Cleggington's Luxurious Condiments Liberator
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Do you get fed up waiting for the slow old servants to get around to your table place in order to serve the condiments onto your dinner,
all the while witnessing your food rapidly going cold?
Well, here's the solution: when a diner yells "pass the salt", this machine turns up at your spot, and allows you to arrange delivery of the
condiments to your meal in precisely the amounts and places you desire, without the need for any servants to do it for you!
Simply yank on each of the appropriate handles, and the condiments come flying across in short order. Job done!
No waiting about, no salary to pay, dinner ready faster! Brilliant!
Now, I wonder what we should do about the mustard....? Maybe keep that servant on for a little while longer....
The geometry
The geometry for a scissor-lift is simple, right? Equal length legs, fixed together at the ends and in the middle,
with a threaded rod to pull them together and make them go straight up - a doddle. But what happens when you try and subvert a scissor-lift,
to make it go sideways instead of up (i.e. to deliver your condiments onto your dinner instead of up your nose....)?
Well, all hell breaks loose!
Easily solved, you might think, with some calculations, a few card prototypes, some precise replication of parts, and a little bit of fettling here and there to achieve perfection.
No!
This was one of those projects conceived as a relatively straightforward design & make job, to get something done quickly. It took just as long as all the others....!
Remember that movement (and deflection) is amplified with each level of lift-arms - which is of course the idea, but it's also the curse: errors and deviations
are also amplified - resulting in a requirement for the finest of tolerances for everything (never my strong point....); and with this being constructed
from very small brass arms, each one a different length, all with slightly different pivot positions, you can imagine the hair-pulling that went on with this one!
Several successful differently-scaled card prototypes imparted a false sense of security - leading to a number of discarded wrong-length arms,
inexplicable differences in sideways and forward movement, and a fast-developing ability to fine-tune every single joint to offer precisely the right
combination of precision, slack and friction!
The next project will be simpler... honest.
The weight
I knew right from the start that this design would need substantial grunt underneath it, to avoid pitching the whole thing into your dinner
(instead of just the required condiments) when you haul on the levers.
You might be surprised to learn that this diddy contraption packs nearly 5Kg (almost 10lbs), to make sure it remains flat on the table during operation.
This is achieved by constructing the base from 10mm-thick solid steel (disguised under 0.12mm copper cladding),
surmounted by a whopping great lump of 12mm-thick solid brass, masquerading as a divider between the two condiment lifts.
Underneath are four non-slip rubber feet, to offer additional help in making it stay put while doing the job
(best to avoid placing it where gravy has been spilled on the table....). Every little helps in the never-ending fight to reduce the servant-count!
Polishing and assembly
You've heard me banging on about the polishing tasks before - well, have a look at this one and note that every surface, every little brass arm, every bolt and every dome nut was severely punished (sorry, polished) after first assembly, to achieve it's delivery-level shine - which of course requires complete dismantling and full re-assembly - all whilst desperately trying not to touch anything and leave difficult-to-remove fingermarks. With all the afore-mentioned tolerance and tiny-difference issues with the scissor-lifts, every arm component had to be uniquely marked to facilitate successful re-assembly. If you look very closely when the lifts go up (sideways), you might see the identity marks scratched on the underside of each part, having (fortunately!) just survived the polishing procedure.
Materials: brass, copper, steel, silver-plated brass condiment pots
Dimensions: 13½" high x 10" wide (closed down) x 5½" deep (34cm x 25cm x 14cm)
Maximum width during delivery: 17" (44cm)
Weight: 9lb5oz (4.22kg)
This piece will be shown for the first time in the Gloucestershire Guild of Craftsmen 'Crafts Alive' exhibition at Rodmarton Manor in September 2025.
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