On Saturday we joined a group of friends mostly memebers of the West Midlands Steampunk Assembly for a visit to the Thinktank Museum in Birmingham, the main reason for the visit was to see the exhibition "Mechanical Things". An exhibition of artwork, automata, sculpture all kinetic in nature and featuring the work of Rowland Emmet, world famous and known for his work on the film "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".
We had a good turnout and it was a great visit, lots of steam engines in the museum and a railway engine, a couple of aircraft, a Hurricane and a Spitfire but the highlight was being allowed to sit in the car, the actual Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and take photos. Awesome.

Steampunk Kaleidoscopes

I was tidying up the photo albums on the PC yesterday, and realised just how long it's been since I made a steampunk kaleidoscope. These were some of the first things I made with a steampunk influence when I discovered that I was in fact a steampunk.

I was already making kaleidoscopes in stained glass so it was an obvious progression, I try to make them with a Victorian scientific look. I suppose I should make more if I can find the time.

Here's a few examples.

Mal's Gun Steampunk

Having made a couple of replicas of Malcolm Reynolds gun from Firefox recently I thought I'd make another one, only this time with a steampunk feel to it. So I used the basic shape of the Firefly pistol but added two small gas cylinders on each side complete with pipework. As much as I love the octagonal barrel of Mal's gun it's quite time consuming to make and I wanted this one to have a different look so I used 15mm plastic tube with a copper plumbing fitting on the end of the barrel. I also used a plumbers brass nut for the joint between the barrel and the gun body.

The gun was constructed from MDF as usual with hardwood grips. It was finished with acrylic paints all hand painted. I'm very pleased with it

Steampunk Canes

Here's a few of the canes I've made in the past.
Apart from the couple which have obviously got copper shafts they generally have hardwood shafts with a black finish.

My Steampunk "to do" List.

I'm going to be busy next week, I've got a lot of things waiting to modify and paint. The list right now consists of.
2 Cyberman helmets
2 Nerf Rebelle Charmed Duntless Blasters
1 Huntsman Boomstick
1 large pirate flintlock
1 Nerf Strongarm Blaster
3 Nerf Rebelle crossbows
1 Western revolver
Plus a couple of light up LED canes and a couple of Femur handle canes.
Makes me tired thinking about it. I seriously doubt that I'll get it all done in a week.

Steampunk Gun Commission

 This is a small steampunk pistol I was commissioned to make by a young lady. Mahogany and brass construction with her initials etched into a brass plate on one side and scroll work on the other side.