Simple Christmas Automata Ornament

Last year I wrote my first instructable, it was a simple Christmas ornament made with a CNC router: CNC Christmas Ornament

Now, almost with the same design, this instructable is about how to make a Christmas automata ornament. You can cut the pieces with a CNC router, a scroll saw or even with a small arc saw.

10mm plywood

4mm plywood

6mm Wood dowel

3mm bamboo sticks

White glue

Cyanoacrylate glue

1/8 straight plunge router bit

Depending on the tools you are going to use there are different files to use. For the CNC router there are two .dxf files, one to cut the big stars and box on a piece of 10mm plywood and a second one to cut the small stars, cams and crank on a piece of 4mm plywood.

If you go for the scroll saw or a small arc saw there are two PDF files that you can print to size and use as plans or you can also glue them directly to the plywood to use as a guide for the saw, later, just sand the paper out.

For the handmade version you will need five 10mm plywood discs, 80mm dia. 18 4mm plywood discs for the cams and followers, five small stars from 4mm plywood acording to the drawing. For the box 2 pieces 480 x 100mm 10mm plywood, 2 pieces 100 x 80mm 10mm plywood.

Cams are glued with a drop of cyanoacrylate to the 6mm wood dowel shaft, in the general arrangement drawing you can find the measures to the cams distances, remember that they need to be displaced 15mm to one side referred to the center of the stars and circles positions.

Cut five 60mm and four 160mm pieces from the 3mm bamboo sticks, these are for the pushing rods. Glue the followers to one end of the pushing rods, at the other end attach the 10mm plywood discs and the inner stars cut from these discs. A 3mm hole was drilled at the bottom of these discs and stars, don't glue them because the pushing rods goes through the top of the box. A short bamboo stick piece is glued to the hand crank.

Passing holes for the pushing rods are 3.5mm and 6.5mm for the camshaft.

A small hole is drilled at the top of the 10mm plywood discs and at the top of the 4mm small stars in order to hang it inside the discs with a piece of thread.

The hand crank version works very well, but as always I can't resist to add a motor. This motor was rescued from a ID card printer, also the timing pulley and belt. For me, this is not a permanent proyect, so, I kept the wood as it is. Of course you can paint all hte pieces or use some barnish or finishing oil. And that's it, you have a ne ornament/automata/toy.