Ventriloquist Central - A Tribute To Ventriloquism

As some of you may or may not know…..I’m in Las Vegas with my wife Helen, my son Jason and his girlfriend, Nicole. We’re having a great time here and I will have a big surprise for all of you that deals with ventriloquism…so stay tuned. I’ll be returning home at the end of the week and will let you in on the big news.

The video dummy building guide that Steve (the webmaster) created “The ULTIMATE Guide To Building Your Own Ventriloquist Figure, Volume 1” has been a great success. In fact he took some short clips from the guide and made short video for all to see (special note…the actual video guide is much clearer than the YouTube video).

Click here for more information.

Oops….gotta run….Helen just hit another jackpot.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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All writings here are copyrighted by Dan Willinger and Ventriloquist Central. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

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Over the past week or so you may have noticed a banner that we have been showing which gives you a link to a page talking about “The ULTIMATE Guide To Building Your Own Ventriloquist Figure, Volume 1”. I thought since many of you may not have clicked on this link I would provide it here within this blog.

Click here for “The Ultimate Guide To Building Your Own Ventriloquist Figure, Volume 1.”

Building a dummy can be a challenging task to say the least but my webmaster Steve Hurst, who worked with and learned from the Master Builder Ray Guyll, has put all his knowledge into this 11 disc set of Cd’s and Dvd’s (including bonuses). And believe me they are great. Everything you ever wanted to know about building a ventriloquist figure is here from sculpting, casting, painting, and mechanizing your own ventriloquist figure.

This will keep you at your computer screen for over 4 hours and gives you both video instruction as well a photos to go by. Everything you need is included in this course right down to the resources needed for purchasing the materials needed to do your project.

You know I have been a collector but now that I have watched this set of instructional dvds and cds I know that with some time I too could build a figure from start to finish and would have no questions left unanswered.

When Steve told me he was going to put this course together I said this is great because there can never be enough information about this great art and I must say Steve has outdone himself. I am sure once you receive your set you will be giving Steve accolades too.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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Bill Nelson is a personal friend of mine and I take great pleasure in announcing to the Ventriloquist Central viewers that Bill is offering to teach his special methods of painting, sculpting, wigging all in an easy home study course package. Just click on this link below to read what Bill has sent in to us for you to see. If you ever wanted to build figures and needed some help this is for you!!

Click here to see Bill’s information

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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Well a full week has passed and we had many votes on this subject and the result really shocked me because it came out so close. The cord control won out with a 52% to 48% advantage. A most interesting result don’t you think.
 
I would like to thank all of you who voted and participated and of course all of you who wrote in comments. This was a fun poll.

Keep checking back….another poll will be started in a few days.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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Since it’s election time….we want your VOTE!!! 

I am so happy that the past couple blogs caused a bit of excitement and comments and so with the help of my wonderful webmaster, Steve Hurst, we have decided to make this thread run a bit longer by getting everyone involved with an honest public survey or maybe we can call this a poll (located in the right hand column).
 
We will leave this up to you to give us your vote for which type control, cord ( string) or direct linkage you prefer. We will let this run for one week and at the end we will publish the results so we all will know which style is liked best. I hope you enjoy this and I am sure it will be fun.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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Well I guess I may have stirred a bee’s nest because I have had a bunch of emails from those that have figures with direct linkage and how much they like them. OK I will say uncle. Direct linkage is great and if done right I guess it too will last a lifetime. The McElroy mechanics in my three have lasted 70 plus years.
 
Direct linkage has been done by Cecil Gough, Len Insull, Tim Selberg, Kem Poyner, Brant Gilmer, Greg Claassen, Lee Dunn and Ray Guyll to name a few others beside the McElroy brothers. I will admit I have never had a Ray Guyll figure with direct linkage so I can’t comment on his work first hand but Bill Nelson, who now owns Ray’s creation Kirby has told me that the mechanics are a thing of beauty and work as smooth as silk. I also have never owned a figure by Greg Claassen so I can’t comment on his work either. I do own a Brant Gilmer and his mechanics are very smooth and very quiet.
 
I purchased Lee Dunn’s first McElroy replica and his mechanics are wonderful and also very very quiet. You can see pictures on my site. Cecil Gough’s mechanics were not very good as far as I was concerned. I found them to be sloppy and noisy. I have had figures by both Tim Selberg and Kem Poyner and I had to have them both repaired to function correctly and found them to be rather noisy and squeaky. I will make an exception to Tim’s figures though, because when the mechanics were done by Greg Crist they were of top notch quality. Tim and Kem PLEASE I am not cutting your work down. I am just telling of the observations I have made on figures by you that I have owned. The Insull are direct linkage inside the heads then attached to strings down to the headstick levers. They are quiet but it does take some getting used to to use the controls.
 
