Saturday, September 13, 2014

3rd page wheat field with grasshoppers trials that weren't used, grasshopper pop-up card

This is the back of the card.  Card closed. The arm on the bottom protrudes from the front. On the inside, the arm is attached to the opposite side of the card. The arm is attached on a hinge exactly 1/2 inch from the central fold. When the card is closed the arm is shoved 1/2 inch away from the central fold, but when the card is opened the hinge travels in an arc above the central fold and over to the other side to rest exactly 1/2 " on the opposite side of the central fold from where it started when closed, so the arm travels exactly 1". A guy can do a lot with that kind of movement. The problem here is the movement is in the wrong direction. The movement must be reversed. I tried several additional mechanisms, not all of them are shown here. I tried elbows, C bars, and S bars. They all worked to varying degrees, but they were all a big mess. 
Different sun face, different sun-raising mechanism, different three-layer table. different wheat, different grasshoppers. 
I still have this page ↑. It works fine, but it's way too inelegant. The middle layer has cut out portions just like the tabletop but the background is virtually obscured because the slots in both layers must align in order to see what's going on back there. It wasn't until I was completely done that I realized the middle layer must be partial and that even a partial layer will suggest a dense field, since the background must be viewed through slots. It's like a visual trick. 

This works but it's ridiculous ↓. The mechanism is a neat-o idea that shoves the sun upward with just a bit of an arc which could be eliminated with an additional joint, but the force-transfer from rod to rod to rod is too much for paper.  The sun does move up and down when the card is opened and closed, but the mechanism must be protected in its own hollow shell. One wrong move and a fix is inaccessible. I hated giving up on this idea but I needed something much more simple. 
Card closed ↓. This is the back of the card. The mechanism in the down position. The sun that would be attached to the vertical post on the other side of the card is also in the down position. 
Front of the card. This shows the horizontal rod ↓ that is forced by the card opening and closing. The rod (or post) is shoved to the right through a slot to the back of the card.  Then the hinge will rest on the right side of the central fold, a movement of 1". The mechanism is attached to the rod in the back, the movement is transferred from horizontal to vertical. The vertical rod shoves up and pulls down by the opening and closing of the card. A sun is attached to the vertical rod. The mechanism is hidden by a complete backing glued around the edges. The portions of the mechanism on the front, shown below, are hidden by content, so it's all a big mystery how the sun goes up and down because nothing shows. Too bad it's dadgum overly complicated. 

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