Miniature Orrery (fancy name for solar system model - PICS)

[steelhips]

I had to share my latest build.  I've been wanting to make this for years so when I found the little round brass draw handle in a surplus shop I thought it would make a great Sun.  The rest just fell into place.  As you can see from the one inch rule, it is tiny.  I'd also ordered some vintage brass pill boxes from one of my regular suppliers that polished up well.  The most difficult part of the build was drilling 8 straight and level holes into the wood disk hiding under the Sun.

It's not really an orrery - it doesn't move at all but I hope the gears and watch winders allude to the posibility of movement.

[polyphemus]

That is a beautiful piece of work. I once made a non working orrery but it was nowhere near as good.

[Steamworkshop]

Beautiful. I love the tiny size. Without the rule it looks like it's huge.
I'm always amazed by all the tiny details in your work. I keep having to come back to them to take it all in.

[Ezra Hogbin]

That is a truly wondrous piece of work. I've wanted to make an orrery for years but wuldn't know where to start with obtaining the correct gearings. I hadn't thought of a none working one. I might have to give that a go myself.

[jringling]

On topic: Very nice work! The gears do give it the appearance that it might have worked at some point, but the loose ones in the bottom make it look broken!

Off topic: I love the little brass rule! It has inspired me to attempt to make 1 or 2. If I am successful, I am sure I'll post them somewhere with a link back here to show the inspiration...

[Angelica Needle]

That is just beautiful. It's hard to take in quite how teensy that is. Fantastic work.

[Just call me Rob]

Off topic: I love the little brass rule!

But it's a lie.
That rule is actually about a foot long, the whole piece is massive - the rule is just a way to fool us into thinking it's a tiny miracle.


It's fantastic, however small it really is. 

[Oneiros]

I built this Orrery from a 52 part weekly magazine series...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It stands about 18" high, and when running, it's probably 30" across.

[Mechanism Man]

That's a lovely thing indeed, and beautifully put together - brilliant!     (I make 'em out of wood!)

[SPBrewer]

I've always liked Orrery's I guess it is just one more symptoms of Steampunkitus.  Does anybody have plans for a real Orrery's gear works?  I've got tons, well tens of Pounds, of gears and cogs from old brass clocks, and would love to build a real (is there such a thing?) Orrery.

Steelhips, I love your chunk of 1 inch brass!  GREAT IDEA.  Hope you don't mind if I steal it, after all, that's what we pirates do best.

                                          The Sky Pirate,
                                           Captain of "The Queen Victoria's Revenge"

[Atterton]

That´s a great little thing. Good to have in your pockets for those times when you urgently need to check the current position of the planets. 

[Drew P]

Fantastic piece of work!

[Endeavour Cull]

An orrery is also one of the things on my to do list. My favorite and inspiration on the net is this one:



You did an excellent job on yours!

[steelhips]

Thank you all!  It's nice to know I'm not alone loving all things Orrery.  I get my much needed affirmation (insecure artist type) here.  The "insert a quote" action isn't working for me so I'll just answer without the quote boxes.

Ezra - glad I could give you some ideas. Looking forward to seeing the WIP pics.

jringling - It's such a cute charm!  I found them on etsy and use them in my charm bracelets and lab chatelaines.

Angelica - Thanks!

Rob - LOL - I wish it was that big.  It's hard to put a price on miniatures. Some people tend to associate small with cheaper.  If it was bigger I could charge more!

Oneiros - that is so cool!  Great build!

Mechanism Man - Thanks!  I think I've seen some of your incredible work.

SPBrewer - No problem, steal away!

As an interesting side note:  I've made a few non-working orreries for wedding presents with the planets aligned and fixed in the exact position they are at the time of the wedding using a simple horoscope chart generator.  A woman who had been a jeweller all her life contacted me and told me she had made a working clockwork orrery when she retired.  It took her 5 YEARS to get the gearing right!  It had both the orbit and rotation of all the planets.  Including the planet formerly known as Pluto.

No wonder professional (museum grade) builders charge $10,000+ for them.

I read somewhere that if you built a desk top size orrery to correct scale, Jupiter would be in the next suburb.

Atterton - Thanks!  Funny you said that - I'm thinking about making a pocket size Astrolabe next.

Drew P - Thank you!

Endeavour Cull - Thanks - I have that pic in my digital scrap book too. Very cool sculpture.

[Pike]

This is gorgeous; I love it.  I also really love your idea of the wedding gift that you mentioned in the follow-up post.  I wish I could build something similar!  I'll have to challenge myself to learn...