This may help all of us out.

Billy D.

Wow! ... and you are asking me about the eyelids.  That is one impressive design Louis.

Ok I guess you are trying to figure out what material to use for the eyelids, is that correct?  From your drawings you seem to have the mechanism for them worked out. I assume your eye is wood and that you have either found a prefab wood ball or you are going to create one on a lath. If the wood ball is just a bit smaller then a ping pong ball then perhaps you could cut up a ping pong to use as the shell for the eye lid. You could also make the "eye lid" a wire frame instead of a shell that you attach fabric to as the "eye lid".  Not sure if that last sentence is going to make sense to you or not.  Maybe this helps:

Louis,  You design for a moving eye mechanism has got to be the simplest I have seen when it comes to design and function.  I'm thinking it will need some fine tuning to make it work in tandem with the eyelid mechanism but for the design stage it looks like you've thought of just about everything.

Thanks Shawn, yes I had read that thread.  I really liked the look of the eyelids in the movie Strings so that's what I'm hoping to achieve.  And I also hope the eyes will be off the shelf round acrylic eyes if I can find some large enough.

Louis,  You design for a moving eye mechanism has got to be the simplest I have seen when it comes to design and function.  I'm thinking it will need some fine tuning to make it work in tandem with the eyelid mechanism but for the design stage it looks like you've thought of just about everything.

As I conceive it the eyelids will operate entirely independent of the eyeballs. But yes alignment to prevent the eyelids from rubbing on the eyes is going to be tricky.  Some other thoughts:

The back side of the eye plate will need to be smooth and the side of the slip washer that presses on it covered with low friction plastic.

The eye spring will need to be somewhat stiff to keep the eyeball centered and from slipping out of the socket in the eye plate.

The beveled rims of the eyesocket holes in the eyesocket plate will need to let the eyeball seat deeper than shown in the drawings--and be lined with piano felt. (thin high qulity felt)

And I have no idea if this will actually work LOL

great diagram, it really breaks it down! i think i get it ...