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Building a Reproduction Moog Melodia Theremin

Posted on by by Posted in DIY, Electronics, Odd, Odd, Strange, & Curious, Restorations, Strange, Theremins, Vintage

My completed reproduction of a 1960s-era Moog Melodia. Glamour shot by Becky Hart.

This model lacks the traditional volume loop antenna on the left side, instead using a plate of metal on the end of the cabinet (not visible here).

Why Build a Circa 1965 Theremin?

I don’t know why I became fascinated with the Moog Melodia enough to want to build a reproduction.  The physical appearance is very basic, and it has no timbre control, so you’re stuck with a single voice.  Part of the motivation for the project is that I enjoy doing restorations and have a great appreciation for the craftsmanship of antique and vintage items.  I also enjoy building from scratch, especially if the project has a nice mix of woodwork, metalwork, and electronics. With the Moog Melodia I get all of these.  I had no expectation going in that this was going to be a great theremin, but in the end it turned out to be better than expected, and it was fun to try to build something different.

I think the fact that the Melodia is well-documented helped to keep the scope of the project down to something that I was willing to do alongside other projects that are also competing for time.… Read the rest


A Homemade Progressive/Universal RF Coil Winder

Posted on by by Posted in DIY, Electronics, Odd, Strange, & Curious, Theremins, Tools & Machinery, Vintage

The mostly-completed progressive/universal coil winder. The universal portion is my adaptation of Morris Coilmaster design with some added features. The progressive feature is new. All parts were designed in Fusion360 with the exception of the very nice 3-jaw chucks posted by user “mdkendall” on Thingiverse.com (link in text below).

A few years ago I became fascinated (obsessed) with theremins to the point that I’ve ignored maintenance of this website and I’m pretty sure I can’t even play guitar anymore.  The theremin is a miserably difficult instrument to play, but in the early morning hours when no one else can hear me I find a deep satisfaction in playing a musical instrument that almost seems to be connected directly to my brain.  If you can think of a melody you can play it (how well you can play it is another matter).

It’s strange that I resisted the theremin for so long in my younger years.  It is a natural fit in that it is an electronic instrument that uses radio frequencies and oscillators and filters, all stuff that I’ve been into since my pre-teen years.  The theremin story is for another time, though.  This project, a coil winder that allows one to make high-frequency coils with winding patterns that are impossible to do by hand, is actually a side task for a theremin construction project that I’ve managed to stretch out for over a year now. … Read the rest


The Mechanical Salesman Automaton

Posted on by by Posted in Automata & Kinetic Art, Vintage

Quote from the YouTube information:

“A rare 1920s automaton built by the Character Display Company in Chicago Illinois. Stored away and forgotten for about 60 years, this Mechanical Salesman is in amazing condition, still works like new and has his original shipping/storage case. Written & Narrated by Kurt Reichenbach.”

This well-produced video showcases a highly animated display that has some similarities to the Issasse coffee-drinking automatons shown in the previous post. The eyes and eyebrows are very active, and the mouth moves with a flexible and seamless joint.  And like Issasse, the mechanism appears to have seven independent motions for the various features, head, and arms.  It is animated by six cams (with one of the end cams side-pinned to serve double duty), all driven by a worm gear speed reducer.  The motions include left arm, right arm, head tilt, head pan, eyebrows, eyes, and mouth.

The manufacturer was the Character Display Co., 3249 Lakewood Avenue, Chicago 13, Illinois.

Here is what appears to be a similar display outfitted a little differently and ringing a bell instead of waving a stick:

… Read the rest

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Revisiting Kilroys in Minneapolis

Posted on by by Posted in Automata & Kinetic Art, Coin-Op Machines, Restorations, Vintage

Vintage Games, Advertising, Strange Wonders, and Peculiar Oddities

In the process of updating this video that I made in 2010 with new Kilroys website and contact information I realized that I had lost all of the original raw video clips during my last computer build, and all that exists now is the low bit-rate rendered SD version that you see here.

