As a former electrical engineer, I’m pretty dubious about steam power for personal transportation…just doesn’t seem efficient enough. I did have a steam-powered computer once, but I had to give it up once Vista came on the scene.

A number of Brass Goggles aficionados (Jake von Slatt, Rob Lang and Matt White: who says that great minds don’t think alike) let us in on Tom Sepe’s Whirlygig Emoto. It’s meant to be an electric-steam hybrid motorbike. Taking a 60’s bike frame, Tom has converted the bike to electric drive.

Just as I was going to put my propeller beanie and try my hand at steam power, I realized that the unit is driven by batteries and the trailing clouds of vapour are just for show!

Still, Tom has been very clever in his punkization of the bike. Read the full article by Meredith Scheff at steampunkworkshop.com.

Please do not be alarmed – one post has dissapeared, and another went on a brief holiday.  We’re still getting used to the WordPress system for letting people create and edit their own posts, so tales of posts getting eaten by rabid airkraken are grossly overexaggerated.  They’re just overexcited, and they really just nibble.

I love hand-made Steampunk-ery that still manages to look great on display – it’s one of the reason I love cruising Etsy‘s Steampunk categories. Ergo, I offer up another craft, but this one is a bit more twisted.

In a similar vein as the Lycanthropy Remedy Kit and Alex CF‘s specimen & exploration kits, these mutated (6 legs!) mammalian fœtuses sealed in specimen jars have been lovingly created by Baron Andrew von Fogel. Deliciously creepy! If you’re interested in more, do find your way here, which contains more pictures, including ones of the fœtuses sans jars, where they look (amusingly) like tiny crustaceans, and pricing, should you be so inclined to purchase one.

It would look perfectly at home one’s Cabinet of Curiosities, no?

Haruo Suekichi from Japan, whose stunning gallery of steampunk watches was previously featured on Brass Goggles, has now offered a few of his designs for sale at Chief Mag! These two beautifully handcrafted watches are available in two designs, male and female. Unfortunately these will be among the rarest of rares, for there will only be two of each for sale, and will cost a pretty penny. The male design costs $1200, while the female design costs $800. Let’s hope Mr. Suekichi makes more!

Boingboing recently wrote a bit about an old computer, a heavyweight contraption weighting in at 2500 lbs, whose inner workings of gears, cogs and mechanical components of all kinds, enclosed in glass and mahogany, are capable of out-preforming a team of a 100 trained mathematicians.

It is the tide predicting machine Number two, also known as “the brass brain“

More pictures can be found here

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“Steampunk bursts through its subculture roots to challenge our musical, fashion, design, and even political sensibilities.” With that daring statements begins Miss Sharon Steel her investigation into the fascinating world of steampunk. For The Boston Phoenix, she writes about the “Steam Dream” of our beloved genre and developing subculture, chronicling the history of steampunk as a genre and examining the characteristics of purposes of its subculture.

I thank Miss Isabel Aller, Interactive Marketing Manager for The Phoenix for bringing this fine article to our attention!

[Re-posted, after a brief dissapearance due to the new posting system.  Sorry about the loss of comments.]

Sculpted by the artful hands of one Monsieur Pierre Matter, comes a conglomeration of wonderful artifacts amalgamating bronze and steel with the resemblance of various members of the animal kingdom.

I give pause to wonder if these inspire my imagination of a bleak future in which mechanical animals are man’s answer to some blighting of fauna, or if perhaps the are more of a thing you would see in the laboratory of a grease smudged engineer hand crafting metal pets for his own amusement and study.

Kindly direct your aethernet viewer of choice here to see a gallery of his works.

Doktor A’s official art showcase kicks off in St. Columbus, Ohio on June the 7th, as you can see in the beautifully designed leaflet above. The show will act as an initial primer for the upcoming mini series “Mechtorians”, released by Doktor A in partnership with MindStyle, the previews of which were seen at New York ComicCon with a selection of rare paint masters being made available. However, for all you British fans out there, you can meet and greet the good Doktor this Saturday (May 17th) at the Richard Goodhall Gallery in Manchester from 12 till 5 PM. Signings will also be taking place at the gallery as well as a variety of customs and prints also being available from an array of artists. Yet it gets better! Although not directly a Steampunk artist, Kathie Olivas will also be in attendance, her fans including Doktor A and Doctor Steel to name a few.

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Photo (from left): Meaghan, G.D.Falksen, Evelyn, Christine. Meaghan wears a red silk shirt from Retroscope, Evelyn with a clockwork locket from black phoenix alchemy lab, and Christine wears a dress she made herself.

On May 8th,The New York Times published the first article on steampunk fashion and subculture by a major newspaper. The article has already helped introduce new people to the subject of steampunk. As the first major article on this subject it is balanced and respectful.

You can read the whole article and view its whole gallery: Here

The article covers the main points of 21st century steampunk. It includes quotations from interviews with the Steampunk Workshop’s Jake von Slatt, Abney Park’s Robert, and Molly “Porkshanks” Friedrich. The article references steampunk fiction, films, and draws a connection with the “neovaudevillian” James Gang in order to make steampunk more accessible to the public. The article is accompanied by photographs from a steampunk meet up in New York City, which The Times reporter,Ruth La Ferla,attended. Among those pictured in the paper are Steampunk couture designer Sidonie of To Die for Designs.

All in all, it was a very well done piece that will likely circumvent initial hostility new subcultures often encounter when first discovered by the mainstream.

Seeing as how this will be my first post, I figured I’d start off with something so spectacular that it would be an offense to the very aether itself. After a disappointing couple of minutes, I realized that that wouldn’t be as easy as I had initially hoped so I’ll have to settle for this instead.

If you’re anything like me, you read the first couple of pages of The Five Fists of Science and were instantly envious of Nikola Tesla and his plasma guns. Well, my dear comrades, envy no more for RMC Cybernetics has come to your aid with instructions for a DIY Plasma Gun! They estimate the cost to fall anywhere between $150-$200 depending on whether or not you use new or used parts but I think for another $50 it can be cleaned up to look like something presentable. At the low voltage they provide instructions for, your body acts as the ground so there’s little to worry about in terms of danger.

I’ve already started to buy parts and I’ll post images as soon as it’s done. There should be a video after the jump, I’m pretty sure there is…

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