More Purcases

Yesterday I attended the Steampunk Christmas Fair at the Whitecloth Gallery in Leeds and I purchased the rather magnificent item below, it is the body (paraffin tank) of a blowlamp, it will become the "liquid crystal storage tank" for the monitors on my steampunk PC. 

The second item was picked up in a charity shop on the way home and I believe it is part of an incense burner. I don't have a use for this yet but I'm sure I'll find one.

Charity Shop Find

Found this today in the local Oxfam and simply had to have it, it only cost me £10. I believe it is a demonstration pressure gauge and probably would have been used for teaching at a school or university. That is why it is so large (approx 2.5 feet tall). It is my intention to turn it into a lamp, I plan to add a bulb holder and some form of shade to the top of the large Manometer tube housing and then buy some vintage style braided flex to connect it up.

Sorry for the break

Sorry for not posting anything for ages, a job suddenly came up and I had to relocate to Leeds hence nothing has got done for about the past two months. I'm now beginning to settle in and have already made a few purchases, for my builds.

Development in Sketchup

Top detail is sorted, a mix of valves and other electrical bit which I have. A bit of copper pipe will go around the front probably with a pressure gauge if I can find one. The right hand side of the case will have the large Ferranti voltmeter from the antique fair and a fuse compartment door which I salvaged from a skip.  The wooden panels on the top will be three hardwood drawer fronts which where another skip find. Power feeds to the fuse box (non functional) will be with bare wire fed over two porcelain insulators which came from my great uncle's junk collection. The box with mesh on the top of the case is a vent from a 120mm PC cooling fan, the box will be given high voltage warnings and possible an electric arcing effect behind the mesh. Behind the brass mesh at the bottom there will be flickering flame effect lights.

Just the front panel to design now then I can start building.

Sketchup Modelling

I have begun modelling my planned case modifications in Sketchup, so far I just have a crude representation of where I will be building out from the initial case. I plan to have a wooden panel on the front as on Victorian laboratory/electrical equipment. The rest will be painted dark green a lined in the stile of a steam engine. 

PC case found

I have finally overcome the problem that has been preventing me from properly starting the build, I have got a starting point PC.

This case was given to me in response to a wanted ad. Fortunately it seems to be exactly what I want. A three drivebay extra-wide full ATX case. This should give me a good starting point for both adding the steampunk details to the outside and for much improvement of the cooling internally.

It currently has all components apart from a harddrive. None of these components I ultimately want to keep making them perfect for testing the fans lights and other decorative features I have planned for the case.

I can finally begin my build!

Valves

I am currently watching a large number of job lots of radio valves on Ebay. After seeing one lot go very cheaply this looks like the best way to obtain them. The seem to be regularly sold along the lines of "I found this box of valves, no idea if they work or what they're for 99p start". Of course for what I want that's perfect I don't need to know what for or if they work as they will be purely decorative. I may drill them out and put LED lights inside them, but I will have to look into that.

Watch this space!