This made me start thinking about shooting an updated video in HD – which got me thinking about all of the fantastic items that have appeared at and disappeared from Kilroys over the years – which got me looking through old photos, and finally, which brought me here… to show some of those pictures.

Kilroys is an establishment owned by Kevin Hammerbeck and located in the slowly-disappearing Minneapolis warehouse district.  I call it an establishment because in a way it is a little difficult to categorize. Just a few days ago I called Kevin to ask what words I should add to the video title to make it more descriptive – Kilroys what in Minneapolis?  After some silence we started laughing – even after nearly 40 years in the business he was at temporary loss for that single short phrase that would fully describe what Kilroys is and what he does.… Read the rest

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“Instructograph” Morse Code Training Device

Posted on by by Posted in DIY, Restorations, Vintage
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Instructograph in Operation With A Railroad Telegraph Sounder

A Little History

The Instructograph is an early electromechanical playback device used for learning Continental or American Morse code. Several different models were manufactured by the Chicago-based Instructograph Co. from the 1920s all the way into the 1980s. Learning to receive code is generally a more difficult task than learning to send, and this portable device would allow the student to practice code recognition without the aid of an instructor or fellow student.

Tape Perforations Can be Seen Where Tape Loops Around Post

Tape Perforations Can be Seen Where Tape Loops Around Post

Reels of oil-impregnated paper tape perforated with dots and dashes were used to actuate a set of electrical contacts that would in turn operate an external railroad-type sounder, a buzzer or oscillator (for tone), or a light for optical communication. The earliest versions of the Instructograph used a wind-up phonograph motor with a variable speed governor to power the rotation of the tape reels.

Other than the mechanical motor, the only other elements in the device consisted of a set of contacts, a battery, and a rheostat to control the current to the sounder or buzzer.

Later versions used a variable speed electric motor for the tape drive, and some actually included an on-board electronic oscillator that would produce an adjustable audio tone.… Read the rest

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Building a Working “Zoltar Speaks” Fortune Teller

Posted on by by Posted in Automata & Kinetic Art, Coin-Op Machines, DIY, Movies, Sculpture, Molds, & Casting, Vintage

Full-Size Replica of the Fortune Teller in the Film BIG (1988)

Sometime in the late 1970s I became fascinated with researching and collecting antique game machines, candy vending machines, and other amusement devices. My interests were at first focused on those machines that I vaguely remembered from rare visits to a penny arcade as a youth in the ’60s, and even then I was drawn to the artistic design and mechanics of the earlier designs with their art deco lines or ornate castings and wood cabinets. It wasn’t until I started locating information and pictures of these early amusement devices that I became more consciously aware that I had personally encountered many of them at fairs, in drug and dime stores, and in the local movie theater lobby.

Even in the ’60s, the penny arcade that traveled with the amusement show for the annual county fair was loaded with machines that dated back into the early ’30s, and possibly even earlier. By the time I developed the bug to start seeking out and collecting items from this era the market for coin-operated collectibles was hot and getting hotter, due in part to west-coast publications and shows that were fueling speculation and driving prices upward.… Read the rest

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Animated Semaphore Stop Light

Posted on by by Posted in DIY, Sculpture, Molds, & Casting, Vintage

Working Semaphore Stop Light – 5 1/2 Feet Tall

This early metal casting project is the unfortunate result of an urgent need to build something out of poured metal without first doing the proper research into what I was making. Over the years I have managed to find a few images of real semaphore lights, and what I imagined they looked like was not really close to what I built. Anyway, it is what it is, and at least I can say that it is unique.

Out of fairness, this was made more than thirty years ago, shortly after I had caught a passing glimpse of a real one in a street scene of Spielberg’s “1941”. At this time there was no web, no Google images, and VCRs and laserdiscs were just starting to become available, so even the ability to replay a movie scene on your own tape or disk was yet to come. Even at antique shows that I frequented, such as the Chicagoland slot machine & antique advertising shows, I never saw any other than the common three-color stop lights in all the years I attended. Semaphore signals had to have been there at some time, but not when I visited.… Read the rest

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