Wood that Works is a portfolio of beautiful wooden kinetic sculptures by David C. Roy who works out of Ashford, Connecticut. My favourite is Variations, but there is something about the unexpected timing in Migration, that is very attractive too. Each of the sculptures is powered by a constant force or Negator spring which you wind up to start the motion, and the movement lasts from 2 to 18 hours, depending on the sculpture.

Roy recommends one book for its great mechanism drawings: Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements by Henry T. Brown (copyright 1868, 1896). Actually, I like its full title from the seventeenth edition of 1893 even better:

“Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements, Embracing All Those Which Are Most Important In Dynamics, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Steam Engines, Mill and other Gearing, Presses, Horology, and Miscellaneous Machinery: and including Many Movements Never Before Published and Several Which Have only Recently Come into Use”