W.I.P. - The "Enhanced Galvanick Lucifer" (fuel tank built & glowing!)

[PKM]

the beloved and I had a giggle seeing just what around the house would fluoresce under UV.

The results were quite startling.

Don't take it anywhere near your kitchen work surfaces.  I'm not kidding- seriously, don't.  I made that mistake with a blacklight in my student house... (shudder)  Olive oil and milk give quite good results, as does tonic water- we used Sodastream tonic water concentrate for a fluorescence experiment in school, it worked quite well- and butter. 

Why not try a mixture of 2:1 green highlighter and blue highlighter, or just green on its own, to see what happens?  Even better, one of those UV security marker pens might give you white, and that would be cool.  I also seem to remember glowstick liquid fluoresces, so you could find a cyalume in the colour you want and (carefully!) dissect it.  They even come in bright red IIRC, now that would be something to see.

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

the beloved and I had a giggle seeing just what around the house would fluoresce under UV.

The results were quite startling.

Don't take it anywhere near your kitchen work surfaces.  I'm not kidding- seriously, don't.  I made that mistake with a blacklight in my student house... (shudder)  Olive oil and milk give quite good results, as does tonic water- we used Sodastream tonic water concentrate for a fluorescence experiment in school, it worked quite well- and butter. 

Why not try a mixture of 2:1 green highlighter and blue highlighter, or just green on its own, to see what happens?  Even better, one of those UV security marker pens might give you white, and that would be cool.  I also seem to remember glowstick liquid fluoresces, so you could find a cyalume in the colour you want and (carefully!) dissect it.  They even come in bright red IIRC, now that would be something to see.

I plan on experimenting with other highlighter colours, but hadn't thought of olive oil...

I shall check that out when I get home because if it glows well, I think it might be the perfect substance!

Many thanks!

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

Tonight, I am mostly:

• opening up the ends of the 90 degree bends for the pipe - they are moulded hollow inside but with solid ends, and I want to run power cables through them to hide them from view. (To give a sense of scale, the pipe and bends both have an outside diameter of 3.81cm)
  
  
  
• Gluing the two sections of each 90 degree bend together
  
  and sanding off the seams from the joins.
  
  
• Sanding / carving sprue off of the rings that will be the flanges for the joints between the bends and the pipes so they will (eventually) look like bolted together pipe sections
  
  
  
• Making fake bolt heads & nuts for the above out of 3.2mm styrene hexagonal rod and 1.2mm styrene round rod
  
  The bolt heads and nuts are 2.5mm tall and the protruding length of bolt is also 2.5mm long; and I need to make 8 of each pair for each flange where the pipes join.
  
  And here's the first finished flange. Plenty of eyestrain - even wearing a visor with a 2.5x magnifying lens fitted!
  
  

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

After much testing, I have settled upon the fuel.

TONIC WATER (that has been allowed to go flat)

It has the exact unearthly blue glow I desire 

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

Made a little progress on the new design of the fuel tank



The "cut off" corner is where the fuel gauge will be located, and faces towards the rear door of the lantern body.

Main "build" today though has been my new workbench:



At the back it's supported by a set of floorstanding steel shelves that I already had in my study, while the end closest to the computer desk (not visible in this pic) is supported on an l-shaped block made from the offcuts of the wood for the legs. Worktop is 15mm thick MDF with a side and back strip made from a length of pine strip. The legs at the far end are a pair of stair bannister supports, cut to length and glued and nailed onto an offcut of the MDF top. Nice and stable and pretty sturdy too, gives me more space to work on than I had before and it means I don't have to move the keyboard and mouse out of the way all the time.

[Dr cornelius quack]

Coming along nicely Mr. C and the bench is a beautious thing.

Personally, I would have cunningly simulated the nuts and bolts by using some nuts and bolts, but each to his own.

Dr. Q.

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

Coming along nicely Mr. C and the bench is a beautious thing.

Personally, I would have cunningly simulated the nuts and bolts by using some nuts and bolts, but each to his own.

Dr. Q.

Thank you Dr. Q!

Would appear that my building skills are not limited to only props after all! I think I may need to reinforce the front edge (probably by using one of the spare stair rods) as there is a little flex, but not much.

re: the nuts and bolts - this way I (a) didn't have to go out and buy small nuts and bolts and (b) don't have to drill tiny holes that line up in each of the rings that make up the flange! 

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

And now a special update just for Dr. Quack & Mechanism Man...

Here's my workspace as it is at present.



Dr Q - behold! A tidied up workspace, everything now in it's rightful place! (the bits of the lantern made so far are now in a drawer on their own for safekeeping)

Mechanism Man decided he wanted to sell his Unimat. I decided to buy it 

As you can see from the photo above, I've already put it to good use! (Once I figured out the bizarrely translated user manual that is!)

