(photo: myself at the 2009 Man Build)

About 23 miles north of the middle of nowhere lies a small, innocuous ranch. A sign, about the same prominence as the NO TRESPASSING beside it, identifies it as Black Rock Station Storage and Production Facility. This is Burning Man's work ranch.

Since 2007, I have trekked here- I am in situ- along with 15 other artists, crafters, carpenters, city slickers- to build Burning Man's figurehead, affectionately known among us as Mr.Splinters. In just under a week, a pile of lumber is transformed into a false idol famous enough to Moses blush.

The internet is spotty up here- we are, in fact, in the wild west (scorpions included) but both myself and the internet-starchild SFSlim will be posting about our progress. His writings can be found at the Burning Man Blog. You might also considering following me on Twitter, as 140 characters is a little bit easier for this ol' bessie, our internet connection, to handle.

One of my goals for this year is to add some real machining capabilities to my shop. I've been in the market for a milling machine since the beginning of the year and when I saw a Bridgeport series II CNC mill pop up on Craiglist for $1000 I decided to jump at it.

This is an older CNC mill that is in great shape as far as the iron is concerned but, according to the seller, had exhibited some flakiness with the controller after being moved. These things are pretty primitive TTL logic cards feeding power Darlington output transistor that drive stepper motors so I have no doubt that I will be able to fix what ever may be amiss--most likely the boards just need to be re-seated.

Click through and check out my new toy!

 I've made some great improvements to my sew-through soft circuits. These are the same that I used to make the previously blogged NorthSkirt.

Also, I'm excited to announce that I am now selling preliminary beta kits, over on my Etsy store! Way more info after the cut..

Your mostly-humble narrator

I've had an off-and-on love affair with soft circuits since I became aware of them. Unfortunately, all the pre-made boards for soft circuits are clumsy (being traditional hard PCBs) and finnicky (hard to keep a good connection) to use.

Being a good little hacker, I decided to make my own.

Way more after the jump...

Here's the final iteration of my foundry furnace. I've re-built the burner to be fired with propane and waste oil rather than gasoline and waste oil. I built my oil injector based on plans from the wonderful folks over at Lionel Labs, it's essentially identical to "The Brute."  

I also added a light pole. Since I have a day job, night-time is often my only opportunity for recreation of the metal melting sort.

Part 4 of my foundry furnace build, the gasoline burner assembly. I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out and the test firings have all of the neighbors asking "What's he building in there?What's he BUILDING in there?!"

Click through for the full story as well as a larger version of the video and many pictures!

When we moved into our house there was an electric chandelier in our dining room.  It was an adequate enough fixture but incandescent chandeliers are terribly inefficient, six 25 watt bulbs actually put out a fraction of the amount of light as a single bulb of half the combined wattage, and while they do make candelabra base compact fluorescent bulbs, I find their light cold, harsh, and they are not very dim-able.

Besides, nothing beats real candle light for a romantic dinner at home.

Read on for details on converting an electric chandelier back to candles . . .

Last year I wrote an article for Make Magazine volume #17 that described the construction of an electrostatic generator of electricity, a Wimshurst Influence machine, using parts and materials commonly available at your local home center and hardware store.

I was a little surprised and quite pleased when I realized that the contract from O'Reilly Media (the publishers of Make:) had me retaining copyright for the material I submitted.  What I sold to O'Reilly was basically a right to use and to publish first.

So here it is for your enjoyment! This is the first of a five part series detailing the construction of a Wimshurst Influence machine!  (UPDATE: added large dimensioned drawing.)

This is part two in a series of articles describing how to build a Wimshurst Influence Machine with parts and materials available at your local home center and hardware store.  In this part I detail how to make a tool to cut the acrylic disks and how to prepare the drive components. If you missed part one you will find it here. This article was originally published in Make: Magazine volume #17