Have we done anything productive today?

[Lady Ava]

Dear lady, I wish to redress the balance. You are charming, witty, beautiful, gentle, clever, educated, fun, well read, polite, kind and an upstanding member of the Steampunk Community which is, of itself, the finest body of people one could ever wish to meet.

Thankyou, it'll sound silly but that made me almost cry! It's rare that anyone treats me with such kindness and patience, and as you said, I am very lucky to have met such a brilliant set of people. I wish I could thank you all individually.

[darkshines]

Lady Ava you are an absolute sweetheart and one of the few people in this world that I consider to be a true friend. I know things seem tough and you have had your fair share of crap lately but you will get through this because you are a strong, beautiful and independant woman who can cope, and ride the storm. Keep calm and carry on, my darling.

It's barely 7:30am and I am already halfway to London and have written some more of my speech for the Wye. I feel A LOT happier with it now, and I hope people find it interesting and informative!

[Grymm]

 Dunno about productive but I did stumble over this little lot in a charity shop



And bought the bally lot.....rent may be a little short this month =o/

The pic doesn't include the bowler and topper that fitted me and the short topper that fitted the Mem.

The shop still has a dozen+ dark navy blue and grey woolfelt toppers on the shelves.

A bit of tidying up and I think they'll look lovely on the stall at Tewksbury.

[Grymm]

 Oh and stiffened (Oo er Matron) 3 1740 naval tricorns I'm making for a chums wedding.

[Captain Shipton Bellinger]

 Dunno about productive but I did stumble over this little lot in a charity shop



And bought the bally lot.....rent may be a little short this month =o/

You utter, utter utter, utter b....d lucky chap!

A bit of tidying up and I think they'll look lovely on the stall at Tewksbury.

See you at Tewkesbury. 

[Grymm]

 Unless I can persuade the Mem to trade at The Asylum....Where's Tink's details?

[James Harrison]

Someone's been playing with Tesla's teleportation device again 

[Xenos]

 Dunno about productive but I did stumble over this little lot in a charity shop



And bought the bally lot.....rent may be a little short this month =o/

The pic doesn't include the bowler and topper that fitted me and the short topper that fitted the Mem.

The shop still has a dozen+ dark navy blue and grey woolfelt toppers on the shelves.

A bit of tidying up and I think they'll look lovely on the stall at Tewksbury.

Would LOVE to have one of those...  Even though toppers and I are not *quite* right for eachother...  Still, quite a lovely lot!

[Captain Lyerly]

Installed windowboxes here at the tenement.  Four, two high, two low.  Actually, just the brackets; La Contessa will be arranging the silk (and plastic) flowers in them and placing them.

Finally managed to secure the shutters on the upper windows - without falling out! 

Did a test run of The Beast - stationary only, need to check insurance matters before a road test.

Fought honeysuckle - a never ending battle.

So, productive... to a point.


Cheers!

Chas.

[Xenos]

Found a lovely resource for HO scale train bits and goodies...  I should be able to (when I have the finances) have a very nice waterfront steampowered steel mill/ore refinery (complete with steamcranes, shovels, and lifts!).

The expensive piece will be the Laker model I'd like to have-it's 72", which, although not *exactly* scale correct for the ship she's a model of (She should be 100.55 inches long, since the Big Fitz was 729ft), is still MORE than substantial for what I'm wanting to do (I'm using a Laker, even though the scene is an Atlantic Waterfront because of the look of the freighter...  Besides, it's an alternate reality anyway!).

She costs right at $400 USD.  Quite obviously, she'll be the last piece in my diorama...  Probably after several years of saving (Probably around 5 years or so).

The buildings I need are going to be added one every few months, as they're around $50 a pop.  I'll be using my guitar string/pick money, and also stop eating out all together.

The main thing is, I plan to, within 7 years, have a wonderful diorama of Dockside (from my book I *should* be working on but am not at the moment...), while my wife works on a diorama of a world she created called "Silver Star."

'twill be Epic-ness of Awesome.

[Captain Lyerly]

What will you use for taconite?


Chas.

[Arceye]

Xenos good luck with that....try to make everyting you can from scratch, kits can only do so much

And keep us posted on progress.

[Xenos]

What will you use for taconite?


Chas.

I'm still working on that part...  So far I've only seen the "one piece resin cast" kind...  I would LIKE to find something like the oldschool bagged coal, that way it will have slightly more character.  If all else fails, I can probably buy the loose coal, spray paint it various shades of red/brown, mix it up again, and go with that!

Xenos good luck with that....try to make everyting you can from scratch, kits can only do so much

And keep us posted on progress.

Aye, the little details I'll be scratch building-I'm not very good with that kind of thing right now.  I WILL probably have to scratch build most of the warehouse type buildings, which shouldnt prove TOO hard, I hope...

So far, I've found a couple of nice kits that I'd have never even THOUGHT of, blast furnaces, in particular.

I'm open to any tips/suggestions/pointers anyone wants to offer-just keep in mind it's going to be a LONG, SLOW process!

I'll post pics up of each completed section when it's done, too!

