The 2011 Steampunk Bizarre is nigh!

Get your goggles ready!

I tell you.. when Dr. Grymm contacted me last year about this show, I thought.. GREAT! Cool! I can get all sorts of good stuff built by then! Well, as fate would have it, I did manage to finish up two rather cool pieces in that time, the Aether Reactor, and the Steam Amp. Not nearly the huge push I’d hoped for, but I’ll take what I can get at this point. I started a really awesome piece with the intention of getting it finished in time for the show, but that just didn’t happen, which is unfortunate because it really fits the theme of this year’s event. That’s OK though, I really hate rushing through things, and I’d rather not send work that’s half-ass.

As it is, I’m sending 4 pieces to this event: Oculus, The Dream, The Steam Amp with speakers (photos coming very soon), and the little Aether Ball gizzy (Photos also on the way). I REALLY wanted to send the Aether Reactor, but when I found out how much it would cost to freight that piece to Connecticut from Key West, I had a hard decision to make.. get that piece out there so people could see it, or eat for the next month.. haha. Needless to say, my stomach won that battle.

I had a frantic month of final prep to get the pieces ready. The Steam amp was finished, but I’d only built one of the speakers for it, so the second one was a crash build.. many a long night ensued to make that project come together, and many a brain cell was damaged from over-indulgance in dark rum, but all for a good cause.

I really hope I can manage to get up to Connecticut for this event before it ends in January! I’m very excited to have my pieces in this show; it’s the first time they’ve ever been shown publicly! Who knows, I may even get really lucky and sell one so I can fund some more projects.. copper definitely ain’t cheap!

Photos of the Boiler Speakers and the Aether Ball are forthcoming. Also look for an actual Copeprsteam Labs website to be up in the next couple weeks. Don’t worry, this blog will still be accessible from the main page… I just need to get a more polished presence up on the web for my work.

For more info on the show, etc.. please visit:
Dr. Grymm Loboratories
The Mark Twain House & Museum

Until next time, Cheers!

Mike

What’s Been Happening on My Island

It’s not as Grymm as it Sounds

A few months ago I had one of those experiences that really made my day. You know the ones.. a totally unexpected cool thing happens, and it leaves you floating around giddy like a school girl.

I was reading through my email from coppersteam.com, which I must sadly report is typically 99% penis-enlargement pill ads and other junk like that, when I noticed I had an email from the desk of Dr. Grymm. Now, I knew the name because I’d often been to his web site while searching inspiration for my own work, I even have a link to his site from this one, but why would he be contacting me? A thought briefly passed through my head… that he’d seen the link on my site and wanted me to kindly delete it. But as it turned out, he was interested in perhaps putting some of my work in an upcoming show he curates annually up in Connecticut called the Steampunk Bizzare, and would I call him at my earliest convenience. I read this email a few times trying to figure out if it was some joke or perhaps he’d sent it to the wrong address. Then it sunk in and I had one of those moments of pure joy.. my brain was doing the happy dance! Someone actually found my site and liked my stuff! And on top of that it was one of the people I looked up to for inspiration! How cool is that.

I called and spoke with him, and got the skinny on the show. It sounds very cool, and I can’t wait to be involved in it! Turns out that It was too late to get into the 2010 show because it was imminent, but he was collecting work for the 2011 show, which is perfect for me since at the time I’d not even finished the Aether Reactor. Now I have a year to put together a couple more pieces, and a deadline to look forward to! I always work better with deadlines.

Dr Grymm Strikes Again

I had another of these moments just recently when Dr. Grymm began collecting photos of Steampunk Art for a coffee table book called “1000 A Steampunk Collection” and I recieved another email from the desk of Dr. Grymm.

Well, this email was actually from one of his loyal minions, but still… he was looking for submissions and if I was interested could I please send in a few shots for his perusal. Well, heck yeah! So I submitted a few photos, and a couple days later got a response that they would like to include my work in the book. SWEET!

So I had to get off my arse and photograph the Aether reactor post haste. I’d had my artist/photographer friend Jeff League shoot my previous work, but he’s in Orlando and I’m in Key West.. too long a trip for some photographs! It was time to step up to the plate and dust off my photography skills. I ordered a paper background from B&H and got to work. I managed to do an OK job, and the shots look close enough to Jeff’s work to give all the pieces a cohesive look. I guess at this point beggars can’t be choosers, so I’m going with what I got!

