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Description
This is my new head mechanism for my cable puppets. It's kind of hard to see, but what I did was make three disks from Apoxie Sculpt, with holes through them and a flatish side. There's a wire going through them, and two of them are glued to the head with JB Weld. They're glued to the wire too, since they don't need to move. The middle disk rotates freely, and has the cable JB Welded to a small hole in it. I covered the side disks and an exposed bit of the paper mache joint with Apoxie Sculpt to help protect it from moisture and reinforce the glue. (JB Weld is much stronger than paper mache) The blue bit of fabric over the top is a piece of felt hot glued to the outer disks to hold them in place while the JB Weld cured. It doesn't get in the way of anything and it would have been too much trouble to remove so I just left it.

This mechanism provides the necessary joint at the cable connection to allow maximum up and down movement, but the rigid nature of the Apoxie Sculpt prevents the parts from flexing when the cable twists, so you still get good side to side motion. Next time I think I'll use a little metal rod from a spring clip in place of the wire, so there's no risk of the wire bending and messing up the mechanism.

This particular puppet is a prototype Rope Snake.

Description
This is my new head mechanism for my cable puppets. It's kind of hard to see, but what I did was make three disks from Apoxie Sculpt, with holes through them and a flatish side. There's a wire going through them, and two of them are glued to the head with JB Weld. They're glued to the wire too, since they don't need to move. The middle disk rotates freely, and has the cable JB Welded to a small hole in it. I covered the side disks and an exposed bit of the paper mache joint with Apoxie Sculpt to help protect it from moisture and reinforce the glue. (JB Weld is much stronger than paper mache) The blue bit of fabric over the top is a piece of felt hot glued to the outer disks to hold them in place while the JB Weld cured. It doesn't get in the way of anything and it would have been too much trouble to remove so I just left it.

This mechanism provides the necessary joint at the cable connection to allow maximum up and down movement, but the rigid nature of the Apoxie Sculpt prevents the parts from flexing when the cable twists, so you still get good side to side motion. Next time I think I'll use a little metal rod from a spring clip in place of the wire, so there's no risk of the wire bending and messing up the mechanism.

This particular puppet is a prototype Rope Snake.