Should steampunk look old?

[oldskoolpunk]

I was working on one of my projects at TechShop in Silicon Valley. It's shiny new brass and polished wood, and although a 19th century design of sorts, it looks brand new.

Here's what I'm talking about



This is the control box for the Aetheric Message Machine.

(More at http://www.aetherltd.com/aesthetic.html).

This isn't the final form. Everything works, but it needs embellishment. I have a wooden base for it (not shown) that's 3/4" wood about an inch larger in each dimension than the box it supports, stained to look like mahogany and decorated with brass corners. The brass corners changed the whole look.

I'm not sure what to do about a lid.  Not more brass; that would be overkill. Not glass; the insides are too modern. Maybe just a thinner piece of stained wood, just slightly larger than the rest of the box. The sides of the box are black-painted slotted metal, for ventilation, The top can thus be solid. Ideas?  I've considered polished slate, which was used for insulating electrical equipment in the late 19th and early 20th century. The box top is 12x11", so one floor tile could do the job. Has anybody worked with slate?

[Waterbug]

Old School,

I have worked with the 12x12 slate tile in many projects. Joy to work with. Fairly easy to drill, easy to cut on a tile saw, easy to shape with hammer and chisel. It can break along weak faults, but pretty rare. Cheap enough to try that is for sure. On the down side for this project could be the rough surface, true of the inexpensive ones from the big box stores I've used, not polished as you want and rightly so. Soapstone would be another option. I've not seen these in big box stores. Stone and tile dealers are a good source. Say you are a designer and I've gotten 25% discounts. Way better than contractor discounts (10-15%). A business card or web site is all you need as proof.

Another good source would be any stone counter supplier in your area. They always have great amounts of stone in the size you require which they just throw out. They normally only charge for any edging work you may need. Since you may have some budget they could even cut some pattern into the top or emboss the edges for a Victorian look. Speaking of which, marble might work too.

My preference with brass is always wood. But I'm not paying your fee.

Brass screen or punched metal might be another option to break up the use of brass. Lots of patterns to choose from.

Although you didn't ask for suggestions in other areas I will presume to offer one. I have completely banned used of Phillips head screws in my projects since they were unknown prior to 1930's. Slot only for me. The screws are almost always the feature I see first and Phillips jerk me right out of the fantasy.

I assume the plastic power switch and push button were required by the client and metal toggles were not options.

[icyuod2]

What's the aesthetic here?  In its day, Victorian equipment was shiny and new. what we see from that era today has a century or more of wear on it. So when we build new equipment, should we age it? There are arguments on both sides.

if you were an inventor, back in the Victorian era, i imagine your status/wealth would have a lot to do with it.
a gentleman would have the $$$ to purchase and use new parts, while the less fortunate might have to rumage through trash and used shops to find the pieces for his/her creations.

i don't think theres a correct answer, but its the aged look appeals to me.

[Captain Brandsson]

All inventions were brand new at some stage and the good ones are old at some stage.

[groomporter]

Of course it also depends on how many loyal minions you have to keep the brass-work polished...

[Capt. Stockings]

I like things to look well-loved. I don't try to make things look old, but as I use them, they get worn in. My gear is a combination of old- and new-looking things, since I made some recently and others several years ago. Nothing is artificial.

[Benzworth]

My personal take on it is that if it's a prop that should look aged, age it.
If it's an actual functional item, I prefer to let it age naturally with use.

[clockworkskull]

Personally, I think that my stuff is well taken care of but heavily used in look. The use of old would imply to much.

[oldskoolpunk]

I have completely banned used of Phillips head screws in my projects since they were unknown prior to 1930's. Slot only for me. The screws are almost always the feature I see first and Phillips jerk me right out of the fantasy.

Oops.  I should have thought of that.

[Siliconous Skumins]

... I have completely banned used of Phillips head screws in my projects since they were unknown prior to 1930's. Slot only for me. The screws are almost always the feature I see first and Phillips jerk me right out of the fantasy.

Yeah same here, If they are visible I try to avoid philips heads, and if not I at least counter sink them and hide under a layer of filler / veneer / parts / etc.  When I was building my gas lamp desk light, I finished it, switched it on and stood back to admire my work.......only something just didn't look right. Took me 30 seconds to figure it was the screw heads on the wood base, they were old brass screws alright, but they were philips - Doh! A quick dig in my toolbox produced some nice worn brass screws of the right type. 

Here's a pic of what I'm talking about (I've mentioned it twice on this thread, so...) :

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Screws in base:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

SS

[MWBailey]

Sometime I'd like to try making my own brass wood screws; Yes, I'm a former Woodwright addict, and saw Mr. Underhill cutting the drive grooves on the heads of his handmade-on-an-anvil iron screws. Just something to do sometime when I have nothing better to do -- or perhaps when I have other things to do but don't want to do them!

I've made things like escutcheon pins, axles, retaining pins, and tacks from copper wire; it's considerably softer than brass, but the method can't be all that different (odd head profiles though, in  some instances. Sorry, I don't have any pics of them). But cutting all those threads on each one with a file might become addictive...

