"FAKIR" magician automaton by Thomas Kuntz

Another masterful magician automaton from Thomas Kuntz!

From the video description:

This video shows the presentation and some construction highlights of a magical automaton. This piece, an original sculpture by Thomas Kuntz portrays the exotic albeit "dead" Fakir, performing a peculiar cups and balls routine ending in regurgitation. The mechanism needed to be extremely precise to produce the desired result. It was constructed of solid brass the cams acting on levers were cut by hand... all other mechanical components were custom machined metal as well either brass or steel. To allow the operator the ultimate control over speed and stop/ starts there is NO electricity on this piece, all functions are purely mechanical, cams levers gears linkages and a very unusual bent pitch sound device also controlled by a cam that emits a sitar kind of sound over the hum of a ratchet/pawl assembly that also serves the purpose of protecting the machine if the operator turns the crank in the wrong direction. The case is custom made too from solid oak and the mechanism can be viewed from a door at the back.

See more magic automata by Thomas Kuntz on his web site.

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