A Clockwork Owl

Wow it's been a while since I posted.  So busy getting various pieces ready for Teslacon III.  Here's a post on a project I did for Teslacon II.

The Story of Bubo machinus. 

So the infamous Bubo visited my workshop over the weekend.  He needed a bit of a tune up (his head was getting wobbly).  He is still my favorite steampunk creation so I thought I would share the story of his construction. 

So at the first Teslacon Convention, my good friend Sara saw this:

Which lead to instantaneous envy, and more importantly the question: "Could you make me a mechanical owl?" 

So to be clear, I have no where near the skill that would be required to create the above brass parrot.  It truly is a work of art, and if you ever get the chance go take a look at how marvelous this parrot truly is. 

But not having the skill set to make something should never dissuade a true tinker from trying... so on to the owl. 

So my first hurdle was trying to figure out what pre-existing stuff out there had the right shape and size to make an owl.   

This lead to my tried and true plan: "When in doubt wander around the hardware store..."

That's when I came across the copper toilet tank float:

Inner monologue: "Hmmm, it's copper (that's cool), it's hollow (so I can put motors and such in it), and it already has a threaded bit at the bottom (so I can attach it to various and sundry platforms).  Well old chap you're looking at a mechanical owl's body casing."  

So the first step was to open the float up to make room for the "inner workings".  Knock-off Dremel tool to the rescue.  (*bloggers note, I don't own a name brand Dremel tool they were kind of spendy back in the day, when I was a poor research fellow so I picked up a knock-off one from a tool sale when I lived in Columbia, MO.  It has always gotten the job done, so I've never upgraded.)

Plenty of room for bits and bobs, but the copper is extremely thin.  That was probably the hardest part of making the owl was being very careful with the copper. 

Now I had to figure out how to reattach the two halves, can't have your owl falling to pieces, its just not done.

Here's the bottom 1/2 of the body.  I've added a small brass hinge to the back and a leather strip to stiffen the body wall up. 

Here's another pic of the bottom half of the owl.  I went back and forth on how to do the legs.  I finally went with the KISS approach and just added to brass corner brackets that I cut the one side of to make the toes.  Looking at a bunch of pictures of real owls, their feet are kind of tucked up into their bodies and feathers when the are sitting there, so this would give him the "right appearance" when he was sitting on a perch. 

Here was one of the pics I used for inspiration on making the owl. 

Here is a pic of the body with a small 7rpm motor added to the top half of the casing (thanks American Science and Surplus!)

The next quest was to find something to use for the head that was in the right scale for the size of the body.  Originally I was gong to use a plastic X-mas decoration, but I was worried because the plastic was so thin.  I then stumbled upon a round plastic bottle at my local supermarket.

Not quite the right color, but that's why we have paint. 

First a plastic primer and then a coat of flat black.  I typically like to start with a base of flat black when adding metallic paint to something; I think it comes out looking better, and if it gets scratched it's just the black that usually shows through so it just looks like wear on the device. 

While the paint was drying I started on the wings.  In my original crazy idea mode I thought it would be cool if the wings flexed away from the body, but once the motor for the head was in place I realized that there wasn't going to be room for a second motor so the wings were just attached to the body casing. 

I started by cutting the wings out of leather:

I wanted to two tone look so I alternated between a copper colored paint and neatsfoot oil on the rows of leather "feathers" .

The "feathers" were than stitched to the leather wing backing under the overlap. 

The "tail feathers" got the same treatment.  The hole was to allow a pass-thru for the switch that turns the owls head on and off. 

To cover the gap between the head and the body I added a leather collar. 

The owl's eyes were done with some LED lights, and a toggle switch.  I did wind up using 1/2 of the X-mas decoration to reinforce the plastic cup. 

The next challenge was the beak.  I went around and around on what to make it out of.  Finally decided on painted leather bolted to the head.  The mask portion went pretty easy.  Leather and brass tarp grommets.  It then got treated with neatsfoot oil.

Here he is with the eyes on.  I think he strikes the perfect balance between cute and menacing...

Once the owl was done all that was left was a platform for him to sit on.  For at home I made a wooden plat form from some pre-fab deck building supplies.  I added a threaded piece of rod to the top so that the owl could "sit" on the platform.  I also added a name plate to the platform.

For conventions I made wax-hardened leather shoulder plate and harness.  A bolt passes through the plate to attach the owl. 

Here's Bubo with his owner enjoying the last World's Steam Expo. 

Well that's all for now. 

M-T-T

Steampunk Shotgun Part 4

Finally got the Steampunk Shotgun finished.  The barrels took longer than I anticipated but I'm pretty happy with the overall look of the piece. 



Here's a pick of the overall gun

 

 

Here's a close-up of the front of the gun

 

Here's the back of the gun with the pressure chambers

Here's a close-up of the pressure gauge

One final pic of the gun. 

Well that's all for now.  Onto the next project...

M-T-T







Steampunk Shotgun Part 3

Made some good progress on the shotgun over the weekend.  For the most part finished the "bottom" of the gun.  Now just need to add the barrels and some of the other "top" parts to get this one completed. 

