Lanterns of Tea continued!!!

        Post # 15



        Hello Ye Ol' Interwebs and welcome to post number 15 of my blog.

        So back in November of 2013 I started a new build and made a posted about it in my blog post Lighting The Lanterns of Tea! My tenth post on my "Steampunk Journey" blog. now this build never got very far nor has it been work on at all really since that post. In my last housing move I noticed the top to one of the lanterns sticking out of a box of random nick nacks. I pulled both of them out and rewired the lights seeing how they have somehow been pulled apart. With my newly found "I don't need a workshop to build things" attitude I began to fool around with them again.


        Where we left off with said Lanterns of Tea was not very much of anything done. The glass on the sides has been removed. With four holes one in each corner drilled through the bottom to allow for the red LED's to be installed and shine up into where the tea light candles would normally sit. and that is close to about the time I just stopped because No matter how much I tried no matter how many stores I went to I could not for the life of me find Rub N' Buff. With that being said the lanterns were put on the back burner.

       After a year and a half of being pushed aside and finally finding a store that sells Rub N' Buff The Lanterns of tea will finally get the love they deserve. I started by applying a coat of Rub N' Buff to the lanterns to give them a nice brassy look. In the picture to the left you can see the left lantern has a nice brass finish to it while the right still is completely silver. Looking back on it I think I should have put a brown base coat of paint first to give it more of an antique look but I like the way they cam out. I think they still have a nice shine and color to them.

         I continued working on them by taking this very thin plank of pine that I found a A.C. Moore and cutting out little trapezoid shaped pieces to fit the top holes of the lanterns. Put a nice coat of Minwax Jacobean stain on them to give them that dark old look and installed them.

      I then took the glass pieces that had originally been removed from the lanterns and used them to size up the cuts to be made in the metal mesh I found. Now this metal is an awful lot like the punched metal that would be found on your grandmas old pie cupboard door. I really loved the look of it so I bought it a while back and had it just sitting around for the right project. Thankfully it didn't get ruined or lost before I continued this project.

       

After cutting out metal mesh into pieces that would fit into the glass slots of the lanterns I installed them into the lanterns as you can see the big difference that mesh makes. I think it really gives it a pretty unique look.

Wish the Lanterns painted all brassy and nice, Wood pieces, And metal mesh installed. I was yet again at a stand still. I plan on wiring them up so that all the wires are hidden inside and out the top because I would really like to hang them. Also I need to figure out where to hang them and I also think I might put a few more LED's inside the top pointing down.

      As you can see from this picture of the lights off and the red LED's inside the lanterns on (even though this picture makes it look even worse) Though the LED's light up the lanterns it doesn't really have that creepy red glow effect I was looking for. I was really looking for an almost demonic red glow out of these so that I could put them on at night and have a really nice looking accent light in the living room. 

 

       



       Alright so that's about it for my Tea Light lanterns for now. Still not a completed project I know but hey they are a lot closer to being done than they were a year and a half ago. So....... points!?

       At any rate thats you for reading and hang around these lantern will hopefully be down within the coming weeks with some nice hangers fully wired up, maybe some more LED's. Don't know yet. If you enjoy the blog or any of my builds please give it a like through a few comments out there on them and press that follow button it will give me more motivation to keep it up. Thanks again and stay steamy!! That was dumb sorry.

NESteampunk Anyone?

             #14


          HELLO.... THERE..... INTERWEBS!!!!!

          So it has been a long time since my last post. Over a year! Well to say the least things in the past year have been Very hard for me. Very long story that I'm sure most people will not care about so I'll keep that to a minimum. Long story short I still have yet to find a new place for my workshop and the divorce is still hindering my living situation.

         With that out of the way I stopped at A.C. Moore yesterday and pick up a few things to fool around with some small builds. I found some things to finish my Tea lights from a few posts back, and I started and finish this last build.

