Projects Archive

My travel journal: A steam/circus anablog

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Like towels, a hard-cover sketchbook is a most wholly useful object to have-  they’re good for killing obnoxious mosquitoes, trapping bits of paper and tickets in a single place (and not in the laundry), keeping track of who has offered you a couch and a hot meal, impromptu tables…the

The Man’s Heart, part three: what goes around?

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The plan, or at least, what I had been calling a plan, pretty much had ended here: the three metal parts had been designed and cut, with great thanks to the water-jet friend.  They fit together, but really weren’t a machine, yet- rough and already rusty, it was time

The Man’s heart, part two: Moving between two worlds

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I’ll say right now where my machine expertise lies: old, beated down, barely working things that I can fix or at least mutate into some other whirling, spinning thing. Bicycles, covered in grease, hacked apart and put back together. Old Volkswagens. Unidentifiable hunks of wires and gears. Ethereal computer

The Man’s Heart: New Kinetic Project – Part One

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I was commissioned this year by the Burning Man project to create a very special project: a beating, kinetic, heart for none other than The Man. Being on the build team for Mr. Splinters (El Hombre del Fuego, Dude Man, The Great False Idol) I was honored and wanted

Mark Melchior’s Cigar Box Guitars

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 [Mark Melchior wrote me some time ago with some pictures of his wonderful cigar box guitars – apologies to Mark for the delay in publication! – Jake] Mark writes: Mark “Doc-o-rock” Melchior has been building guitars for some 20 odd years and decided on a return trip to Wisconsin

Steampunk Car Update – Catalytic Converter on an Aircooled VW Motor

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Lots of progress!  She's on the road, registered, inspected, and passed, including emissions which is pretty cool considering that she's basically a 1972 VW Beetle that was re-titled in Ohio as a 1985 "assembled vehicle."  A close read of the Massachusetts auto emissions law would seem to indicate that

Jules Vernian Analog Synthesizer

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It makes me happy when people write me about things they’ve made, and when they’ve been inspired or have adopted techniques they’ve learned from the Steampunk Workshop it makes me very happy indeed! Peter wrote me a while back with some pictures of his latest project, a Jules Verne

The Brass Lion – Steampunk Recumbent

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You'll recall I posted a picture of my recumbent bike last week and that one of things I wondered aloud was how one would go about steampunkifying a bike?  Well Eric and Alan – a.k.a. Steuben's Wheelmen – sent me a whole passel of new photos that show exactly

Steampunk Clock Wedding Gift

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Every now and again, here at the Steampunk Workshop, we get email that totally makes our day.  Sometimes its simply a note from someone who has discovered Steampunk for the first time – or more precisely discovered that there was, in fact, a name for this thing that has

Victorian All-in-One PC

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The inexorable march of technology has rendered my 4:3 aspect ratio 19″ LCD mod and my pump-less water cooled PC obsolete, so when I saw at 24″ wide screen monitor on sale for $299.00 I grabbed it with the intent on making a Steampunk All-in-One PC.   The first