Stirring Adventures and Mad Mods! Saving the world one questionable decision at a time.
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To celebrate our 100th post we are going to visit Shenandoah Valley Steam’s Pageant of Steam this Saturday, July 24 in Berryville, Virginia.
We’ll be there in our steampunk finery from noonish to 4pm. Costumes encouraged, but if it’s too hot, or not your style, come by and say hello to us anyway, we’ll be easy to find. Parade at noon, horse pull at 6, great bluegrass band after that (sadly we can’t stay that long). Admission is $5 for adults, children under 12 free. The organizers promise a host of old-fashioned delights, and lots and lots of looking at tractors.
What say you? Ready for a day in the country?
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I have only packed 2 trunks and 3 hat boxes; surely I’m forgetting something!
If you will be at the Fair and would care to join Herr von Hedwig and myself for a glass of absinthe or champagne or a cup of tea, we are delighted to invite you. We will be at home to visitors in our room at the Radisson Saturday from 6:00 to 7:30 in the evening. Either find us at the Fair or check our Facebook or Twitter posts for room number.
By Madame vonHedwig on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
The Davenport Sisters by Bohemian Noir Visions
Morehead Planetarium & Science Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina invites children and adults to explore the common ground of art and science at their Steampunk-themed Family Science Day this Saturday, April 17 from 11 to 3.
This looks fantastic! All activities are free, including musicians Jay Cartwright and The Extraordinary Contraptions, short films such as Edison’s Frankenstein, and loads of hands-on activities:
- Make steampunk jewelry
- Examine a pendulum clock to learn how gears work
- Race steam-powered boats
- Travel back in time in Morehead’s portable planetarium
- Collaborate to create an illustrated periodic table, inspired by the Periodic Table Printmaking Project
- Explore an exhibit featuring images of both science and art
I am devastated that the von Hedwig family will not be able to attend this outstanding event. Science, steampunk, and children are what we’re all about! The only possible upside is that our absence will delay the embarrassing fangirl squee I’m saving up for when I meet the Darling Davenport sisters, who will also be in attendance.
We have only recently discovered these Queens of the Steampunk Scene, and their excellent radio show/podcast has become the soundtrack of our lives. You may hear the Clockwork Cabaret playing in every cabin and laboratory on board the Schöneluft. (Except in the boiler room. The boiler crew only listen to Noh and German Opera.)
Perhaps the Davenports will grace us with their presence at the Steampunk Worlds Fair?
This entry is part of a series, 12 Volt Power supply» aka
Swanking your jank
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Working hard in the lab, the corset post and exploring the world with the family have distracted me from posting the project I have completed. While I don’t apologize for my priorities, I do make an apology to those who have been checking in.
Not only did I finish the case for the ATX Power supply for myself, but I built a second for a good friend who is a fabulous tinker himself.
The wooden part of the cases themselves are simple wood working – plywood with the edges covered in oak veneers. I used luan was used for the grills, hand cut with a coping saw. While unfettered ventilation is important, but not wanting to sacrifice aesthetic, I brass painted some window screen and glued it behind the grill to help obscure internal components. The mark II has a black painted baffle halfway between the grill and the internal components to further aid this concealment. Wood stain and tongue oil help to give the wood parts a quality look.
Brass corners a dress up the edges of the vertical unit. Some sheet tin is sufficient to mount the power supply in the rear on the unit. I used some tin ceiling scraps for one and flashing scrap for the other. Screw holes for mounting are best made with a nail punch, instead of a drill, because the flanges re-enforce the holes a bit.
The name plate, terminal plates and switch plate were electro-etched using the power supplies themselves. If one looks closely at the horizontal unit, it can be observed that the terminal plates and switch plate and switch plate are in negative image. Mistakes do happen when one is in a hurry! This is my lab power supple, and being dyslexic, I thought I would leave them this way to help me remember to check the orientation of my etching resistor transfer in the future.
All tubes and coils were made for the project. Painted window screen, plastic from water bottles, construction paper, old phone wire, thin sheet copper, painted steel wool and metallic tape were key components in this process. Each is internally lit with an LED, in series with a resistor power by the un-used 5 volt capacity of the ATX unit. Simple and effective LED tools can be found at http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz to help with resistor value selection. My favorite tubes were not the ones I tried to made like vacuum tubes, but the ones where I got creative and just did my thing.
More pictures of this project can be found here.
This is a contenuation of the:
By Madame vonHedwig on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Photos from our adventures at Marscon 2010 are up here. We had a lovely time!
By Madame vonHedwig on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
It is a vonHedwig family tradition to picnic in a graveyard every autumn. As winter gains strength, frost kills, and wind rattles the leaves off the limbs, Death whispers in your ear. I AM HERE.
