I finally finished my first cable puppet - actually my first puppet of any kind! Although his neck ended up too long, I'm pretty pleased with him. I've started on another one with some alterations to the pattern, and I'm hoping to make it easier to turn the head.

Video

Info on what he's made of is in the description of this pic on DA.

I like !!!!!!!! Great job

Billy D.

How cool!

that is fantastic! not sure I understand how the head turns. push or pull I get nods up and down. does twist get you your head turn? wish you would have done a video unskinned to see the movement. looks really nice! Thanks for sharing!

*facepalm* I didn't even think of shooting video of it unskinned! I'll do that with the one I'm working on now. But yes, twisting the cable makes the head turn. In my gallery here and on DA there's a photo of the head unskinned. Basically, the head is clay and the end of the cable is stuck to the back of that. Pulling the cable makes the head tilt up, pushing it in makes the head go down, and twisting makes it turn. That means the control is the inverse of at least some of the other cable puppets out there, such as Drabbits and Woodbabies. The reason I anchored the cable in the back is because I wanted a defined jawline, which would have been difficult to make with the cable at the "throat." The only detailed info on cable puppets I've seen is the patent documents made by Albert Alfaro, and in the diagram it shows the cable anchored at the front, and the joint is a strip of felt. I tried something akin to that first, but for my designs it didn't work that well. The ball joint - which I will point out again was not my idea, I learned it from Shawn's video here - does exactly what I want. The only mechanical thing I'm still working on is transferring twist through the cable. Like I've said elsewhere, I think the brand of cable may be the problem. Tomorrow I'm planning to go to the hobby store again, and ask if they can special order the Sullivan push rod, or start stocking them since I'm willing to buy them. I really don't want to have to order them online, since the push rod costs about $6, and shipping would make it around $12.

Thanks for the comments and the advice, everyone.

Great work, looks very cool!

will thanks to you I will have to try this now  should prove interesting. can't wait to see your new one!

Maya;

That is amazing!  I'm so fascinated with this!

Today I took Noodle, as I've dubbed him, with me to the hobby store. As soon as I walked in, an employee I had talked to a few weeks ago said "Hey, it's the puppet lady!" He, a couple of random customers, and even the manager were very interested in him, and were especially happy that I had used materials from their store. It was a lot of fun to get to show off my work. I haven't gotten to do that in a while. They also agreed to order some Sullivan pushrods for me, so I think I'll wait until they come in to do that part of my next puppet. The manager did say that Sullivan pushrods are higher quality, and since you wouldn't want a pushrod to unravel in an airplane I would expect higher quality ones to be more tightly woven. Hopefully the new pushrods will make better puppets.

My next puppet is going to be the same basic pattern, essentially a final version of this prototype. I do plan to try different designs in the future, though.

I build and fly RC planes. They indeed are a better push rod in terms of response. Cable can sometime be sloppy. I look forward to seeing the new build. I have a few ideas of my own on the mechanics. Now if I can somehow find more hours in a day I may actually build something