Self-Moving Water Machine, Coffered Ceiling and Stucco Recipes
A pump likened to a living body, a cast-stucco ceiling, and modelling pastes
The right column gives building and casting recipes: a modelling stucco of butter, wax and fine flour, and a detailed method for a handsome, cheap coffered ceiling made from stucco tiles cast in gesso moulds over worked clay squares, then painted and nailed up over the joists. The rest of the sheet is given to a self-moving water machine: lead weights press leather bags fitted with greased valves so that water is alternately drawn in and driven up through pipes, turning wheel K first one way and then the other in the manner of bellows. Leonardo claims the water keeps its motion as long as the parts hold together, likening the instrument to living, animate bodies, and adds a felt-and-spring bearing kept wet to stop wheel K overheating. A small apparatus and a left-column note explain how the bags are raised and set free.
On this page
Self-moving water machine with bags, valves and wheel K
An instrument said to stay in continual motion: lead weights press leather bags (a, b) whose spouts and pipes (c, d, e, f, o, t) carry greased valves, so that as the weights rise and fall on the little stairs g h the bags draw water in below and drive it up above, spinning wheel K first one way and then the other. Emptied water collects in a reservoir under wheel K and falls from point m to the receiver n, whence it refills the upper bags.
Claim of continuous motion likened to living bodies
Leonardo asserts the water keeps up its motion as long as the union of the instrumental parts endures, comparing the whole device to vital and animate bodies — a perpetual-motion aspiration.
Water-fed felt bearing to cool wheel K
A small apparatus keeps the bearings wet: a is a felt that constantly feeds water to the poles of the wheel, b is a channelled iron down which water rains from the felt onto the pole of wheel K, and f is a spring driving the iron b against the pole so that as it wears it is renewed.
Raising and freeing the bags
A left-column note explains that this is the way the load is drawn up, and that the bags must be left below and set free once a bag is raised.
Low-cost coffered ceiling of cast stucco tiles
A method for a handsome, inexpensive ceiling: set joists a quarter braccio wide and half high, 12 braccia long, edgewise and one braccio apart; cast tiles of glue-flour-sawdust stucco in a pitch-soaked gesso mould taken from a worked clay square, dry them, paint them, and fasten each to the ceiling with six nails and a central bolt over boarded joists.
Modelling-stucco recipe
A recipe for a modelling stucco: 6 parts butter and 2 parts wax melted together, with enough fine flour added to make the mixture firm like wax or clay for forming.