I guess I still will stick with my first observation and say in my opinion I would rather have the cord controls for the ease of the repair.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

P.S.  If you haven’t checked out the Ventriloquist Marketplace lately, do so NOW!!!
www.ventriloquistmarketplace.com

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The subject of figure building was presented to me by Billy Sobe, one of our members here on Ventriloquist Central, and he asked me about mechanics and what people look for, direct linkage or cord control and which is better. He is in the beginning state of building figures and is ready to move on to building his own designs and wanted my opinion.
 
I told him that both of these are good. Direct linkage though can present a major problem if one of the functions decides to let go. You first would have to have a mechanical aptitude to do repair and would certainly have to have a rather complete tool kit with you to be able to make that repair.
 
With cords for the controls it is usually just a matter of tying a new knot or even replace the whole cord. A much simpler undertaking that most anyone could do.
 
The great figure makers of the past including Marshall, Spencer, Coats, Jackson and some of today premier builders Guyll, Hartz and Payes all use cords for the controls.

If direct linkage was SO much better why don’t they all build them?
 
Direct linkage also can become loose and very noisy with chatter and squeaks but cord controls are usually quiet. I have seen some fine builders using direct linkage and their mechanics need repair very quickly or are noisy. The direct linkage controls will give you problems and you will have to send them back to the makers for repairs which means long down times for your figures.
 
I have 3 McElroy figures in my collection and they are all done with direct linkage and I can tell you if one of those malfunctioned it would be a nightmare for you to get fixed. And they are noisy to use as well.
 
I have 40 Marshall figures many with the original cords still in them and they work fine and are as quiet as a church mouse.

So what is best?????

I vote for cord control. Just my opinion.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

P.S.  Be sure to check out the Ventriloquist Marketplace. 
More items have been added.  See them at:  www.ventriloquistmarketplace.com

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Frank Marshall , as we all know, started working for the Macks and the original figures produced by the Macks had the leather patch on the neck to hide the opening of the jaw on the bottom. All of the figures pictured in Marshall’s 1931 catalogue show this design including his famous Nosey character. Marshall continues to use this design up into the 1940’s. This design works exceptionally well and sometimes the leather was attached directly to the lower portion of the jaw and folded in when the mouth was opened. Other times the leather was not attached or may have come detached, but the mouth pallet would move independent of the leather. I have it both ways on some of my figures.
 
The wedge design seems to have appeared on Marshall figures in the post war years. I believe Jimmy Nelson’s Danny O’Day has the wedge and his was produced around that time. The wedge design is a much cleaner design and also allows a much larger mouth opening when the lever is pulled. The wedge design is a bit more fragile due to the fact that the neck is about half the thickness with no protection. There is much room for breakage with the wedge design. I have a couple figures that do have cracks on the sides of the neck with this design.
 
I have no preference on the design for Marshall figures personally because to me the important part of the figure is his face. The neck is usually covered by the shirt collar and a tie anyway.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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Lee Dean asked if I could explain how a duplicarver works so here you go Lee.

Have you ever gone to the hardware store to have a duplicate key made? If you have then you will get the idea as to how a duplicarver works. The key to be copied is placed in a chuck and then an uncut key is placed in a second chuck. A stylus is drawn across the teeth of the original key which causes a cutter to cut the duplicate.
 
The duplicarver machine works in the same manner. First you must have a solid head in the style which you want to reproduce. This is chucked up to one side of the machine. On the other side of the machine you chuck up your blank piece of wood.
 
The duplicarver has a stylus , an arm with which you go over the pre carved head, which in turn causes the cutting tool to carve out the likeness from the wood stock. The process is repeated varied amounts of times getting finer bits as you go to get better detail. As fine as you may get once the duplicarving process is finished you must still do hand work.
 
If you look at the short video we put up on this site about Chuck Jackson you will see him using a duplicarver. His made more than one copy at a time.

Click Here For Chuck Jackson Video

Now even though we all have seen many pictures of Frank Marshall in his shop with mallet and chisel in his hands, he too used duplicarver heads. I have one in my collection, it is pictured in the Marshall section and the Vent Haven Museum has a couple of Franks Duplicarver heads as well. Bob Isaacson who frequented Marshall’s shop more than anyone else I know, over many many years, told me that the duplicarver machinery and the solid heads were not ever where he could see them indicating that Marshall went elsewhere to do the duplication. He did all the finish work in his shop.
 
I have a duplicarver machine myself and fully intend to try my hand at this but have not done so as of this writing but pretty soon….
 
Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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