Steampunk and its growing following

[eloquentXI]

Had some exciting things happen over the past couple days.

Talked to my friend on the phone yesterday (I think?) and talked more about the corset she is making me and I'm sooooo excited.
Went to JoAnns and found the pattern that I want for my shirt and am playing around with ideas for the skirt/bustle and underthings.

Got some trouser socks to layer that my friend gave me last week and to top things off, went garage saling with my Mom on Saturday morning and one lady gave me a heavy-duty water gun and play dart shotgun for free! Got some paint today and started working on the details on the side of the heavy-duty water gun, pre-spray paint/painting and sealing. This si going to be a process cause I gotta do one side at a time and give each side appropriate time to dry.

Also, got four brown belts to take apart and put together for boots, sleeves, and then my actual bodice at Denton Thrift for about $11. My friend and co-conspiritor when it comes to steampunk started working on her jet-pack gliding wings and has already bought a corset and an aviators ear flap hat, alongside made some pieces to her coat/top.
AH! It's all starting to come together...I'm trying damn hard to have everything ready by AnimeFest in September, so we can go to the steampunk event there together.


Gotta get fabric for the corset on Friday when I get paid. >.< Upholstery fabric is NOT cheap.

[Grov]

Wow! What a great idea. I had been thinking in terms of the steam engine powering a fan to blow the bubbles. Using a puff of steam could be easily done with an offset cam on a pressure release valve, plus the heat of the steam would make the bubble rise. The question is will a puff of steam make a bubble or break it before it completely forms? Time to hook up a piece of tubing to my steam kettle. If you hear about a loud explosion in New Castle, Delaware that means it didn't work! 

I'd imagine that your solution would have to be very "thick" to be able to stretch until the steam expanded fully. Smoke in bubbles would be much easier.

[Rani Zemirah]

Woohoo!!! Madboys all over the place!!!   

[Taffy Saltwater]

I am awed by the amount of creatity going on here.  Smoke on the water - oops, in the bubbles!, steam-engine created bubbles, bodices flying through the air like Christmas bundt cakes (thanks to Frasier for that visual), leather belts - heh!heh!heh!

We're mad, MAD, I tell you!

[Elennare]

I've been trying to figure out a way to add cogs and gears in a functional way to my gear or costume.
I know I had an off the wall idea of somehow using the cogs and gears to tighten a corset in the back or have it in the front and the mechanisms in the front, etc.

Hehe, time to let my sparky side run wild for a moment.  (oh, the things that happen when you let an engineer loose around steampunk costumes! )

I know exactly how you can do this!  No idea how comfortable it'd be, but it's very do-able.  You'd need a row of them down the opening of the corset...how many would depend on how stiff the boning along the opening was.  Rack and pinions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_and_pinion)!  Fix the rack to one side of the opening, with a guide to keep it level on the other.  Also on the other side, attach the pinion.  It'd need some sort of crank so you can tighten the corset, and a brake to make sure it stayed tightened.  I'd imagine some sort of hook that would drop into the rack as it came across the opening would work great.  I've also seen spring-loaded brakes that drop down automatically, racheting as you go.  You push down on the other side of it to allow the rack to move freely.  No idea what they're officially called, or where you can get them, though.

If you want to be really creative, you could put some sort of connecting bar between the pinions (like they have on the drive wheels on trains), and only have the crank on the top one.  That way, you could tighten it all at once.  Course, you'd have to make sure to set it so that the corset needed to be tightened the same amount all the way down if you did it that way.  ...or, have different sized pinions to get the correct amount of movement in different parts of the corset, with the same amount of crank turning.

Let me know how it works out if you actually give it a shot.

[Grov]

Or you could use a cam shaft that has hooks that latch.   Half turn to tighten.

[eloquentXI]

I've been trying to figure out a way to add cogs and gears in a functional way to my gear or costume.
I know I had an off the wall idea of somehow using the cogs and gears to tighten a corset in the back or have it in the front and the mechanisms in the front, etc.

