Thread: 19th-Century Japanese Automaton Shoots Arrows

Simply fascinating video of a 19th Century Japanese Automaton.

Incredible craftsmanship - enjoy!

Wonderful! Thanks for sharing this!

Fascinating, Phrank. I must admit, I wouldn't mind taking a peak at your browser history.

Wow, thanks for passing that along.

Thanks for sharing Phrank, The craftsmanship is outstanding. That just make me think of how they did it without the use of modern tools. Just think of all the beautiful thing that was made in the past that was made without modern tools, that cannot be reproduced today, including our beautiful razor!!!!!

Marvelous!

The "pulley like a turban shell" that's mentioned at 6:30 is a fascinating bit of technology that was also used in clock and watch movements to regulate the torque generated by the mainspring. Older mainsprings caused the movement to run fast when fully wound, and slower as it unwound. So the solution was to connect the mainspring via an ingenious device called a fusee...the "turban shell" in the automaton.

Here's a diagram (from Wikipedia) that shows a basic fusee, and a photo (also from Wikipedia) of one in a Swedish watch movement dated to 1796:

Old watches are another of my weaknesses. This gold hunter cased, key wind/key set watch by James Murdock of London has a chain-driven fusee movement and has been estimated to be approximately 200 years old; it's one of my most prized possessions:

@ Dzanda

Yes, I love watches as well, automatic movement all the way, unless of course it's neat, like it sync's with the atomic clock and runs on sunlight!

On another note, notice how the Japanese figure pulls the bow away from the string to draw it, rather than pulling the string as western archers do...that also caught my attention from my old studies.

Originally Posted by Phrank

Yes, I love watches as well, automatic movement all the way, unless of course it's neat, like it sync's with the atomic clock and runs on sunlight!

Same here. My everyday driver is a Casio PAW1300. Love it. Barometer, compas, altimeter, atomic, solar. Like Russian mechanicals mostly.

awesome vids