jdervin
06-04-2008, 12:16 AM
For a play we staged last winter, the director asked the scene shop to make a working replica of Horace Goldin's "dismiddlement" device based on his 1923 patent. While this document included detailed drawings, none of them indicated the scale they were drawn in. As I began drafting the working drawings, I quickly became aware that this wasn't the simple box that it appeared to be. Don't be fooled by my photos of the finished product either. This thing took SEVEN sheets of birch ply (with almost no waste) and had a significant number of critical dados, rabbets, and other complications that required precision craftsmanship to keep from revealing the device's secrets. Since exporting the working drawings to .dxf files required little more than a mouse click or two, converting them to cutting files was a snap. For the record, the hidden, nesting trap doors had a 1/32" tolerance and were so close to air tight that we had to make a series of hidden breathing holes to keep the carbon dioxide build-up at a safe level for the "unseen" performer.
1612
1613
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Modern versions of the trick are more convincing, but we were trying to recreate one from 1923.
Additional photos can be seen at http://www.colby.edu/personal/j/jdervin/other/Dismiddlement.pps
1612
1613
1614
Modern versions of the trick are more convincing, but we were trying to recreate one from 1923.
Additional photos can be seen at http://www.colby.edu/personal/j/jdervin/other/Dismiddlement.pps