Acknowledgment: Many thanks to Ed Dasse, without whose
craftsmanship and workshop, this crankie would not have been nearly so
professional in appearance or functionality.
In the
Victorian era, before the days of radio and television, families enjoyed home
entertainment of one sort or another.
One such diversion was a moving panorama or crankie. A roll of paper or fabric (the crankie) was
illustrated with pictures that told a story, song or poem and was “cranked” or
rolled from one spool to another in a miniature theater.
This blog
post is intended to give you some idea of how to make your own crankie
theatre. Note that the measurements
given are the ones I used; yours can vary depending on how large a presentation
you want to give.
The 28 inch
x 36 inch frame uses 10 x ¾ inch, stain-quality pine boards, screwed together
with 2½ inch wood screws. These were
enough to provide adequate rigidity, especially once the front cut-out was
installed. Oak and maple boards were considered but were both heavy and
expensive.
The spools
were made from 1¼ inch dowel with a handle device at the top end, fastened with
6-inch bolts to allow free rotation. The
bottom end of the spool is held with a hole drilled into the base of the frame.
Velcro strips were glued to the dowel to secure the crankie fabric. The spools were kept in place with spool locks
that could be rotated open to allow easy removal of the spools.
Circular
crankie-supports were cut out from a ¾ inch board and glued in place at the end
of each spool. Non-rotating tension rods cut from 5/8 inch dowel were installed
in the corners as shown to help keep the crankie taut as it is rotated.
The
position of the spools and the tension rods and the diameter of the circular
crankie-supports depend on the maximum size of the crankie roll itself. Our
prototype crankie used about 30 ft of fabric which was about 6 inches in diameter
when tightly rolled on the spool. The tension rods were placed about 1 – 1½
inches from the front inside corners of the frame and the circular
crankie-supports are 6½ inches in diameter. These dimensions were adequate to
allow smooth operation of the crankie.
The
theatre-shaped front cut-out was made from maple 3-ply and screwed to the
front. If necessary, a fabric curtain strip can be installed, preferably using
Velcro to hold it in place. Lastly, a carrying handle is bolted to the top of
the frame.
The job is
made considerably easier with the use of power tools if at all possible. The frame
boards were cut on a radial arm saw. The dowel holes were cut with Forstner
bits and hole saws depending on the best fit (which is very important). The front cut-out and slots for the spool dowels
were cut out with a saber saw and smoothed with drum sander bits on a drill
press. Most of the other holes were
accurately drilled with the drill press. The circular crankie-supports, handle
bars and spool locks were cut out with a band saw and smoothed on a belt
sander.