Of course, the Cold Man is always here, but he’s easier to ignore while the bee is on the flower. Since it is very much a vonHedwig tradition to face what threatens, we dress in our mourning finest and meet him where he lives. Or rather, doesn’t.
This year we accepted the gracious invitation of other like-minded souls, and joined Those Who Mourn at the lovely Rock Creek Cemetery for a picnic. The weather was unseasonably but enjoyably warm, and we explored, and made friends, and toasted those who have gone before.
Preparations, of course, included new hats. The twins, Annabelle and Mirabelle, trimmed their own.
Alice band
+ hot glue
+ ribbons
+ feathers
+ little black beads
over veil
= appropriate and elegant new headgear
P. Phinneas, usually resplendent in a brown topper, had to find headgear to match his grandfather’s black frock coat. He settled on a grey wool slouch, fitted with an emergency tool stash. The Fearless Fabricator is never without the means of production!
My own topper only needed a bit of trimming to include a veil, and a Día de los Muertos touch.
The cemetery has been in use some 300 years, and has much to delight the senses. We picnicked by the lotus pond, whose brown stems and rattling seed pods reminded us – as I am now, so shall you be.
Chef had prepared a cold collation, which we presented buffet style on a suitably elegant tomb. Then, with apple cider and schloss, we toasted the dead.
We met many fascinating people, some again and some for the first, but I hope not the last, time. More photos can be found on the von Hedwig Flickr photostream.
By Madame vonHedwig on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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Several of us in the Steampunk Family will be attending the Rock Creek Cemetery picnic, Sunday November 8, one o’clock to five o’clock in the afternoon. Shall we meet you there?
We have recently returned from Conbust at Smith College, and what a wonderful adventure we had! Having never visited Northampton before, we were delighted by the architecture, the lively downtown, and most particularly our friendly and intelligent hosts.
I attended panels on Young Adult Fiction with Holly Black and Annette Curtis Klause, Heroes and Protagonists with Patricia Briggs and Phoebe Wray, Urban Fantasy with Holly Black, Women in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Industry with Jennie Breeden, Lynn Flewelling, and Phoebe Wray, and the scintillating Romance, Eroticism, and the Demon Lover, with Holly Black, Lynn Flewelling, and Annette Curtis Klause.
We were impressed with the caliber of both guest and discussion. The writers and artists were forthcoming with their expertise and gracious with their fans. The discussions were not merely fan ravings and insider gossip, but intellectual and considered, as one would expect of Smith. It was a small, friendly event, but well-organized, nevertheless, and with something for everyone. (The panels I listed express my interests, not the range of possibilities. The children were most taken with the History of Weapons seminar. Their excellent behavior throughout the weekend was rewarded with this.) I congratulate the Conchairs and Staff. Well done! Do let us know how we can assist your inexorable rise to world domination.
Although not a children-centered event, there were plenty of things for well-behaved, intelligent children to enjoy. Thank goodness that’s the kind of children we have. They were thrilled by the kind attention of the con participants, participated enthusiastically in the traditional boffer battle, and (with wide eyes and hushed voices) met Holly Black and had their Spiderwick signed.
With the barest minimum of organization (thanks, MASS_STEAM!) the steampunk community was out in force on Sunday. We vonHedwigs were cordially invited to assist in the Introduction to Steampunk panel discussion, and were invited to come back next year to further the discussion. We hope very much to attend! Other than a general discussion of steampunk ( as genre, fashion, cultural movement), what would you like us to do – bustle building? Corset construction? Welding? Fantastic fabrication? Do tell us in the comments, if you would be so kind.
More pictures may be found here on our flicker page.
By Madame vonHedwig on Monday, February 2nd, 2009
At the turn of this new year, we were honoured by an invitation from the estimable G.D. Falksen to join him for a stroll on the grounds of the hallowed Smithsonian Institution, the United States’ intellectual and aesthetic gem in the heart of that nation’s capital. We were rewarded by brisk but sunny winter weather, and had a lovely time. We met many interesting, well-mannered, and beautifully dressed people, including this lady, Capitaine Charette.
She is an American volunteer in the French Armee Aeronautique. She is generous of spirit and jovial in nature. In addition, if only half of what I have heard of her flying exploits is true, then she is surely fearless!
I have been corresponding with the Capitaine ever since, and she has graciously enlightened us as to her most recent bit of tinkering, a modification of her regulation headset and transmitter to include a time compass and ipod nano. That information may be found here, In the Lab.
Dear young Mirabelle was sporting the new outfit she received at Christmas. Here she is, just before the Smithsonian security automaton removed her from the tree. I assure you, neither the tree nor the automaton were injured the the process.
Here, Herr vonHedwig (right) expostulates, while Mr. Falksen (far left) looks handsome and reserved.
Other of our pictures may be found here, and those of the talented Mr. Lesnik are here.
