Sometime during the work on my school bus to RV conversion I developed an allergy to pine sawdust.  So I built this powered face mask filter so I could continue to work with wood in my shop without unpleasant effects.

When I was a boy my father brought home from work a telegraph sounder replica kit.  He was the director of the library for a local college and the sounder kit was one of several museum quality reproductions of 19th Century technology the library had acquired. The lovely brass sounder must have made a large impression, because I have wanted one for my own ever since.

Well, here at the The Workshop if you want something, you make it.  I started my quest by cruising Google image search for pictures and diagrams of telegraph sounders that matched my recollections of the one my Dad brought home.  As it turns out all telegraph sounders are pretty much the same so it was an easy task to collect a bunch of photos and drawing from which I could extract design details and dimensions.

For many of my recent projects I have found myself in need of a lightbox so I took a couple of hours from working on my latest project to put together this one.

In which your humble proprietor theorizes that; if he can etch into one side of a brass plate he may be able to etch completely through the plate from both sides. A fixture is constructed, current is applied, electrolyte boils and jewelery is made.

A while ago I saw Mark Frauenfelder's limited edition Moleskin notebooks on BoingBoing and immediately thought of using the electrolytic brass etching process that I've been experimenting with to make some similar notebooks to give as gifts this year.

As you can see they came out quite well and the Moleskin's two century history lends the project a certain Steampunk street cred.