About this episodeAdam Savage fabricates custom milling clamps and completes the spine and tail armature for a Phil Tippet T-Rex…AI summary
Adam Savage fabricates custom milling clamps and completes the spine and tail armature for a Phil Tippet T-Rex stop-motion model. The process highlights the extreme mechanical complexity of Tippet's original animatronics, including independent breathing actuators and precise animator adjustment curves. The video serves as both a machining tutorial for rotary table usage and a deep dive into the engineering behind classic creature effects.
Key takeaways 6
Custom milling clamps were fabricated on a rotary table to enable precise centering and rotation of workpieces, specifically for copying Phil Tippet's vertebrae parts.
Phil Tippet's animatronics feature highly refined mechanical engineering where every joint has an adjustable curve, allowing different animators to achieve specific movement styles.
Animation charts for these devices are incredibly complex, requiring synchronization of multiple movement cycles (e.g., a 1-second walking cycle vs. a 2.5-second breathing cycle) that must never be lost.
The T-Rex armature includes a rib cage with an actuator for breathing, demonstrating the level of detail required to 'breathe animal life' into the mechanical structure.
Adam Savage prefers 10-32 cap screws over 10-24 for aluminum parts due to thread preference, though he notes the difficulty in sourcing specific lengths.
Creating a tapered tail for the armature required using 3/4 inch aluminum stock and wrapping it with armature wire, a process described as difficult but achievable with proper sanding and polishing.
Notable quotes 4AI-generated: wording and quote attribution may be wrong. Use the play link to verify.
“I watch all my favorite all the these wonderful YouTube channels... They just turn out such beautiful parts. And there's a part of me that itches to make parts that pretty. And then there's the part of me that wants to get on with the thing and that these are functionally fine.”
▶ 4:17Adam reflects on the tension between aesthetic perfection in machining and functional utility, deciding to keep his clamps functional rather than overly polished.
“The fact is is that uh these machines built by Phil Tippet's team over the years uh they're highly refined um bits of mechanical engineering where for every joint that moves an adjustability curve can be built so that different animators can obtain different amounts of movement out of the skeletons that they're animating.”
▶ 16:31Explaining the sophisticated design philosophy behind Phil Tippet's original dinosaur models, highlighting the adaptability built into the hardware.
“When one is animating a device like this, your animation chart includes all the things that move for each shot... his breathing might be on a 2 and 1 half second cycle like and so you have these charts that graph out these movements for you as the animator and you can never lose focus.”
▶ 18:22Describing the intense concentration required by animators to manage multiple independent mechanical cycles simultaneously.
“Ladies and gentlemen, uh he is a handsome little scamp, ain't he?”
▶ 16:16Adam's reaction upon completing the spine and tail assembly of the T-Rex armature.
Chapters & Sections (6)▼
0:00Milling Clamps and Dinosaur Partschapter1
6:47Milling Slit and Pelvis Assembly
12:08T-Rex Armature Spine and Tail Fabricationchapter3
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