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

Had to revert to yellow highlighter ink as anything else was too translucent to hide the fact that the "fuel" was just in a small box.

Have also had to milliput the seams, as no matter how carefully I managed to get the seams at the top and bottom of the box to join up, they always wept a tiny amount of fluid. Hoping that the milliput won't be too visible when the tank is assembled and thereby spoil the illusion.

[Dr cornelius quack]

I notice that you don't delineate your toilet roll.

A most neccessary item of equipment if your lab is anything like as scary as mine.

Dr. Q.

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

I notice that you don't delineate your toilet roll.

A most neccessary item of equipment if your lab is anything like as scary as mine.

Dr. Q.

You're absolutely right old chap. How foolish of me.

Here's a corrected snippet from the original photo.



UPDATE:

Still had a leak on the "fuel" capsule even with the milliput, but *fingers crossed* I think I've fixed it now.

Here's the body of the "fuel tank" resting on it's supporting legs to allow the 90 degree fuel pipe to exit from it's base.

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

And here's the fuel tank, complete with mysterious green-ish glow...



And here is the fuel tank, on it's supporting legs, in a darkened room... mysteriously glowing away to itself!

[Gazongola]

This thing looks bloody colossal!

[Rowan of Rin]

I demand a video of this mysterious glow! For me, the green is looking like paint, so I won't accept it is glowing without video proof

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

This thing looks bloody colossal!

The finished lantern is indeed going to be somewhat on the large size!

I demand a video of this mysterious glow! For me, the green is looking like paint, so I won't accept it is glowing without video proof

Oh ye of little faith! 

I shall upload a video tonight 

[Rowan of Rin]

Huzzah! I eagerly await it, but for now, I shall sleep! (stupid cold..).

P.S Your desk is coming along a lot better than mine..I have valves, brass, plans and lenses spilling of my desk, and encroaching on my floor (which currently houses the rest of my kit, as well as my architectural model that I need to present tomorrow )

[Rick]

I'd never heard of the Unimat 1 before. Now I'm scouring the net, and wondering how I'll come up with the $450 for this must-have gadget for the apartment-locked, no-garage, maker-wannabe.

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

Huzzah! I eagerly await it, but for now, I shall sleep! (stupid cold..).

P.S Your desk is coming along a lot better than mine..I have valves, brass, plans and lenses spilling of my desk, and encroaching on my floor (which currently houses the rest of my kit, as well as my architectural model that I need to present tomorrow )

The video can be found

here

! See, it's NOT green paint! 

Well, all you need is some MDF and a handy shelf to rest it on, and you too can knock together a useful workbench for model making!

I'd never heard of the Unimat 1 before. Now I'm scouring the net, and wondering how I'll come up with the $450 for this must-have gadget for the apartment-locked, no-garage, maker-wannabe.

Well, it certainly seems to be useful from what I've done with it so far! Glad I've sparked some interest for it - although be warned the manual is rather poorly translated and the illustrations in it can actually be less helpful than you first thought! 

[Lady Penelope]

Quite nice!  Now that your beloved and I have begun a correspondence, I'm quite hoping that once you're finished with this excellent device, I can devise some way to remotely mesmerize her into accidentally dropping it into a package awaiting mailing to my side of the Atlantic....

Oh, wait, did I say that aloud?  Oops, so much for that cunning plot....   

[Jemima Annabelle Clough]

Which reminds me, I should go to SpecSavers and get the anti-mesmerism tint on my glasses increased...

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

Quite nice!  Now that your beloved and I have begun a correspondence, I'm quite hoping that once you're finished with this excellent device, I can devise some way to remotely mesmerize her into accidentally dropping it into a package awaiting mailing to my side of the Atlantic....

Oh, wait, did I say that aloud?  Oops, so much for that cunning plot....   

 

Update - Did some painting tonight.

The fuel tank, upper external control box & backplate, the fuel filler hatch and the fuel hatch lid have all been undercoated.

-- and --

The fuel tank, upper external control box & backplate and the fuel hatch lid have all received their initial base coat of gloss black (which apparently gives the brass paint a depth it otherwise lacks).

Once those are dry, time for sanding and then another coat of black before moving on to the brass!

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

Apologies that this thread has been a bit quiet for a couple of weeks...

The real world has interfered as work has been VERY busy and will be for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully get some more painting done over the weekend.

[Herr Döktor]

There's a lot of it about!

[Alexander Edmund Clough]

Things are now back to normal once more, and I've had a very relaxing week away on a nice campsite with the beloved, so I can now return to building! (I hope)

[Herr Döktor]

Just a quick 'bump', and to ask how the project's going?