At any rate, exciting things are afoot! It’s cooler than I can say to be considered for any type of public display.. show or book. It still feels a little surreal, like it’s not really happening. I mean, I just started doing this stuff.. I haven’t even done my best work yet! But I’m certainly not one to look a steam horse in the mouth, I’m delighted and energized to continue steaming along!

Ever Have One of THOSE Days?

Well I did.

Typically Fridays are my “lab” days. My only day out of the week when I have the entire day to myself to work on my projects and just bury myself in my own little world of evil genius-ness. Some days I get more accomplished than others, but typically I don’t walk away feeling completely frustrated like I did at the end of the day yesterday. Everything I did wound up in the shit-can. I guess I can look at all of it as a learning experience however. I learned a lot about what NOT to do… let me expand..

To Glow or Not to Glow?

For my Vector Amp project I had decided to not waste money building an actual tube amplifier due to the cost of building an amp that had sufficiently cool-looking tubes. I decided I’d just get some cool looking large tubes and hook up the heaters to get that cheery tube glow without dropping bank on huge transformers to build an actual circuit. So I bought myself a KT-88 power tube and a matching socket from Parts Express. This is a cool looking tube. There are cooler and larger ones out there, but the KT-88 runs about 25 to 30 bucks, so it was in my price range for experimentation.

I’d had an idea to build a small polished wooden box with a copper plate on top holding a glowing vacuum tube. I thought it might be a cool little desk accessory for those who dig vacuum tubes and steampunk stuff.. nothing too complex, just a cool little amusement. I figured this was a great chance to try out my construction ideas for the vector amp on a smaller scale before pulling the trigger. I just needed a few things from the Depot and Radio Crack. A 1-1/8″ hole saw, some wood, and a transformer. Most of the other things I had.

The KT 88 and a couple smaller tubes	Transformers from Radio Shack

So Friday morning I hopped on my trusty steed (my bicycle) and rode up into new town to make my weekly sojourn to Home Depot. It’s a nice leisurely 2 or so mile ride, and it makes for a nice start to the day.

I picked up some brass nuts and bolts, a hole saw, and a small piece of 1/2″ Oak for the base. Across US-1 from Home Depot is the local Radio Shack, so I popped over there to buy a transformer to power my tube. The guy behind the counter looked at me like I was speaking swahili when I asked for a center-tapped transformer. He then led me to the phone chargers. No, I explained.. a bare transformer. OH he says, I have to go in back to find those.

After about 10 minutes he returned carrying a cardboard box with about 20 transformers dumped in it. He apologized for the state of the stock system and helped me dig for the one I was looking for. After a bit we located the 12V (6-0-6) transformer. I needed 1.6 amps, but they only had 1.2 and 3 amp versions.. I opted for the smaller one just because I didn’t think it would matter terribly since I wasn’t trying to actually make something to spec.

Back on my bike, I pedaled my way home. I walked in the door at 5 minutes to noon.. what timing! Noon in Key West is a pivotal time in the day.. time for a bloody mary.

Drink in hand I made my way back to the lab (a workbench in the corner of the bedroom) and began to put my evil plan into play.

Fail number One.

The tube wouldn’t glow. It got warm, so I knew the heater was working, but it certainly wasn’t glowing like I know tubes do. I had a couple small tubes lying around, and they glowed fine when I hooked them up to the transformer. Dejected, I decided that my transformer pumping out 1.2 amps wasn’t sufficient to fire up a tube that needed 1.6 amps. OK. Fine. I decided to move on to constructing my base.

Fail Number Two.

The hole saw I’d bought had a different size shank mounting hole than the shank I had. Sigh. Enter the memory that the set of hole saws I had was bought at Lowes in Orlando, and were a different brand than the one I just bought at Home Depot, despite being the same color. Since the closest Lowes to Key West is at the very least much farther than I’m willing to travel on my bike, I decided I’d just buy a new shank and get it over with next time I was at Home Depot (Which as it turns out was much sooner than I expected).

I decided to just build the wood part of the base and deal with the rest of the stuff later. Except when I started trying to decide on the size of it all, I realized that if I needed a new, more powerful transformer, it was likely to be larger than the one I had in my grubby little hands. God DAMNIT!

