sausage machine

[gilbert]

can anyone let me have the plans for a sausage machine and how to work the routine. Professor Gilbert fro Derbyshire :

[CvdC]

I have actually been considering this myself.
I have some video of the routine and will try to put it online.
The design here is made of 6mm or 9mm ply.
The sides are cut with a slot that fits onto the stage. This will help keep it steady while it is being turned.
The funnel at the top could be square or round. I expect to find something that can be adapted to this purpose. Perhaps some cheap aluminium kitchen implement?

The handle should be decorative. I think the visual effect of it as an over the top gadget should be considered. Here is a good example:
http://www.properpunch.co.uk/pictures/p ... pic19.html

So taking this simple basic design I would consider adding decorative edging or whatever.
The handle would need to be clear of the stage and easy to turn.
Black cloth can be attached to the open back to hide hands and puppets coming down if necessary. I had considered making it come deeper into the booth so the hands could come in through the bottom but I think this would make it too cumbersome.
The sausages that come out are usually in the colour of the puppets that go in. The baby white and the constable blue or checked. Martin Bridle has a thief in stripes go through. I thought once you had established this pattern you could vary the gag by having green ones. A puppet could go in and when the sausages come out green the comment could be "Must be a vegetarian." Chris once suggested you could toss in socks and spotted underwear and they could come out as on a clothes line.
You could lift the puppet up out of the funnel and have the sausages go back in. It would require coordinating Punch lifting the puppet up and the other hand pulling the sausages back in. This would look funny and help make the routine more absurd and less gruesome.
I found that most shows that use the sausage machine it tends to dominate the structure of the show. So it would be a good thing to do if you are doing shows in the one location throughout the day.




and below is the round version.

This could be made with large cardboard tube onto which carpet is wound. This is usually thick and of a suitable diameter. The top of the funnel can be flared by cutting slits and inserting V shapes pieces of same cardboard. The front could be a circle of MDF. It could then be painted with metallic paint.

[CvdC]

I managed to produce this using a large cardboard tube.
I have yet to test it in performance.
The funnel at the top was made differently from the plans above in that wedges were cut out to narrow the diameter to fit into the body of the machine.

[Chris]

That looks pretty impressive, and a design which could either be used side on, or with sausage tube facing the audience.

The carpet roll cores which Chris suggests are certainly useful, if a trifle heavy. I have used dozens over the years and they make splendid pillars on the marionette stage. This card is very thick and you will find it easier to cut to length with a saw rather than a craft knife.

And it is quite possible to construct your own card tubes. It is not particularly difficult if you remember to work with the grain of the cardboard (cardboard does have a distinct grain) and to ease and persuade the card into a curve rather than bending it. I use a heavy rolling pin (for pastry) on the inside of the tube to seal the two glued edges together.

As an alternative to cardboard tubes consider using PVC tubing readily available in D.I.Y. superstores, sold for plumbing, drainpipes, downspouts etc. This can be found in square and round section, in straight and elbow sections, and with a variety of fittings like endstops and retaining brackets. Eric Sharp, famous for his folding frame easyup Punch booths, advocates this piping for a variety of magician's apparatus construction.

Also you can use tin cans of various sizes - fruit cans, oil cans etc. although you will need to get a tin opener of the kind which neatly remove the ends without leaving a sharp or jagged edge.

If using metal but find your soldering skills are limited you can nowadays get an equally strong bond, metal to metal, with a variety of epoxy adhesives. Some, like Araldite, are viscous enough when mixed to also act as a filler of small gaps (like solder) or don't forget the epoxy putties which can be moulded to shape but are also strongly adhesive.

[johnstoate]

On the subject of the thick cardboard roll-form tube, you can (To some extent) soak it, and then mould it after the papier-mache principle. With a little practice this will allow the funnel on top of the machine to be made from the same tubing, and when fully dry will become virtually a one-piece moulding.
_ Just as a hindsight.- If you use the pvc tube as suggested by Chris(S) You should also get the special cement supplied to seal joints in it. This stuff actually melts the edges of the joint together, and then sets to form a permanent seal, resulting in a one-piece (Welded) unit!