Here is an overall pick of the shotgun so far.  Added a lot of brass bits to it.

Here is a close-up of the front part of the stock.  Yes, that is a mini-wooden barrel attached to the stock.  Rob wanted some sort of clip that would attach a line to a "grappling dart" in the gun's 3rd barrel.  I really liked the idea that the gun would have a grappling dart for getting up to an airship from the ground or for boarding actions, but I just couldn't get behind the "clip".  I ran across this little barrel at the Goodwill near my house and thought that it would be perfect to hold the line for the grappler.  The two brass pieces in front of the barrel will be the "line guides". 

Here is a close-up of the back of the stock.  I added a brass trigger guard and a leather strap with a brass clasp.  The clasp is for connecting to a belt or harness when you "use" the grappling dart.  I know in reality that the gun doesn't work (I'm not that far gone yet...), but I think it's the little details of "how would this really work" that make a project fun, and give it a level of realism. 

In the random musings category.  I saw this commercial the other day where a man proposes to his lady during a hot-air-balloon ride.  Since it's a 30 second commercial she with tears in her eyes nods "YES" (very touching, no idea what they were selling in the commercial...), so any way my mind jumps to "Well it's a good think she said yes, or that could be a very awkward 45 to 60 min trip depending on wind speed".  So that is my advice for anyone out there looking to propose, if there is even the slightest chance that he/she will say "NO" don't propose on a hot-air-balloon ride.  I have now potentially prevented an awkward social situation that may have required you to attend some sort of counseling, you can thank me latter. 

Stay tuned.  More posts on the gun to come. 

M-T-T

Steampunk Shotgun Part 2

Still plugging away at the shotgun.  Had a bit of a set back with the staining.  If there was truth in advertising the following product:

Would actually be called:

It really does not stain as well as actual wood and any wood it touches won't take stain well either, but after some grumbling and sanding I was able to get a good stain on the stock.

The next part was a bit fiddly but I wanted to fill in the open section on the bottom gun, so I cut out a piece of heavy brass to fill it in.

Here is another picture of the brass cutout and the trigger:

Here is a pic of the trigger "mechanism"  from the top.  I'm going to reinforce this to make it a bit more robust.

Well that's all for now.  Hopefully this weekend I have a few hours to work on this.  Pretty soon I'll be adding the "fun stuff" to this piece.  

 

M-T-T

 

Steampunk Shotgun Part 1

So I've been posting a lot of projects that I have completed, but I thought I would try something different and post updates of a current project as I work on it.

So this next project is a Steampunk Shotgun that my friend Rob started, but just didn't have time to finish.  So he asked me to step in and and see what I could do (did I mention that Rob makes really good beer and cider?).  So it appears that my maker skills can result in adult beverages, not too shabby...

So here is the stock for the gun.  Rob had some pieces attached to it, but I stripped it down to get a better idea of what I had to work with:

It's an old rifle stock, but it will work for this application.  There were several screw holes in the wood and a crack in the stock.  I debated how I wanted to deal with that, but finally took the plunge and sanded down the majority of the stock and filled in the excess holes and the crack with wood filler. 

I plan to use a dark walnut stain on the exposed wood.  I think it will give a nice two tone look with the grip sections that I didn't sand down. 

One of the things that has plagued me with building steampunk guns in the lack of good trigger to add to them.  My previous options have been:
        *Machine a trigger from scratch(a bit time consuming)
        * Purchase an old trigger casing from somewhere (usually have to fiddle with fit, and they can be a bit expensive, especially for something that is art piece/toy).

But in this case I found something that I think will work really well:
Behold the Brass Hinge Pin Door Stop:






What's that you say?  It doesn't look like a gun trigger? 





How about if we flip it around and take off all the plastic bits?

Starting to look more like a trigger.

Now just hand me that Dremel tool...

Here it is with the back part cut off and a notch cut in.

Here it is with a spring added.  The spring will mount against a plate I will add to the gun so that there will be tension/feedback on the trigger.  No one likes a floppy trigger.  Just sayin. 

Well that's where the project is for now.  I'll post more pics etc. as this one moves along. 

M-T-T





Steampunk Walking Stick/ Steampunk Cane

Here is one of the props I will have this year for my Steampunk Hephaestus Costume.  The head of the cane is a brass hammer head.  The bottom portion is a brass piece from an old candle holder ala Goodwill.  The body of the cane was a hardwood wooden dowel that I found in my garage.  I have no idea what the dowel was originally purchased for, but it worked pretty well in this application.  I then added some brass upholstery tacks. 

Well I can now post pics of one of my latest projects since it was a gift and has been delivered.  I've started to refer to this style as a Tesla Cane. 



The main housing began life as a sword cane that I found online.  It took quite a while to find one that was a Bear's head.

Here are some pics of the finished cane:

The EL wire was from ELLumiglow.  The plastic tube was from ePlastics. 

 

Here is a closer picture of the leather case that covers the battery pack to power the EL wire.  You do get some pretty impressive glow from just a AAA battery.  

 



 

Well that's all for now.  Gotta go work on some stuff:)