[Waterbug]

MWBailey,

I missed Mr Underhill's episode unfortunately. It has never occurred to me to make screws which would be useful given I never seem to have the right size. Any information you can point to on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

I have tried making heads on copper wire with little success but I have not made any dies. Would you say a die is required? Any links or information on your techniques, perhaps in a new thread, would be also greatly appreciated. I could find nothing when searching this forum but the exact search terms may be my problem.

The closest I've come is using copper and aluminum tacts as rivets which work well. I've also removed the zinc plating from steel slot screws and blackened to prevent rust.

[madscott]

We really need a poll on this question.

I'm fond of shiny and well cared for.
I've probably inhaled too much brasso.

A little banged up is fun for that certain bailing wire and spit look.
I think of it like a well cared for piano.
They sound and look beautiful but sometimes you just need an old clunker to produce a special sound.

[J. Wilhelm]

Oldskoolpunk:

I know it may sound odd, but just glancing at your project I remembered an old 1970's FM Stereo/Amp with a wood cabinet I had(unfortunately I think I got rid of it).   There are some interesting 1950's and 60 cabinets out there in Craigslist.  Such cabinets can be steampunked easily, without building one from scratch.  Sometimes you can get these at flea markets or swap meets (Don't go to "retro" stores they'll want a million dollars for it!).

J. Wilhelm

[Grave]

Matter of opinion, I enjoy post apocalyptic items overall. The more rust/ patinas the better.

[costumemercenary]

I like things to look well-loved. I don't try to make things look old, but as I use them, they get worn in. My gear is a combination of old- and new-looking things, since I made some recently and others several years ago. Nothing is artificial.

I concur!

Functionality, or at least the appearance of it is (personally) at the heart of steampunk, so it needs to (in the interests of hyper-realism) to look like it's well used. Things aren't so much aged as they are worn in, or as Capt. Stockings put it, "well-loved". This may require a little extra effort, especially since decorative cogs and the like won't get much wear in.

[SashaGears]

if it's meant to look like a relic, I make it old looking, broken down, rusted.

if it's not, I try to make it look vintage, but not like something I found sitting in the bottom of a mine shaft after 80+ years of it rotting away.

I like things to look nice and tempered, not...brilliantly shiny though

[SirValdemar]

I agree with others that its personal preference but there are points where old versus new does take precident such as in the instance of gifts.  Lets say you've hammered out a beautiful copper punch bowl with brass handles and brass footing for your mother you would of course want it to look gleaming.   Now lets change the recipient to your father whom you have built a 3 piece set of engine oiler cans made out of tin and brass because your father hobbies on old bits and parts then you would want a worn look to them so that they fit in with his workshop or bench.

[WillRockwell]

The decision to age is just one of the many choices open to a Steampunk artisan. Some craftsmen decide only to build in metal, others achieve miraculous results using modern materials such as styrene. Each of us mines their individual vision of 19th century style, which is a collection of detail elements that we apply to each new project. Whether to make it look old is just one more choice.
Actually it is not just a decision to look old or not. Should the item look old but used, recovered from being cast off in a harsh environment, old with the patina of a century of storage, or with patches on patches, the sign of an object being repaired and constantly in use, like an old Buick in Cuba?

[Siliconous Skumins]

So, to sum it up...

Should Steampunk look old or new?  - The answer is YES! 

SS

[von Corax]

So, to sum it up...

Should Steampunk look old or new?  - The answer is YES! 

SS

Except when it shouldn't.

[Major Twangy Rubber]

If I may, I'd like to pose a supplementary question:

Is Steampunk allowed to look "homemade"?

Now, we've all seen the peerless work performed by members of these forums - but my current WIP doesn't quite match up to their fabrication skills. (it turns out that fabricating 3D artifacts from brass sheet is quite hard!)

Should I despair, or am I allowed to present something which doesn't quite have the gloss of perfection to it?

[von Corax]

If I may, I'd like to pose a supplementary question:

Is Steampunk allowed to look "homemade"?

In my opinion, absolutely. For every finely-crafted mechanism there had, at one time, to be a prototype, whose primary function was to determine whether the bloody thing would actually work, and that prototype would certainly have been constructed from whatever scrap and surplus materials were to hand and would serve the immediate purpose. (It would, after all, be a waste of time and materials to, say, cut finely-detailed filigree-work into the brass and apply a hand-rubbed oil finish to the mahogany only to discover you need to shift all the pivots to make room for another countershaft, that there is now no metal where the new pivot must go, and that the case is now ¾” too narrow.)

[Waterbug]

am I allowed to present something which doesn't quite have the gloss of perfection to it?

Sometimes a person with little or no experience will come up with a new approach for some aspect of an item. For me it is mainly about the learning so I find value in non-perfect items as well as perfect. Actually, there are a lot of perfect items I don't much care for.

[Captain Brandsson]

"Allowed"?

Who are you worried would "disallowing" anything?