       

        So to start off this build I took one of my NES controllers. I purposely chose the one that was slightly discolored because no one likes discolored NES controllers. No one! At any rate, I First tried seeing if I could clean it up because I never tried to make anything with just a faux antique paint job. So I was going to try my hand at it. But cleaning it up didn't work out as planned and I quickly realized My painting skills are not up to par to pull that off.



        I then decided that this will be another wooden build so I ripped the controller apart to see what my plan of action was going to be doing that. Even though I probably should not have expected anything different I was still surprised at how few components in this controller there are. So after ripping it all apart I quickly realized that the way the buttons are held in place would be impossible to recreate out of wood so the only way to do this is just reskin the controller with very thin wood.



I then glued the contact rubbers to the circuit board as if the case was holding them in place. Followed by Gluing the original buttons to the rubber contractors. Then glued some wooden spacers to the buttons knowing I would need them to extend the buttons past the new layer of wood soon to be on top of the controller casing.



        After putting the case back together and building the new wooden exterior case cover if you will. I added some extensions to the select and start buttons. The I said "Ok now I have a wooden NES controller." "How am I going to make this more steampunk?"

Gears!!! so I put two little gears on it one for the start and one for the select button. Then See how I have all these Typewriter key charms I bought from the craft store I thought. Perfect!! the A and B buttons. Then put a nice coat of minwax Jacobean stain on said controller.


         After that I just went crazy with the Brassy bits. I added U,D,L,R typewriter keys for the up, down,left,and right, D-pad. Some sheet copper corner covers I made that are almost impossible to see in the below picture. Four stamped corner plates, A Key hole plate and some copper wire twisted over the cord end and a little on the bottom for a little more metal-ness.

         
              So there it is boys and girls my Steampunk NES controller. It has been over a year since I have built anything and I was really happy to get something new done. Also Like I said earlier in the post I plan on finishing the tea light lanterns soon so stay tuned for that update. thank you for reading and I will also link my youtube video of this build for anyone who wants to check it out.

Stairs!!!!

       Post # 13



        So as I said I would have a post of a custom staircase. The pictures are kind of self explanatory so this probably won't be a very long blog post.

     These first two pictures were taken after the construction had already started and was half way done.

      At the back side of the stairs the was a wall that had an outside corner and a lally column in the corner.  So we had taken out the walls, lally column and the main beam. The main beam was replaced with three 2"x16"x16' Microlams to open the room up more.      


      As you can see the stairs made no sense at all. When you walk down them you were facing the wall and not walking into the room. (Stupid design for a finish basement)

     So now the stairs Are facing the right way and look much much better. Everything on the staircase with the exception of the rails and spindles is 100% hand made.

     I wish I had more time to have been able to make the rails by hand as well but time is money and this job went on for way too long. As soon as we opened up the walls and ceiling it was a nightmare of wires and pipes and just all around hacked together crap. So best thing to do is if you don't know how to do something right don't do it. Because its people like me who have to fix it one day.


      Well thats about it for the staircase post like I said short and sweet. And not very steampunk-ish at all but still a fun project I felt like sharing. The lamp build will be coming soon. In the process of finding a new job to pay for it so might take a bit.

      Again thanks for reading and to all the continued Readers thanks for coming back to read more. Please feel free to follow my blog and give it a like It will give me more motivation to keep going, keep building, and keep blogging.

This is 12

  Title says it Post 12


      Yes sir yes sir post number 12. This post is not going to be a whole build, Nor will it be a half of a build. More of just the start of the build.

       So as I said in my last post I will be building up my small project to completion just to get some post up and waste time really till I can get a new workshop up and running. Also like I said the first build to be completed is going to be the lamp. Now I have quite a few good Ideas and are being put in motion right now, However this will turn into quite the pricey endeavor.