Back to the trusty steed for another delightful 1-hour round trip to Home Depot and Radio Shack. Except this time I mixed myself a vodka tonic and stuffed that puppy in the drink-holder on the handlebars. That made the trip less tiresome. Luckily the weather was absolutely delightful, but then it usually is here.

Fail Number Three.

Back at home after the second trip to new town, I pulled out my newly-acquired, amped-up transformer and hooked the tube to it. Nothing. I could see the bottom of the heater filament glowing, but nothing impressive at all. All my plans for the vector amp began dissolving in front of my eyes at this point. I posited that tubes must need to be in a full-on circuit and under load to really put off a nice rosy glow, and that just hooking the heaters up didn’t cut it at all. Fuck Fuck Fuck.

OK, breathe…

I put all that failure behind me and decided to go back to working on the base now that I had the proper hole-saw shank. I got out my 3/16″ sheet of copper plate that I had lying around and scribed out a 3″ square for my top plate. Now last time I had to cut this stuff I had a radial-arm saw and a metal saw blade. I left all that stuff back up in Orlando though, so I decided to try my hand at cutting it with a jig-saw.

I clamped a piece of wood to the sheet for a straight-edge and began cutting. After about 20 minutes I had gotten through about 4 inches. This was going to take all day! Then I remembered something. I had taken shop class back in High School and I remembered something about using oil to help while cutting metal.. Hmm. Enter a can of WD-40. Woah! I zipped through the rest of the 12″ of that plate in about 5 minutes.. definitely faster!

Necessity and invention and all that..	Hole centers

All in all it was a pretty straight cut.. which actually surprised me. It wasn’t nearly as nice as the cuts I’d gotten with my radial arm saw, but beggars can’t be choosers I suppose, and with a decent amount of file-work, the edge could be made to be nice.

On to the drill press!

Springing back after successfully cutting through the copper sheet, I decided to go for the gusto and drill my tube-socket hole. I wanted a ring of 1/4″ holes around the socket hole to allow air to flow up through the base and help keep the tube cool. In addition to being functional, this looks really cool in all the home made tube amps I’ve seen out there. So I scribed out my lines, and used a punch to dimple the surface where the holes would go.

Fail Number Four.

I clamped the metal down on a scrap of wood and started drilling. Right away I knew I was in for a long, tedious, and possibly ruinous process. I used a ton of wd-40 to lube it up while cutting and still it took the better part of 20 minutes to get through the plate. I was using a 1-1/8″ bi-metal hole saw, and it worked.. to a point. The hole turned out being about 1-1/4″ due to the wobbling of the tall saw. Definitely NOT aerospace quality construction, but at least it worked.. the hole was round and straight. Unfortunately however, the increased diameter of the hole meant my tube socket plowed right through the hole instead of butting up to the underside. Sigh. Back to the drawing board.

Not a fun process…	The hole is just too big!

This was most definitely not a process I want to repeat, and I have decided that for future projects I am buying sheet metal hole punches for making holes. Screw trying to get through sheet metal with a hole saw. The noise and vibration alone are enough to turn me off of the technique, but combine those with the inaccuracy of the hole size, and it’s a deal killer. Hole punches only work up to about 10 guage metal however, so I won’t be able to use the 3/16″ plate I have, but I can get 1/8″ copper sheet readily (if not cheaply) on the internet.

So in Closing Let Me Just Say This…

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

There was some drinking going on after this day to be sure. One step forward and two steps back seems to be the lesson learned. I’m not giving up though. I guess I’m going to have to break down and actually build that tube amp for the Vector Amp project after all. Hey, it’s only money right?

M

Necessity is the Mother of Invention?

Seeming as how I’m between pieces at the moment, I thought now would be a good time to take a couple of weeks and build myself a decent workspace.  She never complained, but I think Christina was about ready to strangle me for working on the kitchen counter all the time…

Seeing how we have very little room in our apartment, it needed to take up a small footprint and yet have enough storage for all my crap! Off to maya! After I had a relatively decent 3D model worked up, I hit the local Home Depot and bought a bunch of wood. Two weeks and a few on-the-fly inspirational design changes later.. voila! Workbench!

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

International Steampunk Day – June 14th!!

Who Knew?

Apparently there is an international steampunk day. And it’s today! Do I get the day off work? I really need to get myself a tophat and some goggles.