I've been thinking about what this whole Steampunk thing is and I still haven't gotten a handle on it.  But anything that brings together such a wide range of artists, makers, and fans has got to be good.  Is there any other hobby that will bring you email from HAM radio operators, Bay Area sculptors, European train buffs, Seattle musicians, media reporters, alternative energy tinkerers, clockmakers, goth fashion designers, literary agents, telegraphers, Scottish printmakers, LA fashion photographers, British narrow boat dwellers, and so many more?  I think not!

One such email arrived this morning from Suzanne R Forbes, a Berkeley artist who has created a work that embodies three of my most favorite memes!  In addition the painting (and Suzanne!) will be at Maker Faire next week and will ultimately be auctioned off to benefit one of those favorites, the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  The exercise of determining the other two favorites is left to the reader.

Prints are currently on sale at her Etsy store and $10 of each sale goes to benefit the EFF. Be sure to look for Suzanne, the EFF and the rest of us SteamPunks at Maker Faire next week!

Andy sent me a couple of shots of his beautiful stamp decorated keyboards.  He write that he's made about 10 of these beauties.

Each of his keyboards are made with the stamps of a single nation and often commemorate a royal coronation or celebrate a particular sport. Andy's friends and family are most often the lucky recipients of these works of art.

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.

With this project I wanted to try a number of new things:

• Magazine pages as cheap toner transfer media
• Copper electroplating
• Etching Altoid tins with a salt water solution

The copper plating met with mixed success, but the other two methods resulted in some nice pieces.

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.

I have been having great success etching brass plate with a solution of copper sulfate and an electrical current.  The depth, quality, and speed of the etchings have been quite controllable and it seemed to me that I might be able to etch completely through a piece of brass.  This capability would allow me to make pieces of several layers of brass, so I devised a design for a test case.

I have a Fender US Highway One series Stratocaster, which is a half decent guitar, but looks just like a million other Strats.  I had been planning to replace the pick guard with a black mother of pearl guard but my experiments in electrolytic etching made me think I'd like to try something a bit more unique.  Thus the Steampunk Strat was born.

I'm really happy with this one, the proportions work really well, it's sexy in a Mae West kinda way.

This is a lamp for my bus conversion project, most likely it will go in the bathroom. Total project time was about an hour.