        I recently remodeled my parents basement and had to move a substantial amount of plumbing pipes. After the job was done I was left with a good amount of leftover copper pipe stock. The first thing my mind turns to is of course my lamp. After it was all said and done I was left with A few three to four foot lengths of 3/4" pipe, One of 1", And one seven foot length of 1/2". (left picture)

 Also I had a whole mess load of 3/4" pipes that had to be cut out to be relocated and eliminated. Naturally all the pieces that were not being use were also going to go straight to the lamp project. (right picture)


          So as of right now I am in the process of cut and fitting and figuring out just how I'm going to put this whole thing together. so like I said before this is not a build post but more of an update.

          More to come soon I promise. Thanks for reading. thanks to the people who keep reading and I will have a nice new lamp build post soon. PS. Off the Steampunk topic ( I know blasphemy right?) I will have some nice custom staircase pictures to show off and a bar top build. (hopefully a full bar build to show as well)

Copper Lamp Anyone?

         Long over due post #11



         Hello to all ye who are reading my blog. (which I'm sure is very few)
Well to start this post I should point out that I haven't been building or posting at all for the past few months because of some personal things going on. Needless to say they have changed everything about my life, and housing arrangements have been hindering my ability to build anything. (no workshop = no build)

       However I did manage to grab my Lamp shades on my last visit to ye ol' workshop. (my old basement)
I plan on finishing this project first. Starting today I have been working on this project and will be uploading new pictures and new post about it.

      After that I also have the tea lights project to finish, And once again will be doing so and posting soon. To all the people who read my blog. Sorry for not keeping up with it, And I will start the new postings very shortly. In due time I do plan on finding a new place to set my workshop back up and finish all of my projects and of course start some new ones.

Lighting The Lanterns of Tea!

      Double digits post # 10


      I haven't got the next post of the monitor build ready yet so instead I figured I would start yet another build. This one is going to be a tea light holder of sorts.


 
      So I started this build with these two Tea light Lanterns. I found these lanterns A few years back when I had to clear out an abandoned apartment. they left a ton of stuff in the apartment including these things and I just grabbed them for some reason.

     

      So first thing was to take out the glas the was in the lanterns I plan on putting it all back in at the end However these lanterns are going to get painted and I don't feel like trying to paint around the glass. 

 

     Then I thought I might add these to the Monitor build maybe not but it could happen. So figured I am going to need something on these to make them look like they go with it incase I do add them to the monitor build. What I thought of was to drill some holes in the bottom. As you can see I drilled four small holes one in each corner.


     I then put a 5mm LED in each of the holes. The same red LED's used in the monitor build. This I rather like a lot. A few simple LED's and these dumb little lantern this look ten times better.




     That's As far As I got for now. I plan on doing more to these some time in the next few days most likely finishing then completely by my next post on them. I also think that I am going to add them to the monitor build.


   That's all for this post though hope it was enough to suffice.

    Like always thanks for reading and if you like what you see please comment rate and follow. it will give me more motivation to do more builds and posts.

Crank It Up!

        Post 9!


           Volume control Am I right?

            Whats a computer monitor with speakers build in it if you do not have full control over the volume of said speakers. Well with the speakers in my monitor project the idea of not having some type of volume control was just unacceptable to me. Also the idea of having some hum drum boring ol' volume knob was just as bad so it was time to do that thinking thing that I don't like doing all the time.

             My neighbor had a hole bock of clock parts that he let me rummage through,And I soon had a great idea. Why not make the volume control out of clock parts? This solve the problem of having some boring old knob hanging off the monitor somewhere. Also it solves the problem of this build not being "Steampunk-ish" enough? That and the hole control thing yada yada yada. So that what I shall do make the control knob into a clock work like crank system. BRILLANT!!!

             Not much more to say than that and I don't have any pictures of the process so here is a youtube video instead.




    After I made this video I made one last addition to the crank. I added a gear onto the crank to use as a handle so here is a picture of the finished crank.

      Hope you like it and as always thanks for reading.

       If you like what you see please Rate comment and follow for more builds. plus it will give me more motivation to keep building.