-------

Now, on to what I've done as far as productivity in the past little bit!

Spoiler: My first scratch build hookah! (click to show/hide)

I used:  A $6 grain storage whatever from the Walmart, with air tight lid, 8 feet of airline hose for an old fish tank (for the hose), a clay pot (for the bowl), shower rod (for the tube), tinfoil, and duct tape to make it all air tight.

Using the hacksaw I cut the shower rod down to about 6-8 inches long, used the bayonet to bore a big hole and a little hole (tube and hose, respective), duct taped around each, busted the 4" clay pot down to the size I wanted, broke out the bottom, tin foil around it, slipped it over the tube, loaded with pipe toby, coverd with tin foil (with holes poked in it with a knife tip), and used charcoal to smoke.

Unfortunatly, the clay pot didna work so very well under the heat...  So, next week I'll be ordering a proper bowl, upgrading the tube to copper piping, and in general turning this basic hookah into a work of art (I hope!)!  If I replace the brass tube with a copper tube, solder the connections to make it air tight, and actually get a REAL hookah hose, it'll be looking much nicer already.

All said and done, were you to actually go out and buy ALL the parts, you'd get out for around $25ish, depending on how much the metal tube and draw hose cost.

Next on the hookah-hitlist is a PORTABLE jobbie.  I'm tired of being the only one of my friends without a smoke because my pipe is *technically* not legal (somethingorother about poaching or somesuch nonsense).

I'm thinking the portable jobbie should have a FIXED draw hose, and in general be similar to a stein in look/feel.

Any thoughts?

Anyone want me to make THEM one?

(And if anyone is wondering why I decided to make a hookah at 2 in the morning, well, the simple answer is the hookah bar near my house closed down, and I wanted a smoke)

[Silent Theatre]

Nothing productive yet, except eaten breakfast, but I have to make a hat.

[CaptainPhania]

I cooked the Sunday roast, made two types of custard, and baked three types of cookies. My kitchen is a mess and I should really dust the flour off my boots.

[James Harrison]

Well, I'm working on a presentation for terracotta and faience, and finally remembered to buy some earplugs to thwart the b@st@rd-next-door's nightly assualts on my peaceful slumber.  I'd say that I've had a pretty productive day so far. 

[CaptainPhania]

I wrote in-depth analyses of Tag, British Bulldog, and Capture the Flag. I preferred yesterday.

[Arceye]

Not much in all honesty- but managed to construct the boiler for my HO loco. Here's me blithely assuming I can make small round objects in quantity in wood and card. I'm having to learn as I go, and slightly altering the design to avoid difficulties, eg a different design funnel, because a typical British loco funnel can look wrong so easily.

Tomorrow, the cab and water tanks.

[Major Willoughby Chase]

Butchered the hedge in the back garden, we have now reclaimed 18 inches down one side and the hedge is still 3 foot deep.  I have a huge mound of cuttings and the brown bin is full, these once a fortnight collections are no good in summer. 

Especially as I have two more hedges and three trees I need to prune back, three borders to strip out and replace with weed matting and cobbles.  While the old lady who lived here before did a wonderful job of planting, we're not in enough to maintain it.  So once the work is finally complete there will be, no hedges, no borders, a huge shed, a square of lawn and a patio... possibly a few pots of herbs and interesting plants, but nothing that requires time devoted to it.

[Major Dickie Woodruff]

NO!

[Lady Ava]

Paid for my boots, and fixed some of the aspects of my life that have not been awesome recently.

[Angus A Fitziron]

Discovered we have snakes in our garden pond - and they look to be getting very friendly (with each other...) Not very productive for me and bad news for the frogs and newts but nevertheless, somehow worthy!

[Aleister Crow]

Spent most of my night off sanding scratches out of wood. And sanding, and sanding, and sanding...

Finally done. Knife #2 is finished. Started with a fifteen inch carving knife that a friend of mine rescued from the restaurant he worked at (the handle was broken so they were going to throw it out). Added a striped ebony handle with copper and steel mosaic pins. I even managed to put something of a polish back onto the horribly abused blade.



Next to put a good edge on it and make a sheath. Then on to #3.

[Smaggers]

Soo.
There are times when we want to work out arrangements, but carting a whole drum kit around is a pain, and hard on the neighbours.

Ladies and gentlemen you need... The Microkit TM.

16 inch bass, 8 inch snare, hi-hat clicker and mini-shaker.


The clicker is two aluminium strips with a spring between. the mounting is two bent picture hangers with a scrap of mouse mat behind.


The mini shaker is a cut down film canister with some foam stuck to the bottom. There's half a teaspoon of iron shot in there.

The snare is a practice pad with another shaker taped to the back of the drumhead.  That shaker was a square plastic container which I cut down so it would fit. It sits on a foam pad which provides a bit of damping for the head.

The bass drum was a couple of strips of plywood, soaked and bent into shape, then glued one inside the other.

[greensteam]

Wee spot of last minute proofing for one of the Warden's Asylum authors. Old pal round for dinner of homemade pizza and meringues. Caught up on admin and research for a book I am writing about late WW2 radar.