In another thread I mentioned we should each give our methods of makeing the mechanism for a rod puppet.  I described a way I used to do it in the thread but Billy suggested that we start a new thread.  So here we go.  I'll duplicate what I posted on the other thread to get things started.

It has been many years since I made a rod puppet but when I was we used a mechanism that allowed you to move manipulate the head with your fingers at the base of the rod.

I really wish I would have saved some images of this mechanism.  A quick basics of it would be that it was a dowle rod with a round wooden ball glued to the top. A cord ran up through this ball up into a plug that was the diameter of the neck.  This created a ball joint of sorts that gave you full radial movement. A metal rod was hinged to the bottom of this plug and ran down to another plug (and hinged there) that had a hole in the center of it that allowed it to be threaded on to the dowel rod.  This let you trigger the upper part by moving this plug up, down and side to side. You then connected your head to the upper plug. Maybe when I get back home I can try to draw this up and perhaps swing by my old puppet company and get some images of the mechanism. I am pretty sure they still use the same method.

Here's a pretty basic idea for a trigger mouth for a polyfoam head.  I use a very dense piece of packing foam (almost like a plastic foam) that I put inside the back of the head.  I then hot glue the main rod into it.

I make sure the hinge of the mouth is pretty floppy (disregard the elastic around the muzzle--that was when it started as a hand puppet. 

I run and tie off a piece of elastic thru the "hard palate" of the mouth and into the tongue area of the lower jaw.  I then attach a string to the outside of the lower jaw that will run down the rod to the trigger.  I'm not sure how long the elastic will hold--I'm now experimenting with soft springs for this purpose.  In any case, I build the head so it's easy to partially open it up to do any necessary repairs.

I've discovered that the mouth cord can snag up inside a polyfoam body so I run the rod/string deal thru a plastic tube that can accomodate all of that and the screw eyes used to guide the string down the rod.  I then glue this inside the body securely.

End result:  moving mouth operated from below and a head that can turn side-to-side independent of the body...

oh, i also glue some fabric wherever the string hits the foam so it doesn't erode the foam..you can see the bit of brown fabric in the pic

Here is a youtube video I found online showing something similar

wow, how cool is that?  in that video, he has a rod mech that is removable and the puppet reverts back to hand puppet--I've never thought of that!  lol

The is a picture of a rod control I made to opperate the mouth of a puppet I built where I could get my hand into the body but not into the head.

The bulk of the mechanism is made out of 1/2 inch pvc tubing. The spring is a section I cut from a old fashion screen door spring. This spring is secured by forcing it into the top of the pvc tubing. The bottom jaw is made out of a wood dowel whittled down so that it would fit snugly into the spring. The trigger is made from a 1 inch dowel. I drilled a 3/4 inch hole through the dowel and then carved the dowel down to prevent finger pinching and cut a grove to prevent pressure points on the fingers. 14 gauge wire secures the trigger to the bottom jaw.

The Mechanism works very well.  It's very durable and is invisible when installed.  They only down side is that it must be built to fit the hand of the person using it.

Maybe,the best resource for rod puppets' mechanisms are those books from Hansjürgen Fettig. Unfortunately, they are difficult to find and quite expensive! Even, it is quite difficult to find images of his creations in the web.

An idea of what he did:

by the way,  there were an attempt to get the publisher to reedit these books what happened at last?

oh yeah, the Fettig controls ...those were some elegant mechs, eh?...i've got some copies around here from his book, I'll have to hunt em down..

I came across this little vid on youtube that is quite similar to the little mech that jon talks about, i personally would never have a use for it in its current form, but i thought that it was worthy of note and quite interesting as a simple mouth mech!!



ill probably get curious and try it out sometime anyway.
Ben.

I have made a control similar to that for a different small puppet I made.  The  challenge I have found is making one that is durable.  Make sure you stress test your control before putting it into a puppet.  The last thing you want is to have a spring or wire break and have to wrestle the control out of the puppet so that you can repair it.

My thought on whether or not to use a rod control is this.  If you can avoid it, avoid it.  The movement of the puppet is more natural with a hand than it is with a rod.  But if the puppet is too small of too big to be worked by a hand you have to go mechanical.