I'm trying to put together a kind-of-complicted rod mechanism for a puppet I'm making, but being a total beginner to this kind of stuff, I need all the help I can get.

The mechanism I'm trying to make is more or less the one seen here:

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https://youtu.be/Vduh9ImrCVU

Something with a moving neck and a moving beak like that. I actually managed to contact the person that built that actual mechanism through his webste and he told me how to make the neck:

"Create two disks with the joints equally spaced apart in a triangle...connect 3 rods to the universal joints making sure the disks are perfectly spaced apart. Whatever movements you make with one disk will carry to the other."

He suggested the joints I should use, but not the rods, so I don't know what to get. And unfortunately I forgot to mention the puppet would need a moving mouth too. I tried a follow-up e-mail but he hasn't replied in a long time so I've given up just waiting and doing nothing (same with other pro puppet builders). He told be to google the term "triple-rodder mechanism" but every time I search it I get fishing rods, muppet puppets or little kid craft projects, and I can't find books so...this is really my resource.

This is my first puppet with a mechanism like this, so I was wondering if anyone here could walk me through this or give me a diagram (I've only ever worked from patterns in the past so it could help), or even just suggestions. I'm also wondering how to cover the mechanism so the puppet is full to the touch and has the right head shape, so it looks kind of a lot. I can give drawings or anything if anyone needs them.

I know that was a lot, but thanks a TON in advance to anyone that can help me at all!  

This looks like something from one of the Fetteg books. I think the rods would be determined by the size of the puppet. In the video the neck of the bird is narrow and thus very thin rods, probably piano wire, while Fetteg uses a type of plastic plumbing tube with his people puppets.

I think maybe you had the search term wrong.   Try Google Search: "triple-rocker mechanism".  Now the results you get from that will not be specific to puppetry but the concept itself. Unlike with a hand in mouth puppet it can be difficult to give a pattern for something like this. You need to kind of get a basic working knowledge of things in order to implement something like this. 

You do have some resources though. Hansjürgen Fettig books as cruppetman mentioned is one resource but they are very hard to find now and expensive since they are out of print. Here is a link to a Youtube video that might be helpful. I can't embed it sorry the owner does not allow embedding.

I would say our other best resource is going to be a hobby store that caters to train and airplane model builders. These stores have a multitude of bits and pieces that can be used in automating a puppet because they are used in the radio control planes and cars.  Some the same techniques used to control wheels on cars and flaps on airplanes can be used to move your puppet. The beauty of finding a hobby store in your area like this is that more then likely there is going to be one or two folks in the store willing to talk to you and help. In fact you may even get them excited enough in what you are doing to join in the project some.

Since you are in the USA, there is a national library system which allows you to borrow books from any library in the country. I live in Florida and borrowed the second Fettig book from a library in the state of Washington. Check at your local library and ask about the service. The book came to my local library and I just returned it there and they took care of shipping back to Washington. It allowed me to read the new sections and take notes, then decide if the book would be valuable enough for my purposes to attempt to locate and purchase a very expensive out of print copy. I decided not.

Thanks so far! I'm making a pigeon like the video, so I could try the piano wire idea.

I've seen that video before and did try looking for the book, but yeah, the only copies online cost hundreds. There is an older library in town that could have it, and though I've never heard of ordering from the library like cruppetman said, I can look into that this week.

I'll try to see if there's any of those in the area, though living in Reno I'm not sure how difficult it'll be (either easy because of the amount of people here that like to build, or really hard because there's a notable lack of specialized stores outside of hunting stuff unfortunately). I'll look into it soon though!

I'll post here again if I actually manage to find some help or if there isn't any at all. I was hoping this site could also have some people (or link me somewhere) I could talk to since I've seen some pretty complicated marionettes and stuff in the gallery. Because I've been kind of unsuccessful finding stuff in the city, I've mostly been looking to the internet for quicker help. I know it's probably unrealistic to just want to jump into something like this, but I was hoping to try a simple-ish version myself.

It looks like you may have at least two shops in your area.
CKRC Crawlers
1110 S WELLS AVE
RENO, NV 89502
ph: 775-786-7733

HC&M Hobbies
1231 BARING BLVD.
SPARKS, NV 89
ph: 775-355-7744

Awesome, I have been imagining this mechanism for a while for a project, great to see I was on the right track!
In the meantime, thank you for introducing me to Mongrels! I can't believe I haven't seen it before! Very adult but boy, very funny! Thank you
Scoob

Oh, I wow, thanks Shawn! I didn't expect that I'll try them out this week! I don't think that first one is too far away at all

And great, Scubasteve! I'm glad I was actually of some help by asking this. And you're more than welcome, it's a pretty good show. I'm not a huge fan for some reasons, but there are a lot of things I enjoy about it, and the puppetry is really impressive.   

I have made mechanisms like this before and it can be pretty annoying trying to find resources and info to help, but you have to remember that someone invented this to start off with so why couldn't WE invent a new sort of mechanism?? you may stumble across something amazing!! but saying that (reiterating what Shawn and others have said) hansjurgen fettig is a great person to research on and there are some great vids on youtube of fettig style mechs, just have a little search and you'll see what i mean, there are a few with very similar mechs to the 'triple rocker' mech.
hope you are still having fun and keep us updated on the pigeon!!
Ben.

Bizzo, I wonder if Mongrels is a particularly British sense of humour, I'm a first generation Australian of English parents and it makes me laugh out loud, I watched you tube for about an hour and a half, most of the clips are only a few minutes long so I saw lots of different skits.
I can see that it's not for everyone though but I loved it!