You Glow Girl!

This company makes crazy glowing furry clothing. Glowing AND furry? Sounds to me like two great things that go great together. ("Hey you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!") I have no idea how it works but it looks great for night time costumes.

Steampunk found in Nashville

Ok, so it's not the most monumental of finds - and there's no photo of it because it was in a dark country bar, but I saw the coolest steampunk noisemaker.

It was a square bellows that sat flat on top of a shelf. There was a cord so the bartender could squeeze the bellows from below. And when the bartender pulled, the bellows, instead of simply blowing air, blew the air through train whistles that stuck up out of the top bellows flap.

Duuuuuuuuuude.....

I have no idea where to find such a thing, but any thoughts on how we can make it for the perambulator?

I've Got the Power

The Solano Flea market has granted us (with a $10 donation) our Perambulator power supply. Think Flux Capacitor. It's 12v (instead of 1.21 gigawatts) so it should be a snap to install. And it should look mesmerizing at night. Doc Brown would be proud.

Paradise by the Dashboard Light

Update from the workshop- The Navigator Station and Captain's Command are taking shape. Details include Calliope keyboard, the weather station and a few big beautiful gauges. There's still a long way to go but progress is good. We need more gauges.

More Steam Inspiration

There's an abundance!

Uniflow Steam Engine video

Clock Works (if you missed it at BMan 2005) photos

Kinetic Steam Works group's website

Neverwas Runabout Steam Engine

Shade Structure Ideas Redux

I think the idea of a tensile shade structure for the main living area is worth the time and effort needed to be spent on r&d because it would enable a large tall area with only one pole. But I think we might benefit from a more tried and true shade structure for the sleeping area. We've all seen them used before. There is some question of their ability to withstand heavy winds. But the parts are easily replaced with metal conduit if a repair is needed. Two of them would give us 400 square feet of tent space (20x20). Not bad for $120 plus tax.
UPDATE- I purchased two of these yesterday! They're nicer than I thought.

Gauges, Gears, Iron Airships! Oh my!

The Amazing Leslie and I found a little Australian movie on Brassgoggles. It's called The Mysterious Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello. (It can be Netflixed here.) Done mostly in silhouettes. It is amazing. With so many airships that I was still drooling over the previous one when a new one would appear. Steampunktastic! Along with gauges and dirigibles, I find myself now infatuated with wrought-iron railings and other iron work. Here is the first 9:37. UPDATE-I now have my own complete copy I can lend.

Along these lines it occurs to me that we're going to need a lot more gauges and valves. Let's keep our eyes open for cheap stuff (or free) especially at garage sales and fleas markets.

Dorkbots do SteamPunk in Oakland on Wednesday

Steam engines, something from last year's burn and the steampunk treehouse presented at 21 Grand.

Not So Modern Mechanix

You'll lose hours on this website that has full scans of pages from Modern Mechanix magazine. Not all of it is steampunky, but what odd modern inventery!

Check out categories like "Impractical" and "Useless Tech."

Eccentric Genius

A "gentleman inventor" makes inspiring inventions with steamy names.

Wind Beneath My Pneumatic Wings

I love these wings. The wingtip lights are very cool. Only $550. There's lots of other cool (if a little fetishy) stuff there too.

Yay Area Steampunk Event

The Steampunk Treehouse camp of 07 Burners is having a fundraiser event on June 9

The treehouse project details are so tantalizing. We will need to make this a stop on the perambulator tour and maybe, if schedules permit, have an excursion to the fundraiser together.

Salvation!

Memorial Day sale - 50% off clothing and linen, we go in.

What can we find in a ghetto salv-army that could be steam punk and burnin'? Or, how cheap can our steam-punk be?
We figure accessories - lots of buckles and such - will be key. I find this belt with a powerful emblem.

We find a bunch of other clothing - a tan shirt with buckles, a black layered skirt that has shorts underneath (Lauren loves wearing that stuff). I find a very appropriate vest that too small for me (I'll bring it to the meet-up last-next week). I get a grandma frock with a buckle pattern to it that I hope to split down the front and turn into some sort of coat - or something.



Then we also find a pair of curtains - a velvety-shiny texture with a victorian pattern - $5 each. This will be great for Perambulator upholstery.



At $8, the belt was the most expensive thing we got.

Recent New Findings...

In my eternal quest to further clutter up the Zensius' home, I have come across several items which may prove useful. They may also serve to accessorize and beauteafie our glorious roving apothecary and period camp.

These include the pictured cushions taken from some poor sod's couch he'd left curbside with a "free things" sign on it. Unfortunately, the removal of said cushions may require them to actually take the damn thing to the dump (it was a freakin sofabed! who the heck is gonna pick that up? Wait. Should I go back for the mattress?). There are two large (35" x 26", about 7" thick with good quality foam and some batting) and two small (17" square, pretty flat) cushions and the upholstery is suitably tacky and period, but quite worn out. I've also hauled in a swath of carpet (about 53" x 105"), perhaps for our camp, perhaps for the dump, perhaps to be left at the Zensius' and forgotten? Finally, I have a roll of batting (110" square, about 1/2" thick) we can use to make our seat cushions extra fantastic.

Oh. And I found a serviceable bicycle chain on the side of the road too.

Steampunk Band

Here's a nice looking site belonging to a self-proclaimed steampunk band. I'm not too sure about the music (you can listen to them right on their front page, just rotate the dial on the compass) but the site is clever and steampunk from begining to end. I'm especially fond of their version of a flying machine.