One of the few books with automaton project plans. 14 automaton projects. A fun writing style, color photos, full-sized color plans.

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Product Description

These charming mechanical contraptions will captivate anyone who operates them—and creative woodworkers will find them fun to make. Take Grandad’s Night Out, for example. More than 6000 kids have wound up this wild and wonderful gadget with its handsomely dressed dancing figure on a box. The secret to these movable marvels: propellers and action-filled parts made from wood or metal.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #669400 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

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Customer Reviews

A Beautiful Book
This is the best of the mechanical/whirligig books I've run across. Beautiful color photographs and detailed illustrations of Frost's very strange toys including dancing lumberjacks, boxing angels and demons, machine-gunning whirligigs, and the wonderfully painted 'houses' that hold the hand-cranks that give life to these creatures. An excellent resource for toy and wood-working ideas.

The only book on making automata with actual plans
This book features fourteen projects. Each project has a bit of text, a photo, and many nice vector illustrations detailing the project's construction. The artist's work is colorful, assorted, and playful. People determined to build an automaton are sure to find a project in this book that speaks to them.

For a visually oriented person who doesn't need every step spelled out, this book is a gem. The drawings are very clear and complete and there is some text to help you through the tricky parts.

In sum, if you have even a little experience working with wood and would like to build automata, this book will be invaluable.

Re-released with New Title
His new (2007) book, "Making Mad Toys and Merchanical Marvels in Wood", is exactly the same, word for word. Either book is terrific, you just don't need to buy both.