Hehe, time to let my sparky side run wild for a moment.  (oh, the things that happen when you let an engineer loose around steampunk costumes! )

I know exactly how you can do this!  No idea how comfortable it'd be, but it's very do-able.  You'd need a row of them down the opening of the corset...how many would depend on how stiff the boning along the opening was.  Rack and pinions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_and_pinion)!  Fix the rack to one side of the opening, with a guide to keep it level on the other.  Also on the other side, attach the pinion.  It'd need some sort of crank so you can tighten the corset, and a brake to make sure it stayed tightened.  I'd imagine some sort of hook that would drop into the rack as it came across the opening would work great.  I've also seen spring-loaded brakes that drop down automatically, racheting as you go.  You push down on the other side of it to allow the rack to move freely.  No idea what they're officially called, or where you can get them, though.

If you want to be really creative, you could put some sort of connecting bar between the pinions (like they have on the drive wheels on trains), and only have the crank on the top one.  That way, you could tighten it all at once.  Course, you'd have to make sure to set it so that the corset needed to be tightened the same amount all the way down if you did it that way.  ...or, have different sized pinions to get the correct amount of movement in different parts of the corset, with the same amount of crank turning.

Let me know how it works out if you actually give it a shot.

That sounds brilliant. Its a shame I'm not more mechanically enclined...I just threw the idea out there for anyone to take. So if anyone wants to take the flame and run with it, please do!

[BubbleWright]

Actually Grov, Professional bubble makers use electrostatic gizmos to create a water vapor that looks like smoke in their bubbles. I was Moderator of a Yahoo group called SoapBubbleFanciers and know many of the Professional Bubble Entertainers across the US and around the World. Below find a link to a killer bubble site that has info on bubble making, bubble makers (people) and lots of links.

http://homepage.mac.com/keithmjohnson/soapbubbler.com/index.html

Also, if you're really bored at work (day light hours only) you can trigger a bubble machine in a Florida garden via the web. The link...

http://www.andieandmike.org/bubblecam-push.stm

If you would like to see some of the stuff I've done with bubbles, send me an email (dbubbleguy@aol.com) with Bubble Info in the header and I'll send some links. You will see that I've been foaming at the brain for the last 28 years...........  Felix

PS- I got an email tonight asking me to come to Bombay, India to make bubbles at a festival in December... I took a pass...

[Rani Zemirah]

Wow... that's what keeps running through my mind, just... wow.  You're all such creative individuals, and I think if we were to actually form a SteamPunk Crew... we could probably take over the world!!!

(or at least blow it up...)   

[Jon Foster]

Our kids love Steampunk. I'm sure it will lead to an entirely new wardrobe for each one of them too...

Jon.

[Duckie84]

I showed my ideas to a friend of mine and she said she wanted me to help her make her own while i made mine based off of the sketches. Ended up inspired by her and possibly having a theme for an entire group of people. I have too much time on my hands.


Lets just say it would include a special type of "clockwork" monkey.

[groomporter]

I had an idea for a clockwork cyborg priest/missionary who tries to convince people they need to be "born again" as machines.

[Duckie84]

I thank you for that humor sir!

lol!

[Grov]

Actually Grov, Professional bubble makers use electrostatic gizmos to create a water vapor that looks like smoke in their bubbles. I was Moderator of a Yahoo group called SoapBubbleFanciers and know many of the Professional Bubble Entertainers across the US and around the World. Below find a link to a killer bubble site that has info on bubble making, bubble makers (people) and lots of links.

http://homepage.mac.com/keithmjohnson/soapbubbler.com/index.html

Also, if you're really bored at work (day light hours only) you can trigger a bubble machine in a Florida garden via the web. The link...

http://www.andieandmike.org/bubblecam-push.stm

If you would like to see some of the stuff I've done with bubbles, send me an email (dbubbleguy@aol.com) with Bubble Info in the header and I'll send some links. You will see that I've been foaming at the brain for the last 28 years...........  Felix

PS- I got an email tonight asking me to come to Bombay, India to make bubbles at a festival in December... I took a pass...

I'm a smoker so I just use old fashioned nicotine devices to create smoke in bubbles.  Not much on bubbles but I do know a bit about steam. 

[captmarga]

I am awed by the amount of creatity going on here.  Smoke on the water - oops, in the bubbles!, steam-engine created bubbles, bodices flying through the air like Christmas bundt cakes (thanks to Frasier for that visual), leather belts - heh!heh!heh!

We're mad, MAD, I tell you!

There was a smoke-bubble machine at one of the booths at Scarborough this year.  Very neat. 

I am working on the sketches for my Steampunk, but I MUST work on and sew the Elizabethan for Whitehart in 3 weeks FIRST!!!

Capt Marga