I’ve long been intrigued by the idea of making sounds with paper models. In a previous post you’ll have seen that I was retrying my old train whistle project using an improved bellow. I’m aiming to get the pitch of the pipe much higher so that it can be used as part of a bird model.

This model uses a 7mm square tube for the pipe. It works nicely and could be even higher pitch with a shorter tube.

My next step is to try driving the bellows from a mechanism. The obvious choice is my new favourite, the Scotch yoke. Its up and down movement matched nicely with the needs of the bellows. I should also be able to fit a second bellow on the other side so that it sounds in both directions.

Here’s a first draft.

From a lower angle you can see the crank that is used to drive the yoke up and down. I have a couple of other ideas for mechanisms and layouts. Expect to see more soon.